Psalms 49:15

15. But God will redeem my soul Surely “God will redeem” me. The particle is one of asseveration springing from undoubting faith. The word “redeem” supposes him to be first under the power of death. Faith in the resurrection of the body here discovers itself. The author not only speaks in his own person, but for all of his class. It was the common faith.

From the power of the grave Literally, From the hand of sheol. This does not teach that the righteous will not die, which would contradict not only the psalmist’s language here and at Psalms 49:10, but all fact and all Scripture. The antithesis lies not between dying and not dying, but between continuing and not continuing under the power of death. In the matter of dying the good and the bad are equal, but in the matter of redemption from death they are infinitely different. The victory of the righteous over the wicked does, indeed, partially appear in this life, but comes infallibly and in its fulness only after all have succumbed to death. The clear eschatological bearing of this passage cannot be avoided, and is further sustained in the next hemistich.

For he shall receive me The verb is the same as Genesis 5:24: “For God took him.” So here, “for he will take me.”

Keble: “He takes me home.” With the examples of Enoch and Elijah before him, and from the connexion of the argument, no other sense could apply. The verb is the same, and the form more full, in Psalms 73:24, “and afterward receive me to glory.”