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I. GENERAL VIEW OF MAN'S MISERY AND HIS OWN. (Vers. 1-5.) Man is compared to a hireling with an appointed time of service, the end of which is wearily and wistfully looked for. The ideas suggested are

(1) toilsomeness;

(2) fatigue and exhaustion;

(3) intense longing for rest.

As the slave longs for the lengthening shadows of evening, the hired labourer for pay-time, so the oppressed sufferer, toiling beneath a load of pain, longs for the welcome end of death. He "would 'twere bedtime, and all well." Voluntary and moderate labour is one of the keenest delights of life; but forced and prolonged toll exhausts the very springs of enjoyment. Rest is the reward of moderate exertion, but to the excessive toiler or sufferer it is denied. We have a picture here of the extreme misery of sleeplessness, than which none can be more acute; the tossing through the wakeful hours of darkness, the mind travelling over and over again the same weary track of its melancholy contemplations. It may be appropriate here to think of the great blessing of sleep. Homer termed it "ambrosial." It was one of the great boons of Heaven to suffering mortals. It is "the season of all natures," as Shakespeare beautifully says. It is the preservation of sanity. Connected with this, the lesson of moderate exertion is one needed by many in these busy, striving days; and no less the fault of over-anxiety, and the duty of casting care upon God. on which the gospel insists so strongly. It is the life according to our true nature, and according to simple piety, which brings sound sleep by night, and healthy thought by day.

II. REFLECTION ON THE BREVITY OF LIFE, AND PRAYER. (Vers. 6-10.) The mood of self-pity continues. Then follows a lament on the shortness of life. It is compared to a weaver's shuttle, to smoke, to the vanishing of a cloud, as it is elsewhere compared (Job 9:25) to the hasty passage of a courier, or, in the well-known old story of English history, to the flight of a bird through a hall and out into the darkness again. We may compare the following plaintive passage from the Greek poet AEschylus: -

Ah! friend, behold and see
What's all the beauty of humanity?
Can it be fair?
What's all the strength? can it be strong
And what hope can they bear,
These dying livers - living one day long?

Ah! seest thou not, my friend,
How feeble and slow
And like a dream doth go
This poor blind manhood, drifted from its end?"

(Mrs. E. B. Browning's translation.) We may draw from this passage the following lessons:

1. There is a constant sense of infirmity in human nature, and of the inexorable law of death.

2. The mind cannot submit patiently to this doom. Dear earthly affections (ver. 8) cry out against it, and unconsciously witness for the immortality of the soul.

3. The thought of utter extinction cannot be endured by an awakened and elevated spirit (ver. 10). These impotences and reluctances in the presence of decay and death are really tokens of immortality. We see them to be so in this instance, in an age when life and immortality were not brought to light.

4. The natural relief from all such sorrows and perplexities is in prayer (ver. 7). The cry, "Oh, remember!" is not unheard by him who knows our frame and remembers that we are dust. There may be the clear consciousness of God where there is not the definite assurance of immortality. But a firm faith in him, when cherished and educated, leads ultimately to the conviction that the soul cannot perish. - J.

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Parallel Verses

KJV: Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

WEB: "Isn't a man forced to labor on earth? Aren't his days like the days of a hired hand?