Psalm 49

49       Wisdom / (Korah)

            Man’s Works are Fleeting [But God’s Work is eternal]

            11 Their inner thought is that their houses are forever

            And their dwelling places to all generations;

            They have called their lands after their own names.

            12 But man in his pomp will not endure;

            He is like the beasts that perish.

·         Before God all human distinctions and gradations are as nothing. The difference between the greatest and the least of men is but the difference between two worms, two atoms.

·         Do right, and trust in God. Fear God, and then fear nothing else. The Lord reigns over all, in wisdom, justice, mercy and power. The eulogy pronounced on John Knox was short but well-deserved: “There lies he who never feared the face of man.”

·         One of the Latin poets says: “It is death, which forces us to confess how worthless the bodies of men are.”

·         If anything could settle the question of the folly of man’s mind, we should suppose it would be the necessity of reminding us that when we die we can carry none of our possessions with us.

·         All other flattery would be harmless, if we did not flatter ourselves.

·         “At the call of Folly, what multitudes are always ready to assemble! But Wisdom, eternal and essential Wisdom, crieth without; she lifteth up her voice in the streets, and who is at leisure to attend her heavenly lectures?” (Horne)