Psalm 62:9

Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Are vanity.—Or, mere breath.

To be laid in the balance.—Literally, in the balances to go up, which may mean in the scales they must go up, i.e., kick the beam. But a slight change in one letter gives the more probable, when weighed in the scales.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 62:9. Surely men of low degree are vanity — Are most vain, impotent, and helpless creatures in themselves. This he delivers as a reason, or argument, to enforce his foregoing exhortation to trust in God, because there was no other person or thing to which they could safely trust. Men of high degree are a lie — That is, deceitful; because unable to perform what by their power and dignity they seem to promise. They raise men’s expectations, and afterward disappoint them, and so deceive those that trust in them. In which sense lying is ascribed to a fountain, Jeremiah 15:18; to wine, Hosea 9:2; and to the olive, Hebrews 3:17, (see the Hebrew,) when they do not give what they promise. Or, a lie may signify, a mere nothing; for a lie has no reality in it.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

62:8-12 Those who have found the comfort of the ways of God themselves, will invite others into those ways; we shall never have the less for others sharing with us. the good counsel given is, to trust wholly in God. We must so trust in him at all times, as not at any time to put that trust in ourselves, or in any creature, which is to be put in him only. Trust in him to guide us when in doubt, to protect us when in danger, to supply us when in want, to strengthen us for every good word and work. We must lay out wants and our wishes before him, and then patiently submit our wills to his: this is pouring out our hearts. God is a refuge for all, even for as many as will take shelter in him. The psalmist warns against trusting in men. The multitude, those of low degree, are changeable as the wind. The rich and noble seem to have much in their power, and lavish promises; but those that depend on them, are disappointed. Weighed in the balance of Scripture, all that man can do to make us happy is lighter than vanity itself. It is hard to have riches, and not to trust in them if they increase, though by lawful and honest means; but we must take heed, lest we set our affections unduly upon them. A smiling world is the most likely to draw the heart from God, on whom alone it should be set. The consistent believer receives all from God as a trust; and he seeks to use it to his glory, as a steward who must render an account. God hath spoken as it were once for all, that power belongs to him alone. He can punish and destroy. Mercy also belongs to him; and his recompensing the imperfect services of those that believe in him, blotting out their transgressions for the Redeemer's sake, is a proof of abundant mercy, and encourages us to trust in him. Let us trust in his mercy and grace, and abound in his work, expecting mercies from him alone.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Surely men of low degree are vanity - literally, "vanity are the sons of Adam," but the word Adam here is used evidently to represent men, or the race. The same word is also employed particularly to represent common men, or men of the humbler rank, in contradistinction to the word אישׁ 'ı̂ysh - which is the other word used here, and rendered "men of high degree." Compare, for this use of the word, Hosea 6:7. The same antithesis between the two words is found in Isaiah 2:9; Isaiah 5:15. The idea here is, that in the great matters which pertain to us, we cannot depend on men, and that our hope - our trust - must be in God. Of men of the humbler or lower classes, it is said that they are "vanity;" that is, they are like a vain, empty, unsubstantial thing. They cannot help us. It is useless to rely on them when we most need aid.

Men of high degree are a lie - Men of exalted rank, kings, princes, nobles. This does not refer to their personal character, as if they were always false, deceitful, treacherous; but the idea is, that any prospect of protection or aid from men of rank and station - front any power which they wield - is unworthy to be relied on. It is not that which we need; it is not that on which we can depend.

To be laid in the balance - literally, "In the scales to go up;" that is, they are seen to go up, or to show how light they are. They have no real weight; no real value. On the scales or balance, see the notes at Daniel 5:27.

They are altogether lighter than vanity - They are all vain; single or combined, they have no power to save us. The meaning is not that if these two ranks of persons were weighed against each other they would both be found to be vanity; but that it is true of each and every rank of men - high and low - whether single or combined - that, as weighed against our interests and needs, they are nothing. All the kings of the earth with all their hosts of war, all princes and nobles with all that they can summon from the lower ranks of their people, cannot save one soul from death - cannot deliver us from the consequences of our transgressions. God, and God alone, can do this.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9. No kind of men are reliable, compared with God (Isa 2:22; Jer 17:5).

altogether—alike, one as the other (Ps 34:3).

The Treasury of David

9 Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

10 Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery: if riches increase, set not your heart upon them.

11 God hath spoken once; twice have I heard this; that power belongeth unto God.

12 Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy: four thou renderest to every man according to his work.

