What Does Psalms 49:5 Mean?

(5) **Should I fear?**—Here the problem is stated not in a *speculative, *but *personal *form. The poet himself *feels *the pressure of this riddle of life. **When the iniquity of my heels.**—The Authorised Version seems to take “heels” in the sense of footsteps, as Symmachus does, and “when the evil of my course entangles me,” is good sense, but not in agreement with the context. Render rather, *when iniquity dogs me at the heels, i.e., *when wicked and prosperous men pursue him with malice. This is more natural than to give the word *heel *the derived term of *supplanter; *the sense, too, is the same. There is no direct reference to Genesis 3:15, though possibly the figure of the *heel *as a vulnerable part, and of wickedness lying like a snake in the path, may have occurred to the poet. The Syriac, however, suggests a different reading, “malice of my oppressors.”