Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
Parallel Translations
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Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
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and yet can not tell what shall happen to morowe. For what thynge is youre lyfe? It is even a vapoure that apereth for a lytell tyme and the vanyssheth awaye:
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(And yet ye cannot tell what shalbe to morowe. For what is your life? It is euen a vapour that appeareth for a litle time, and afterward vanisheth away)
Cross-references (12)
Passages linked to James 4:14 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- 1 Peter 1:24 For, “All flesh is like grass, and all of man’s glory like the flower in the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls;
- Psalms 39:5 Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.”
- 1 John 2:17 The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever.
- Psalms 102:3 For my days consume away like smoke. My bones are burned as a torch.
- Job 7:6-7 My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle, and are spent without hope. Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye will no more see good.
- Job 14:1-2 “Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble. He grows up like a flower, and is cut down. He also flees like a shadow, and doesn’t continue.
- James 1:10 and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away.
- Job 9:25-26 “Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away. They see no good. They have passed away as the swift ships, as the eagle that swoops on the prey.
- Psalms 90:5-7 You sweep them away as they sleep. In the morning they sprout like new grass. In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry. For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
- Psalms 89:47 Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men!
- 1 Peter 4:7 But the end of all things is near. Therefore be of sound mind, self-controlled, and sober in prayer.
- Isaiah 38:12 My dwelling is removed, and is carried away from me like a shepherd’s tent. I have rolled up my life like a weaver. He will cut me off from the loom. From day even to night you will make an end of me.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 14 For what is your life? He might have…
14 For what is your life? He might have checked this foolish license in determining things to come by many other reasons; for we see how the Lord daily frustrates those presumptuous men who promise what great things they will do. But he was satisfied with this one argument, who has promised to thee a life for tomorrow? Canst thou, a dying man, do what thou so confidently resolvest to do? For he who remembers the shortness of his life, will have his audacity easily checked so as not to extend too far his resolves. Nay, for no other reason do ungodly men indulge themselves so much, but because they forget that they are men. By the similitude of vapor, he strikingly shews that the purposes which are founded only on the present life, are altogether evanescent.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on…
14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.
Ver. 14. Ye know not what, &c.] God delights to cross such vain boasters, and to confute their confidences, that speak and live as if their lives were riveted upon eternity. They might easily observe that many things happen between the cup and the lip, between the chin and the chalice. Ne glorietur igitur accinctus quasi discinctus. Sell not the hide before ye have taken the beast. Who knows what a great bellied day may bring forth? Pro 27:1. While a woman is yet with child, none can tell what kind of birth it will be, Luk 12:16-17.
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It is even a vapour] Thy breath is in thy nostrils, ever ready to puff out; at the next puff of breath thou mayest blow away thy life. Petrarch relates about a certain holy man, that being invited to a feast on the morrow, he answered, I have not had a tomorrow to dispose of this many a year; if you would have anything from me now, I am ready (lib. iii. Memor.). Mere man is but the dream of a dream, but the generation of a fancy, but a poor feeble, unable, dying flash, but the curious picture of nothing. Can a picture continue that is drawn upon the ice? What is man, saith Nazianzen, but soul and soil, breath and body (νους και χους, ex Gen 2:7); a puff of wind the one, a pile of dust the other, no solidity in either? Surely every man in his best estate, when he is best underlaid, and settled upon his best bottom, is altogether vanity, Psa 39:5. Two fits of an ague could shake great Tamerlane to death, in the midst of his great hopes and greatest power, when he was preparing for the utter rooting out of the Othoman family, and the conquest of the Greek empire. (Turk. Hist.) What is man’s body but a bubble the soul the wind that filleth it? the bubble riseth higher and higher till at last it breaketh; so doth the body from infancy to youth, and thence to age. So that it is improper to ask when we shall die; but rather when we shall make an end of dying (said a divine); for first the infancy dieth, then the childhood, then the youth, then age, and then we make an end of dying. Should we then live and trade as if our lives were riveted upon eternity? To blame were those Agrigentines who did eat, build, &c., as though they should never die.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Whereas ye know not what shall be on the…
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow; whether ye yourselves shall continue till then, or what else shall then be, or not be. In vain do ye boast of whole years, when ye cannot command the events of one day.
For what is your life? This question implies contempt, as 1Sa 25:10; Psa 144:3,4.
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It is even a vapour; like a vapour, frail, uncertain, and of short continuance; and then how vain are those counsels and purposes that are built upon no more sure a foundation than your own lives.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain Whereas ye know not what shall be on the…
Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow,.... Whether there would be a morrow for them or not, whether they should live till tomorrow; and if they should, they knew not what a morrow would bring forth, or what things would happen, which might prevent their intended journey and success: no man can secure a day, an hour, a moment, and much less a year of continuance in this life; nor can he foresee what will befall him today or tomorrow; therefore it is great stupidity to determine on this, and the other, without the leave of God, in whom he lives, moves, and has his being; and by whose providence all events are governed and directed; see Pro 27:1
for what is your life? of what kind and nature is it? what assurance can be had of the continuance of it? by what may it be expressed? or to what may it be compared?
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it is even a vapour that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away; which rises out of the earth, or water, and expires almost as soon as it exists; at least, continues but a very short time, and is very weak and fleeting, and carried about here and there, and soon returns from whence it came: the allusion is to the breath of man, which is in his nostrils, and who is not to be accounted of, or depended on.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 14. Whereas ye know not] This verse should…
Verse 14. Whereas ye know not] This verse should be read in a parenthesis. It is not only impious, but grossly absurd, to speak thus concerning futurity, when ye know not what a day may bring forth. Life is utterly precarious; and God has not put it within the power of all the creatures he has made to command one moment of what is future.
It is even a vapour] Ατμις γαρ εστιν· It is a smoke, always fleeting, uncertain, evanescent, and obscured with various trials and afflictions. This is a frequent metaphor with the Hebrews; see Ps 102:11; My days are like a shadow: Job 8:9; Our days upon earth are a shadow: 1Ch 29:15; Our days on the earth are a shadow, and there is no abiding. Quid tam circumcisum, tam breve, quam hominis vita longissima? Plin. l. iii., Ep. 7. "What is so circumscribed, or so short, as the longest life of man?" "All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the flower of the field. The grass withereth, and the flower fadeth, because the breath of the Lord bloweth upon it. Surely the people is like grass." St. James had produced the same figure, Jas 1:10; Jas 1:11. But there is a very remarkable saying in the book of Ecclesiasticus, which should be quoted: "As of the green leaves of a thick tree, some fall and some grow; so is the generation of flesh and blood: one cometh to an end, and another is born." Ecclus. xiv. 18.
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We find precisely the same image in Homer as that quoted above. Did the apocryphal writer borrow it from the Greek poet?
Οἱη περ φυλλων γενεη, τοιηδε και ανδρων·
Φυλλα τα μεν τ' ανεμος χαμαδις χεει, αλλα δε θ' ὑλη
Τηλεθοωσα φυει, εσρος δ' επιγιγνεται ὡρη·
Ὡς ανδρων γενεη, ἡ μεν φυει, ἡ δ' αποληγει.
Il. l. vi., ver. 146.
Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground
Another race the following spring supplies;
They fall successive, and successive rise.
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those are pass'd away.
POPE.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Whereas, ye know not what shall be on the…
Whereas, ye know not what shall be on the morrow - They formed their plans as if they knew; the apostle says it could not be known. They had no means of ascertaining what would occur; whether they would live or die; whether they would be prospered, or would be overwhelmed with adversity. Of the truth of the remark made by the apostle here, no one can doubt; but it is amazing how men act as if it were false. We have no power of penetrating the future so as to be able to determine what will occur in a single day or a single hour, and yet we are almost habitually forming our plans as if we saw with certainty all that is to happen. The classic writings abound with beautiful expressions respecting the uncertainty of the future, and the folly of forming our plans as if it were known to us. Many of those passages, some of them almost precisely in the words of James, may be seen in Grotius and Pricaeus, in loc. Such passages occur in Anacreon, Euripides, Menander, Seneca, Horace, and others, suggesting an obvious but much-neglected thought, that the future is to is all unknown. Man cannot penetrate it; and his plans of life should be formed in view of the possibility that his life may be cut off and all his plans fail, and consequently in constant preparation for a higher world.