Psalm 62:9

"Surely men of low degree are vanity." Here the word is only again; men of low degree are only vanity, nothing more. They are many and enthusiastic, but they are not to be depended on; they are mobile as the waves of the sea, ready to be driven to and fro by any and every wind; they cry "Hosanna" to, day, and "crucify him" tomorrow. The instability of popular applause is a proverb; as well build a house with smoke as find comfort in the adulation of the multitude. As the first son of Adam was called Abel or vanity, so here we are taught that all the sons of Adam are Abels: it were well if they were all so in character as well as in name; but alas! in this respect, too many of them are Cains. "And men of high degree are a lie." That is worse. We gain little by putting our trust in the aristocracy, they are not one whit better than the democracy; nay, they are even worse, for we expect something from them, but get nothing. May we not trust the elite? Surely reliance may be placed in the educated, the chivalrous, the intelligent? For this reason are they a lie; because they promise so much, and in the end, when relied upon, yield nothing but disappointment. How wretched is that poor man who puts his trust in princes. The more we rely upon God, the more shall we perceive the utter hollowness of every other confidence. "To be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity." Take a true estimate of them; judge them neither by quantity nor by appearance, but by weight, and they will no longer deceive you. Calmly deliberate, quietly ponder, and your verdict will be that which inspiration here records. Vainer than vanity itself are all human confidences: the great and the mean, alike, are unworthy of our trust. A feather has some weight in the scale, vanity has none, and creature confidence has less than that: yet such is the universal infatuation, that mankind prefer an arm of flesh to the power of the invisible but almighty Creator; and even God's own children are too apt to be bitten with this madness.

Psalm 62:10

"Trust not in oppression, and become not vain in robbery." Wealth ill-gotten is the trust only of fools, for the deadly pest lies in it; it is full of canker, it reeks with God's curse. To tread down the poor and silence their cries for justice, is the delight of many a braggart bully, who in his arrogance imagines that he may defy both God and man; but he is warned in these words, and it will be well for him if he takes the warning, for the Judge of all the earth will surely visit upon men the oppression of the innocent, and the robbery of the poor: both of these may be effected legally in the courts of man, but no twistings of the law, no tricks and evasions will avail with the Court of Heaven. "If riches increase, set not your heart upon them." If they grow in an honest, providential manner, as the result of industry or commercial success, do not make much account of the circumstance; be not unduly elated, do not fix your love upon your money-bags. To bow an immortal spirit to the constant contemplation of fading possessions is extreme folly. Shall those who call the Lord their glory, glory in yellow earth? Shall the image and superscription of Caesar deprive them of communion with him who is the image of the invisible God? As we must not rest in men, so neither must we repose in money. Gain and fame are only so much foam of the sea. All the wealth and honour the whole world can afford would be too slender a thread to bear up the happiness of an immortal soul.

Psalm 62:11

"God hath spoken once." So immutable is God that he need not speak twice, as though he had changed; so infallible, that one utterance suffices, for he cannot err; so omnipotent, that his solitary word achieves all his designs. We speak often and say nothing; God speaks once and utters eternal verities. All our speaking may yet end in sound; but he speaks, and it is done; he commands, and it stands fast. "Twice have I heard this." Our meditative soul should hear the echo of God's voice again and again. What he speaks once in revelation, we should be always hearing. Creation and providence are evermore echoing the voice of God; "He that hath hears to hear, let him hear." We have two ears, that we may hear attentively, and the spiritual have inner ears with which they hear indeed. He hears twice in the best sense who hears with his heart as well as his ears. "That power belongeth unto God." He is the source of it, and in him it actually abides. This one voice of God we ought always to hear, so as to be preserved from putting our trust in creatures in whom there can be no power, since all power is in God. What reason for faith is here! It can never be unwise to rest upon the almighty arm. Out of all troubles he can release us, under all burdens sustain us, while men must fail us at the last, and may deceive us even now. May our souls hear the thunder of Jehovah's voice as he claims all power, and henceforth may we wait only upon God!

Psalm 62:12

"Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy." This tender attribute sweetens the grand thought of his power: the divine strength will not crush us, but will be used for our good; God is so full of mercy that it belongs to him, as if all the mercy in the universe came from God, and still was claimed by him as his possession. His mercy, like his power, endureth for ever, and is ever present in him, ready to be revealed, "For thou renderest to every man according to his work," This looks rather like justice than mercy; but if we understand it to mean that God graciously rewards the poor, imperfect works of his people, we see in it a clear display of mercy. May it not also mean that according to the work he allots us is the strength which he renders to us? he is not a hard master; he does not bid us make bricks without straw, but he metes out to us strength equal to our day. In either meaning we have power and mercy blended, and have a double reason for waiting only upon God. Man neither helps us nor rewards us; God will do both. In him power and grace are eternally resident; our faith should therefore patiently hope and quietly wait, for we shall surely see the salvation of God. Deo soli gloria. All glory be to God only.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Vanity, i.e. most vain, impotent, and helpless creatures in themselves. This he delivers as a reason or argument to enforce his foregoing exhortation; trust in God, because there is no other person or thing to which you can safely trust.

