Psalm 49:12 (ESV)

12 Man in his pomp will not remain; he is like the beasts that perish.

A man with all his riches does not live forever; he is like a beast that perishes (another translation: that is slaughtered). The same message in other words is that death comes to beasts as well as men. Death is like darkness. In Psalm 73:22 we read: I was brutish and ignorant; I was like a beast toward you. Here we have a clear difference between man and beast, namely understanding. The theme of our Psalm says that man and beast share the same fate: they both will die. Ecclesiastes 3:19 reads, For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity.