“The wicked shall return to Sheol, all the nations that forget God. For the needy shall not always be forgotten, and the hope of the poor shall not perish forever.” (Psalm 9:17–18, ESV)
This pericope is accomplishing two primary things, and there is a fascinating theological insight here, if we will hear it.
First, the Psalmist writes that the wicked shall return to Sheol. He doesn’t say, as we might expect, that he will depart to Sheol. Sheol (še’ôl, sheol) refers to the grave, the underworld of the dead, the pit of departed spirits. The LXX (The Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible completed around 250 B.C.) translates Sheol as Hades. This is a different word than the one Jesus uses to describe “the lake fire.”
We might think of Jesus’s words to the Jewish lawyers who accused him of being born of fornication: “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44, ESV).
In other words, death is the native element of wicked men.
Second, the Psalmist contrasts conditions of “forgottenness” between two groups of people. There are the “nations that forgot God” and the needy who are presently being “forgotten.” The word is the same root in both instances, and means “to show a lack of attention or care resulting in not remembering.” Another way of say it, is to not give presence of mind to someone or something.
In this case, those who have “forgotten” the poor will themselves be forgotten forever. And the poor and needy who have been forgotten for now, will be cared for and attended to by the Lord forever. The Lord is the hope of the poor and needy, and none should look elsewhere (Matthew 25:31-46).