Psalm 39:5 Behold, you have made my days as an handbreadth; and my age is as nothing before you… I. Life is short, IN RESPECT OF THE GREAT WORK WHICH IT IS GIVEN US TO PERFORM. Man in his best estate here below is still an improvable condition. There is no perfection on this side the grave. 1. The man of the loftiest attainments in virtue is but elevated to a position whence he has a more enlarged discovery than others of the miserableness and defects of his present standing. The attainments of man in virtue and in piety affect him in a manner similar to what is produced by the other acquirements of life — the more that there is gained, the more is there that presents itself to be desired. The Christian, in his best estate, ever feels clogged in his career, and is ever laying aside those weights which retard him in his motion. 2. As it is with the attainments of piety, so is it with those of knowledge. The longest life is found too short to compass the knowledge of what God has revealed to us in His Word. To some, the duration of mortal existence has proved too short for the attainment of any substantial good. They were cut off in the midst of resolutions of amendment. For this, life was amply sufficient; but, as Seneca has it, "We complain of its shortness, because of the waste of it which is made." II. Life is short IN A COMPARATIVE POINT OF VIEW; and it is in reference to the consideration of the subject in this light, that the comparison in our text of life to an hand-breadth is peculiarly appropriate. 1. To the child in the dawn of life, when reason begins to expand, and thought to measure out the prospect of happy days spread before it, through all the stages of its earthly career, the anticipated term of years appear so vast as to fill its imagination with wonder, and rack its powers of comprehension. But, with the progress of years, the allotted term of human life ever appears to shorten. 2. But when the psalmist skid, "Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth," he must have thought of the Eternal of ages, whom he addressed, with whom "a thousand years are as one day," and compared with whose immeasurable duration our existence here may well be likened to an hand-breadth. "Our days "is a phrase employed in Scripture to denote the term of our existence here, which is measured by the revolution of days, contrasted with our future being, when time shall be no longer. The psalmist thought of the great, the boundless eternity which lay before him; of that never-ending succession of ages through which we should live, increasing in knowledge and in happiness; and turning his eye to the comparatively puny, limited, and circumscribed being which he now enjoyed, yet considering the vast result that hung upon it, he exclaimed, "Thou hast made my days as an handbreadth." Such language is appropriate to human life. We have received a place among the things which have foundation. Our immortal souls exist in God, who has imparted to them, in reference to futurity, an attribute to Himself — Eternity. (John Watson.) Parallel Verses KJV: Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah. |
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