A lie, because they promise much, and raise men’s expectations upon consideration of their great power and dignity, but are not able to perform, and generally deceive those who trust in them; in which respect lying is ascribed to a fountain, Jeremiah 15:18, to wine, Hosea 9:2, to the olive, Habakkuk 3:17, when they do not give what they promise.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Surely men of low degree are vanity,.... Or "sons of Adam" (i); of the earthly man; of fallen Adam; one of his immediate sons was called Hebel, "vanity"; and it is true of all his sons; but here it designs only one sort of them; such as are poor and low in the world; mean men, as the phrase is rendered in Isaiah 2:9; See Gill on Psalm 49:2; these are subject to sinful vanity; their thoughts are vain, their affections vain, their minds vain, their conversation vain, sinful, foolish, fallacious, and inconstant. The wicked poor are, generally speaking, of all persons, the most wicked; and therefore, though they are the multitude, they are not to be trusted in. The Arabic version is, they are as a "shadow", fleeting and unstable, no solidity in them; the Syriac version, "as a vapour", that soon passeth away, like the breath of the mouth, and so not to be accounted of;

and men of high degree are a lie; or "sons of men"; of "the great man" (k), as it is rendered in Isaiah 2:9, noblemen, men of high birth, fortune, rank, and quality; these are a "lie", fallacious and deceitful: they talk of their blood, as if it was different from the rest of mankind; but, trace them up to their original, Adam, and it is a lie. All men are made of one blood, Acts 17:26; their riches promise them peace and pleasure, and long life, but do not give those things, Luke 12:16; their honour is fickle and inconstant; they are act in high places, and those are slippery ones; they are brought to desolation in a moment; and if they continue in them till death, their glory does not descend after them, Psalm 49:17; they make promises of great things to those who apply to them, but rarely perform, and are by no means to be confided in. This distinction of high and low degree is observed in James 1:9;

to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity; take a pair of balances, and put men both of high and low degree together in one scale, and vanity in the other, vanity will weigh heaviest; the scale in which men are will go up, as the word (l) here used signifies: they are "in the balances to ascend"; or being put in the balances, they will ascend, and the scale in which vanity is will go down; for, take them altogether, they are "lighter" than that: the word "lighter" is not in the text, but is rightly supplied, as it is by Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Ben Melech. This last clause, according to the accents, may be best rendered thus; being put "in the balance, they must ascend; they are lighter than vanity together". The Targum is,

"if they should take the sons of men in a balance, and weigh their fates, they themselves would be "lighter" than nothing, as one;''

or than vanity together.

(i) "filii Adam", Musculus, Michaelis; "nati plebeio homine", Junius & Tremellius; "plebeii", Gejerus; "sons of base men", Ainsworth. (k) "nati praestante viro", Junius & Tremellius; "sons of noble men", Ainsworth. Vid. Schindler. col. 214. (l) "ascendant", Pagninus, Cocceius; so Musculus, Junius & Tremellius, &c.

Geneva Study Bible

Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. Surely] Lit., as before, only. Nought but vanity are men, (nought but) a lie are great men. Only a mere breath which vanishes, an imposture which deludes those who trust them, are all men, whatever may be their rank. For the phrases bnç âdâm, bnç îsh, ‘low’ and ‘high,’ see Psalm 49:2. In Psalm 4:2 Absalom’s followers are termed bnç îsh: waverers would be influenced by seeing the number of leading men on his side. The same phrase nought but vanity is used in Psalm 39:5; Psalm 39:11, to describe the transitoriness and unsubstantiality of man, but the point is wholly different.

to be laid in the balance &c.] In the balances they will go up, they are altogether of vanity. They spring from and consist of mere breath (Isaiah 41:24): put them in the scale, it flies up, for they have no weight or substance. The rendering ‘lighter than vanity’ is possible but less probable.

