Psalm 48
Psalm 48:2, Sides of the north. (See notes at Dan 11:6.) Zion here has the expanded meaning of referring to the Temple Mount where the temple stood, which laid in the northeast corner of the ancient city of Jerusalem (Keil and Delitszch). Technically, Zion refers to the ridge on which the city of David was situated, which is southeast of the modern old city of Jerusalem laying on the ridge above (west of) the Kidron Valley just east of the Tyropoeon Valley (which as since been filled in). When Solomon built the temple on Mount Moriah, the word Zion, took on the expanded or poetic meaning of referring also to the Temple Mount (Pss 2:6; 48:2,11–12; 132:13). Later the meaning of Zion was expanded further to include the city of Jerusalem, the people of Israel and the whole land of Israel (Isa 40:9; 60:14 Jer 31:12; Zech 9:13) and later even of the heavenly New Jerusalem (Heb 12:22; Rev 14:1).
Psalm 49
Psalm 49:1–14, An evangelistic message to the unsaved. This entire psalm is a good basis for a sermon to the unsaved or spiritually lost.
Psalm 49:4, Dark sayings [or riddles] on the harp. Harp is the Hebrew word kinor from an unused root word meaning “to twang.” Poetic music is a thought provoking way to “preach” the gospel; it touches the heart of man in a special way. This is because music is capable of bypassing the innate defensiveness of the mind and can go straight to the heart.
Psalm 49:7, None…can…redeem his brother. In that all men are of equal value before Elohim, a man can’t redeem his brother from the penalty of sin, which is death. One can only atone for his own sins by dying, and once dead, there is no more possibility of living, since the wages of sin is death. So there is no possibility for a man to atone for his own sins, much less those of another; this verse makes this truth clear.
Even if a man could live a sinless life, he could, at best, save only one other individual—that is, give his life in exchange for only one other sinner. Only Yeshua, who was the Creator of all humans life (Col 1:16; Heb 11:3), could exchange his sinless life for all humanity. This is because common logic tells us that the one who creates something is of more value than the sum total of all that he creates. This is why verse eight states that the redemption of men’s souls is costly, since it cost the life of the Son of Elohim, the Creator of all things. Only this costly sin sacrifice could redeem men from the pit of the grave and give men the gift of eternal life (verse nine).
Another point to consider in this discussion is that since Yeshua was born of a virgin and not of the seed of man, his nature wasn’t polluted or defiled by Adam’s sin nature. If he had not been born of a virgin, this would have disqualified him from being the perfect and blemish-free Passover lamb sin offering for the remission of men’s sins before the judgment seat of Elohim. Since the life of man is in his blood (Lev 17:11), and man’s blood was defiled by Adam’s sin nature, and since Yeshua’s blood didn’t derive from man, but from his Father in heaven, Yeshua’s blood was acceptable to a holy Elohim as the required atonement for the redemption men’s souls (Lev 17:11 cp. Isa 53:10). No man except Yeshua has ever met these criteria, thus no man other than Yeshua is qualified to atone for another man’s sin.
Because Yeshua was the blameless and sin-free Passover lamb, those who spiritually identify and unite with his atoning death through faith in him and via the ritual of baptism for the remission of sins can now be presented as blameless before Elohim in heaven (Col 1:21–23).
Psalm 49:8, The redemption of the soul is costly. Indeed it is, for it cost Yeshua his life.
Psalm 49:9, Continue to live. In other words, the soul is not immortal.
Psalm 49:10–20, The senseless person. That which the world esteems is an inversion of the truth and reality and is, therefore, anathema to and enmity with Elohim (Jas 4:4). The redeemed are those who have come out of the confused mixture of light and darkness or good and evil (called Babylonianism) of what worldly people esteem (1 Cor 6:17; Rev 18:4). They no longer esteem that which the unsaved foolish or senseless people esteem (i.e. wealth, the houses and monuments they create to last forever to honor their memory, as well as the lands they name after themselves, v. 11). This is the way of the senseless and foolish person (v. 12). The wise person knows that death comes to all humans, and all die like common animals (vv. 11, 20). Only Elohim has the power to redeem our non-immortal soul from the grave (v. 15), so that a person will see the light of life again (v. 19) at the resurrection of the righteous dead.
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