A man who has riches without understanding, is like the animals that perish.
Parallel translations
- KJV Man that is in honour, and understandeth not, is like the beasts that perish.
- BSB A man who has riches without understanding is like the beasts that perish.
- NKJV A man who is in honor, yet does not understand, Is like the beasts that perish.
- NASB Mankind in its splendor, yet without understanding, Is like the animals that perish.
- NLT People who boast of their wealth don’t understand; they will die, just like animals.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
A man with riches but without understanding is like the animals that perish. Wealth without wisdom leads only to death.
Overview
The psalm's closing refrain repeats v. 12 with a key addition: 'without understanding.' The tragedy is not wealth itself but possessing it while lacking the wisdom to fear God and seek redemption. The repeated comparison to perishing beasts presses the reader to find understanding in God, who alone gives lasting life.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Ps 49:12But man, despite his riches, doesn’t endure. He is like the animals that perish.
- Eccl 3:18–19I said in my heart, “As for the sons of men, God tests them, so that they may see that they themselves are like animals.
- Job 4:21Isn’t their tent cord plucked up within them? They die, and that without wisdom.’
- Esth 7:10So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.
- Esth 5:11–14Haman recounted to them the glory of his riches, the multitude of his children, all the things in which the king had promoted him, and how he had advanced him above the princes and servants of the king.
- Ps 73:18–19Surely you set them in slippery places. You throw them down to destruction.
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 49:20 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
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