Men of low degree are only vanity; men of high degree, a lie laid in the balance, they go up together [lighter] than vanity.
The psalm has just urged us to trust God. This verse gives the verdict that makes such trust sensible: people weigh nothing, high or low. So the question is simple. Will we keep leaning on people the scales have already found empty?
One small word ties this verse to the whole psalm, and translations tend to hide it.
You can see the special character of Psalm 62 more easily once you notice one word: "only" appears in it no fewer than six times. The Authorized Version hides this a little, because it uses "truly" in verse 1 and "surely" in verse 9. If our readers can consult Young's Literal Translation, they will see how clearly the word marks the psalm. If they cannot, they can at least put "only" in place of those two words in their minds, and catch the idea.
Read that way, this verse turns the psalm's "only" on man: he is only a breath.
The verse names two groups, and neither is safer than the other. The comment below quotes an older translation, which reads "a vapour" where the ESV has "a breath".
Those who put their trust in men may well consider verse 9: "Surely men of low degree are a vapour, men of high degree are a lie." Which is better? The first barely appears, then disappears. The second is outright falsehood, completely undependable — and so just a vapour too. Weighed in the scales, both prove lighter than vapour. How withering a denunciation! So it is folly to follow prominent men. Favouring someone because he is humble and little honoured among men is just as useless.
The verse pictures a scale. The pan holding man rises, because there is nothing in it.
But none of this lightens the darkness about man himself, whatever differences he makes so much of. All alike are vanity — breath! — emptier, when weighed in truthful balances, than the breath they spend so freely in their boasting and defiance of God. He speaks to them out of his own sure confidence in God. He speaks about the empty trusts that deceive so completely: power, which they use to oppress like tyrants, and wealth, which wraps the heart away from God.
This is not the sourness of a disappointed man. The psalmist weighs people from inside a refuge he has already found.
In the proclamation "God is a refuge for us," the goal has been reached, and so man, and man's power, disappear. To the one who trusts in God and is hidden under His protection, men, whether of low or high degree, are a lie. Weighed truly, they are altogether lighter than vanity. What is more, the soul resting in God can warn the oppressor and the wealthy that their confidence is not safe. It then cries out for all to hear that power belongs to God, as testimony has already shown clearly enough.
The warning is not abstract. It names the specific things people lean on.
Having urged trust in God, the psalmist warns against putting confidence in man, high or low. Sadly, man is corrupt, a lie; or violent, robbing and oppressing; or covetous, setting his heart on money. But the godly must guard against trusting in social position, corrupt schemes, human power, and worldly riches. God has said, more than once, that power and loving-kindness belong to Him. He will give to every man according to his work.
The verse is easiest to read as a description of other people. Its power begins when the reader stops excluding himself.
Psalm 62 confirms all this. Proud, boastful men who delight in lies prove to be nothing but a lie themselves. Once we see that each of us, viewed simply as a man in the flesh, is only that, all our confidence in man, or in self, is gone. We turn to God, and to God alone.
- Only. The "surely" of this verse is really the psalm's repeated word "only": man is only a breath.
- Everyone. The unknown and the famous go on the same scales. Following prominent men is folly, and preferring the lowly for being lowly is just as useless.
- Lighter. In honest scales, man weighs less than the breath he spends on boasting. That exposes power and wealth as trusts that deceive.
- Refuge. The verdict comes from safety, not bitterness. Once God is a refuge for us, man and man's power disappear.
- Yourself. The verse finishes its work only when you include yourself. Then confidence in man, and in self, is gone, and you turn to God alone.
Put not confidence in oppression, and become not vain in robbery; if wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
Psalm 62 is the psalm of a soul that waits on God alone, and by verse 10 that quiet confidence turns outward into warning. The psalmist names three rivals for that confidence: force, theft, and a growing bank balance.
The verse is not a stray piece of financial advice. It is the negative half of the invitation just before it. One writer reads the two lines as a single breath.
God will render to every man according to his work. Therefore trust in Him, and always; trust not in oppression.
The first half of the verse deals with wealth taken by force or fraud. Such gain looks like the shortest route to security; the psalm says it is a route to loss.
How many think they can gain their own ends by oppressing others or by robbing others! But this selfish greed always defeats its own ends (v. 10). So whatever a person trusts for his welfare, if it is not the Lord, it will only bring him harm.
The second half widens the net. Riches can grow with no oppression at all. The danger just moves from the hands to the heart. Job stands out as a rich man who saw that danger and refused it.
Though his wealth was great, yet he had not made gold his idol (vv. 24-25). When riches increased, he saw the danger of setting his heart on them, for covetousness is idolatry (Col. 3:5). If he had any such motive, only God knew it fully, and Job was willing for God to examine him and judge him according to truth.
Verse 10 does not stand alone. It follows verse 9, which weighs great men and small alike, and it leads straight into the twice-heard word about God's power. So the whole passage pulls down every other support a person might lean on.
