1Hear this, all you peoples; give ear, all you inhabitants of the world,
2both children of Adam and children of man, rich and poor alike.
3My mouth will speak wisdom, and the meditation of my heart will be understanding.
4I will incline my ear to a proverb; I will open my riddle with the lyre.
5Why should I fear in days of evil, when the iniquity of my heels surrounds me?
6those who trust in their wealth and boast in the abundance of their riches?
7A brother a man cannot ever redeem, nor give to God his ransom.
8For the redemption of their life is costly, and it ceases forever —
9that one should live on forever and never see the Pit.
10For he sees that the wise die; the fool and the brutish perish alike, and they leave their wealth to others.
11Their inward thought is that their houses will last forever, their dwellings for generation after generation; they call lands by their own names.
12But man in his splendor does not abide; he is like the beasts that perish.
God Will Redeem My Life
13This is their way—folly is theirs; yet after them men approve their sayings. Selah.
14Like sheep they are appointed for Sheol; Death shepherds them. The upright will rule over them in the morning; their form is for Sheol to consume, far from its lofty dwelling.
15But God will redeem my life from the hand of Sheol, for he will take me. Selah.
16Do not fear when a man grows rich, when the glory of his house increases,
17for at his death he will take nothing at all; his glory will not go down after him.
18Though while he lives he blesses himself — and men praise you when you do well for yourself —
19he will go to the generation of his fathers, who will never again see the light.
20Man in his splendor, yet without understanding, is like the beasts that perish.
Where this passage connects across Scripture — each link typed and reasoned, part of the AIT Bible Nexus Chart.
The Folly of Trusting in Riches
thematicEcclesiastes 2:16— Both observe that the wise and the fool die alike and must leave their wealth to others.
thematicEcclesiastes 3:19— Man's mortality is likened to that of the beasts that perish.
thematicEcclesiastes 2:18— Both lament that one must leave accumulated wealth to another who did not toil for it, since the wise and foolish alike die.
thematicEcclesiastes 3:16— Both assert that man, despite his status, shares the mortal fate of beasts and does not endure.
thematicEcclesiastes 8:1— Both assert man's inability to control or ransom himself from death.
thematicPsalms 49:15— The impossibility of a man ransoming another from death is contrasted with God's own redemption of the psalmist's life from Sheol.
thematicPsalms 52:1— Both condemn the man who trusts in the abundance of his riches rather than God.
thematicPsalms 82:1— Both declare that despite exalted status the mighty die like mortals.
God Will Redeem My Life
thematic1 Timothy 6:7— Both teach that at death a person carries away none of his wealth.
thematicEcclesiastes 5:8— Both teach that the rich carry nothing away when they die.
thematicJob 1:21— Both affirm that one departs life carrying nothing of one's possessions.
thematicLuke 12:16— The parable of the rich fool develops the same lesson that riches cannot avail at death and folly is trusting in them.
thematicPsalms 16:10— Both express confidence that God will deliver the psalmist from the grave/Sheol.
thematicPsalms 73:24— Both Korahite/Asaphite wisdom psalms voice hope that God will receive/take the faithful beyond death.
thematicPsalms 23:1— Ironic inversion of the shepherd motif: Death, not the LORD, shepherds those who trust in wealth.
thematicPsalms 49:1— The impossibility of a man ransoming another from death is contrasted with God's own redemption of the psalmist's life from Sheol.
thematicPsalms 89:46— The question of no man rescuing his life from Sheol shares the motif of human mortality and ransom from death.