Psalms 49:20
A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
BSB
ASV
Man that is in honor, and understandeth not, Is like the beasts that perish.
KJV
Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
The song ends with the refrain, Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish. Understanding differences men from animals, but if they will not follow the highest wisdom, and like beasts find their all in this life, then their end shall be as mean and dishonourable as that of beasts slain in the chase, or killed in the shambles. From the loftiest elevation of worldly honour to the uttermost depths of death is but a step.
Understandeth not - Hath not true wisdom. The beasts - Though he hath the outward shape of a man, yet in truth he is a beast, a stupid, and unreasonable creature.
But men in honour that understand not, that are proud, and sensual, and oppressive, are as beasts, and they shall perish, like the beasts, ingloriously as to this world, though not, like the beasts, indemnified as to another world. Let prosperous sinners therefore be afraid for themselves, but let not even suffering saints be afraid of them.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 49:12But a man, despite his wealth, cannot endure; he is like the beasts that perish.
leads to
I said to myself, “As for the sons of men, God tests them so that they may see for themselves that they are but beasts.”
You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
But like mortals you will die, and like rulers you will fall.”
For surely no man knows his time: Like fish caught in a cruel net or birds trapped in a snare, so men are ensnared in an evil time that suddenly falls upon them.
Through
Esther 7:10So they hanged Haman on the gallows he had prepared for Mordecai. Then the fury of the king subsided.
leads to
His trouble recoils on himself, and his violence falls on his own head.
At the command of the king, the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the den of lions—they and their children and wives. And before they had reached the bottom…
Through
Job 4:21Are not their tent cords pulled up, so that they die without wisdom?’
leads to
But if they do not obey, then they perish by the sword and die without knowledge.
One day the beggar died and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s side. And the rich man also died and was buried.