All alike are vanity — a breath! Weighed in honest scales, they are emptier than the breath they pour out in boasting and defying God. He speaks to them, himself sure of God, about the empty trusts that deceive so completely: power, which they use to oppress like tyrants; wealth, which wraps the heart away from God. In his ears a word from God keeps repeating. It is so simple, yet faith alone hears it: power belongs to God alone.
If the heart must not rest on riches, it will rest somewhere else. A person's real answer shows up not in what they say but in what fills their days.
Child of God, where is your treasure? Is it Christ in heaven? If so, you are happy! If it is wealth or distinction, the Lord warns, there also will be your heart. Many people hold a comforting idea that flatly contradicts Christ: that while life is swallowed up in the struggle for riches, the heart is not there but still true to Him. What could be more false and deceiving? … Our character, our real state, shows in what we are set on and live for from day to day.
- Trust. The verse mirrors the call to trust God at all times: "trust in Him, and always; trust not in oppression."
- Force. Wealth grabbed by oppression or robbery defeats its own purpose. Whatever a person trusts instead of the Lord brings him only harm.
- Increase. The warning covers honest money too. The risk is not the size of the sum but a heart set on it, for covetousness is idolatry.
- Weighed. Verse 9 has already weighed high and low men alike and found them lighter than breath. Neither human power nor wealth can serve as a refuge.
- Power. One word stands, heard once and twice over: power belongs to God. That is the only trust the psalm leaves standing, and it frees the heart to rest there.
Once hath God spoken, twice have I heard this, that strength [belongeth] unto God.
Psalm 62 weighs men of high and low rank and finds them all empty. It closes with one settled certainty about power — a truth God spoke once and the psalmist heard twice.
The doubling is not repetition for effect. It measures the hearer, and one writer points to the perfect Hearer.
He has truly learned the lesson that "power belongs to God." God had spoken it once, but Jesus had heard it twice. He heard it with a full witness of its truth. He opened His ear that wide to God's teaching, morning by morning. Man is a duller scholar.
One writer names the two events that give the Christian this same double witness.
The soul resting in God can warn the oppressor and the wealthy that their confidence is unsafe. It then cries in the hearing of all, as the testimony has fully shown, that power belongs to God. For the Christian the resurrection of Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost are the twofold witness of this, and he wants no other.
The confession comes in step with the discovery that we have nothing — and it turns out to be good news, not bad.
Flesh is laid, both root and flower, in the balance of truth, and found to be vanity. A heartfelt confession of this truth is the necessary first step to spiritual blessing. Power belongs to God. Faith learns that truth at the same time as it learns human helplessness. But God's power is, to a believer, His ability to bless. Creation was the first effect of divine power. Its second proof is resurrection. Faith knows God always as the living God, who brings life out of death.
The record of power in human hands runs one way, from the first man to Israel's first king.
There is only one Person who has owned this with perfect faithfulness. Adam received power from God. He soon betrayed it — and himself, and the creation he was set over — into the hands of the deceiver and usurper. Noah received from God the power of the sword. Then his drunkenness made him the object of his son's mockery — and that son was more guilty than Noah, for he announced the shame he should have covered. God Himself reigned in Israel, until the nation in its folly asked for a king. Saul was the king the nation chose. He received his throne and sceptre from God's hands, yet used them in disobedience to advance himself, and he perished on the mountains of Gilboa.
If all power is God's, then the power ranged against God's people is on a leash.
Faith rests on this mighty and grand sustaining truth that "power belongs to God." The devil's power is limited and controlled. He cannot stretch out his hand and touch even the feeblest lamb of the flock without express permission.
God supplies the power for service, but He never makes it ours.
God never gives His saints power of their own. "Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God." This matters in the lives of all the saints. It matters still more for those called to serve in the word. Yet in every service and in every action in the lives of God's people, the power of God is needed.
The reverse also holds: the more strength we imagine we have, the less of this truth we see.
When we sense power in ourselves, how greatly that limits our grasp of so simple a fact as that all "power belongs to God." By our need we learn His grace; by our poverty, His fullness.
Power in human hands breeds cruelty. In God's hands it comes joined to something else.
How significant it is that man has such a nature — sinful indeed — that he thirsts for power over others. And if he does, God is not really in all his thoughts, for he is determined to rob God of what belongs to Him. Such men also forget mercy completely, and are relentlessly cruel. How wonderful it is that the One who has supreme power is also a God of abundant mercy.
- Heard twice. God spoke once; the open ear heard it twice. The doubling measures the hearer, not God.
- Weighed and empty. Faith learns that power is God's at the very moment it learns that man, high or low, is empty. That confession opens the way to blessing.
- Never transferred. God gives His people no power of their own; imagined strength in ourselves is what blinds us to this truth.
- Enemies limited. If power belongs to God, Satan cannot touch the feeblest lamb without permission.
- Joined to mercy. Supreme power is not a threat: the God who holds it all is abundant in mercy.