Psalms 49:14

Now he is comforted, and thou art tormented. The righteous has hope in his death, so has David here hope in God concerning his soul. Note, The believing hopes of the soul's redemption from the grave, and reception to glory, are the great support and joy of the children of God in a dying hour.

While a saint can ask proud Death, Where is thy sting? Death will ask the proud sinner, Where is thy wealth, thy pomp? and the more he was fattened with prosperity the more sweetly will death feed on him. And in the morning of the resurrection, when all that sleep in the dust shall awake ( Dan. xii.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

2, 3 ), those everlasting habitations, Luke xvi. Why they should not be afraid of the prosperity and power of wicked people in this world, which, as it is their pride and joy, has often been the envy, and grief, and terror of the righteous, which yet, all things considered, there is no reason for.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-citation-number+unbalanced-parens

Like sheep they are laid in the grave,....

Like sheep they are laid in the grave. As dumb driven cattle, they are hurried to their doom, and are penned in within the gates of destruction. As sheep that go whither they are driven, and follow their leader without thought, so these men who have chosen to make this world their all, are urged on by their passions, till they find themselves at their journey's end, that end the depths of Hades. Or if we keep to our own translation, we have the idea of their dying peaceably, and being buried in quiet, only that they may wake up to be ashamed at the last great day. Death shall feed on them. Death like a grim shepherd leads them on, and conducts them to the place of their eternal pasturage, where all is barrenness and misery. The righteous are led by the Good Shepherd, but the ungodly have death for their shepherd, and he drives them onward to hell. As the power of death rules them in this world, for they have not passed from death unto life, so the terrors of death shall devour them in the world to come. As grim giants, in old stories, are said to feed on men whom they entice to their caves, so death, the monster, feeds on the flesh and blood of the mighty. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. The poor saints were once the tail, but at the day break they shall be the head. Sinners rule till night fall; their honours wither in the evening, and in the morning they find their position utterly reversed. The sweetest reflection to the upright is that "the morning" here intended begins an endless, changeless, day. What a vexation of spirit to the proud worldling, when the Judge of all the earth holds his morning session, to see the man whom he despised, exalted high in heaven, while he himself is cast away! And their beauty shall consume in the grave from their dwelling. Whatever of glory the ungodly had shall disappear in the tomb.

Like sheep they are laid in the grave - לשאול lishol, into sheol, the place of separate spirits. Death shall feed on them מות ירעם maveth yirem, “Death shall feed them!” What an astonishing change! All the good things of life were once their portion, and they lived only to eat and drink; and now they live in sheol, and Death himself feeds them? and with what? Damnation. Houbigant reads the verse thus: “Like sheep they shall be laid in the place of the dead; death shall feed on them; their morning shepherds rule over them; and their flesh is to be consumed. Destruction is to them in their folds.”

Like sheep they are laid in the grave - The allusion here is to a flock as “driven” forward by the shepherd; and the meaning is that they are driven forward to the grave, as it were, in flocks, or as a flock of sheep is driven by a shepherd. The word rendered “are laid” - שׁתוּ śatû - is probably not derived from the verb שׁות śûth, or שׁית śı̂yth, as our translators seem to have supposed, but from שׁתת śâthath, to set, or place; and the meaning is, “Like sheep they put them in Sheol, or the grave;” that is, they thrust or drive them down there. In other words, this is “done,” without intimating by whom it is done. They are urged forward; they are driven toward the tomb as a flock of sheep is driven forward to the slaughter. Some influence or power is pressing them in masses down to the grave. The word rendered “grave” is “Sheol.” It is sometimes used in the sense of the grave, and sometimes as referring to the abode of departed spirits. See Job 10:21-22, note; Psa 6:5, note. It seems here to be used in the former sense. Death shall feed on them - The word rendered “feed” here - רעה râ‛âh - means properly to feed a flock; to pasture; then, to perform the office of a shepherd. The idea here is not, as in our translation, “death shall feed on them;” but, death shall rule over them as the shepherd rules his flock. The allusion to the “flock” suggested this. They are driven down to the grave, or to Sheol. The shepherd, the ruler, he who does this, is “death;” and the idea is not that death is a hungry monster, devouring them “in” the grave, but that the shepherd over that “flock,” instead of being a kind and gentle friend and protector (as the word “shepherd” naturally suggests), is “death” - a fearful and grim Ruler of the departed. The idea, therefore, is not that of “feeding,” specifically, but it is that of ruling, controlling, guiding. […]