Hear this, all peoples!
Give ear, all inhabitants of the world,
both low and high,
rich and poor together!
My mouth shall speak wisdom;
the meditation of my heart shall be understanding.
I will incline my ear to a proverb;
I will solve my riddle to the music of the lyre.
Why should I fear in times of trouble,
when the iniquity of those who cheat me surrounds me,
those who trust in their wealth
and boast of the abundance of their riches?
Truly no man can ransom another,
or give to God the price of his life,
for the ransom of their life is costly
and can never suffice,
that he should live on forever
and never see the pit.
For he sees that even the wise die;
the fool and the stupid alike must perish
and leave their wealth to others.
Their graves are their homes forever,
their dwelling places to all generations,
though they called lands by their own names.
Man in his pomp will not remain;
he is like the beasts that perish.
Comment: Today we look at the first three sections of a five sectioned Psalm. As I start reading, it is a bit different from many of the Psalms, and it stirs my interest greatly. The first section says ‘Listen all of you – I don’t care if you’ve made it status or wealth-wise! I have a great word of wisdom coming after deep heart searching. I am presenting it as proverb type riddle, so listen! The second section poses the problem of a person caught in serious trouble by filthy rich, conniving enemies, who bring the person down to absolute worthlessness. How can someone surrender his own life to buy back the worth of another? It would surely need someone whose own life is indestructible to make such a payment for another. For everyone has enough problems in his own life so that having paid for his own problems he has insufficient left over to pay the price of another’s problems/need. Section three focuses on the fact that rich or poor, famous or of social insignificance everyone leaves everything behind at death and the bodily part of them ends rotting in the grave like the beasts in the field. Even the one who has had countries named after him ends up with empty pockets and nothing to pay for someone else’s needs.
Prayer: Is this talking of the debt we owe You, God, for the mess-ups in our own lives? Help me to find the promised answer in the remainder of the Psalm tomorrow!
As I read it! 
hi Barry !
the second part of the second part is a bit of a curly one (for me, at least !); I get a little disorientated, somehow, with the style of language . . . . interesting that he author introduces the notion of ‘riddle’; seems sort of singularly out-of-place given the preceding. Also, why is it a riddle for him, I wonder – why does he see it as a riddle . . maybe it is vernacular of the time? Certainly, the third section is, for me, common sense! . .maybe it’s the way I was raised . . it’s beyond me how anyone could understand life any differently . . . I have met such, tho’ . . .!
Trusting that ‘things’ are at least relaxed for you both amidst the hurly-burly clown-world in which we find ourselves
james
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So nice to hear from you Jamison! I think that ‘solving the riddle’ means ‘sorting out the answer’. His thinking is can another possibly be good enough to not only get him accepted in God’s eyes but also save another as well? And his answer to that riddle is ‘no’. In the Christian story (and it helps to remember that the Old Testament is preparing for the coming of Jesus, the christ) the Question is answered by introducing a further concept. What if a perfect man were to love a perfect life and make himself as the payment for all sin!
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