9–12. Trust in God, I say, and not in man or in material force. God’s strength and love are the guarantee for the punishment of the wicked and the reward of the righteous.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 9-12. - "Here the psalmist becomes didactic" (Professor Cheyne). He encourages the faithful, and warns the wicked, by the declaration that men of every sort "are but vanity" - have no strength, no permanence - while power belongs only to God. Those who "oppress" and "rob" are, consequently, not to be feared - there is no strength in riches - God alone determines the issues of things. Unto him belongs mercy, or loving kindness - a quality which leads him not only to forgive men their transgressions, but to "reward" them, when, by his assisting grace, they have done good works. Verse 9. - Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; rather, only vanity - or, nought but vanity - are men of low degree; common men, as we call them - mere sons of Adam. This is too evident for dispute; but, in the view of the psalmist, this is not the worst. "Men of high degree" (beney ish) are no better - they are "a lie" - an unreality - a fading, false illusion. To be laid in the balance; rather, in the balance, they go up (Hupfeld, Ewald Hitzig, Revised Version). They are altogether lighter than vanity; or, altogether made out of vanity (Kay); i.e. there is no substance, no solidity, in them. Psalm 62:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Just as all men with everything earthly upon which they rely are perishable, so also the purely earthly form which the new kingship has assumed carries within itself the germ of ruin; and God will decide as Judge, between the dethroned and the usurpers, in accordance with the relationship in which they stand to Him. This is the internal connection of the third group with the two preceding ones. By means of the strophe vv. 10-13, our Psalm is brought into the closest reciprocal relationship with Psalm 39:1-13. Concerning בּני־אדם and בּני־אישׁ vid., on Psalm 49:3; Psalm 4:3. The accentuation divides Psalm 62:10 quite correctly. The Athnach does not mark בּמאזנים לעלות as an independent clause: they are upon the balance לעלות, for a going up; they must rise, so light are they (Hengstenberg). Certainly this expression of the periphrastic future is possible (vid., on Psalm 25:14; Psalm 1:1-6 :17), still we feel the want here of the subject, which cannot be dispensed within the clause as an independent one. Since, however, the combining of the words with what follows is forbidden by the fact that the infinitive with ל in the sense of the ablat. gerund. always comes after the principal clause, not before it (Ew. 280, d), we interpret: upon the balances ad ascendendum equals certo ascensuri, and in fact so that this is an attributive that is co-ordinate with כּזב. Is the clause following now meant to affirm that men, one and all, belong to nothingness or vanity (מן partitivum), or that they are less than nothing (מן comparat.)? Umbreit, Stier, and others explain Isaiah 40:17 also in the latter way; but parallels like Isaiah 41:24 do not favour this rendering, and such as Isaiah 44:11 are opposed to it. So also here the meaning is not that men stand under the category of that which is worthless or vain, but that they belong to the domain of the worthless or vain.

The warning in Psalm 62:11 does not refer to the Absalomites, but, pointing to these as furnishing a salutary example, to those who, at the sight of the prosperous condition and joyous life on that side, might perhaps be seized with envy and covetousness. Beside בּטח בּ the meaning of הבל בּ is nevertheless not: to set in vain hope upon anything (for the idea of hoping does not exist in this verb in itself, Job 27:12; Jeremiah 2:5, nor in this construction of the verb), but: to be befooled, blinded by something vain (Hitzig). Just as they are not to suffer their heart to be befooled by their own unjust acquisition, so also are they not, when the property of others increases (נוּב, root נב, to raise one's self, to mount up; cf. Arabic nabata, to sprout up, grow; nabara, to raise; intransitive, to increase, and many other verbal stems), to turn their heart towards it, as though it were something great and fortunate, that merited special attention and commanded respect. Two great truths are divinely attested to the poet. It is not to be rendered: once hath God spoken, now twice (Job 40:5; 2 Kings 6:10) have I heard this; but after Psalm 89:36 : One thing hath God spoken, two things (it is) that I have heard; or in accordance with the interpunction, which here, as in Psalm 12:8 (cf. on Psalm 9:16), is not to be called in question: these two things have I heard. Two divine utterances actually do follow. The two great truths are: (1) that God has the power over everything earthly, that consequently nothing takes place without Him, and that whatever is opposed to Him must sooner or later succumb; (2) that of this very God, the sovereign Lord (אדני), is mercy also, the energy of which is measured by His omnipotence, and which does not suffer him to succumb upon whom it is bestowed. With כּי the poet establishes these two revealed maxims which God has impressed upon his mind, from His righteous government as displayed in the history of men. He recompenses each one in accordance with his doing, κατὰ τὰ ἔργα αὐτοῦ, as Paul confesses (Romans 2:6) no less than David, and even (vid., lxx) in the words of David. It shall be recompensed unto every man according to his conduct, which is the issue of his relationship to God. He who rises in opposition to the will and order of God, shall feel God's power (עז) as a power for punishment that dashes in pieces; and he who, anxious for salvation, resigns his own will to the will of God, receives from God's mercy or loving-kindness (חסד), as from an overflowing fulness, the promised reward of faithfulness: his resignation becomes experience, and his hoping attainment.