For what is your life? - All your plans must depend of course on the continuance of your life; but what a frail and uncertain thing is that! How transitory and evanescent as a basis on which to build any plans for the future! Who can calculate on the permanence of a vapor? Who can build any solid hopes on a mist?
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It is even a vapour - Margin, “For it is.” The margin is the more correct rendering. The previous question had turned the attention to life as something peculiarly frail, and as of such a nature that no calculation could be based on its permanence. This expression gives a reason for that, to wit, that it is a mere vapor. The word “vapor” (ἀτμὶς atmis,) means a mist, an exhalation, a smoke; such a vapor as we see ascending from a stream, or as lies on the mountain side on the morning, or as floats for a little time in the air, but which is dissipated by the rising sun, leaving not a trace behind. The comparison of life with a vapor is common, and is as beautiful as it is just. Job says,
O remember that my life is Wind;
Mine eyes shall no more see good.
Job 7:7.
So the Psalmist,
For he remembered that they were but flesh,
A wind that passeth away and that cometh not again.
Psa 78:39.
Compare 1Ch 29:15; Job 14:10-11.
And then vanisheth away - Wholly disappears. Like the dissipated vapor, it is entirely gone. There is no remnant, no outline, nothing that reminds us that it ever was. So of life. Soon it disappears altogether. The works of art that man has made, the house that he has built, or the book that he has written, remain for a little time, but the life has gone. There is nothing of it remaining - any more than there is of the vapor which in the morning climbed silently up the mountain side. The animating principle has vanished forever. On such a frail and evanescent thing, who can build any substantial hopes?
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain what--literally, "of what nature" is your life? that is,…
what--literally, "of what nature" is your life? that is, how evanescent it is.
It is even--Some oldest authorities read, "For ye are." BENGEL, with other old authorities, reads, "For it shall be," the future referring to the "morrow" (Jam 4:13-15). The former expresses, "Ye yourselves are transitory"; so everything of yours, even your life, must partake of the same transitoriness. Received text has no old authority.
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and then vanisheth away--"afterwards vanishing as it came"; literally, "afterwards (as it appeared), so vanishing" [ALFORD].
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 14. Whereas ye know not what shall be on…
14. Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow] Literally, the thing, or the event of to-morrow, the phrase, being parallel to “the things of the morrow” in Mat_6:34. St James partly reproduces that teaching, partly that of Pro_27:1.
what is your life?…] Literally, of what nature your life is. The comparison that follows was one familiar to all the wise of heart who had meditated on the littleness of man’s life. It meets us in Job_7:7; Psa_102:3. A yet more striking parallel is found in Wis_5:9-14, with which St James may well have been familiar. The word for “vanishing away” occurs, it may be noted, in Wis_3:16. It is not without interest to note at once the agreement and the difference between St James’ counsel and that of the popular Epicureanism.
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“Quid sit futurum cras, fuge quærere; et
Quem Fors dierum cumque dabit, lucro Appone.”
Horace, Od. i. 9.
“Strive not the morrow’s chance to know,
And count whate’er the Fates bestow,
As given thee for thy gain.”
It was not strange that those who thought only of this littleness, should deem that their only wisdom lay in making the most of that little in and by itself, and take “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die” (1Co_15:32) as their law of life. St James had been taught to connect man’s life with a Will higher than his own, and so to take the measure of its greatness as well as of its littleness.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (14) Whereas ye know not . . . .—Read,…
(14) Whereas ye know not . . . .—Read, Whereas ye know not aught of the morrow—what, i.e., the event may be. The hopeless misery of the unfaithful servant comes into mind at this; he has left the greater business to perform the less; or, it may be, said in heart, “My lord delayeth his coming,” and so has begun “to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken.” And lo! the thunder of the chariot wheels, the flash of the avenging sword, the “portion with the hypocrites,” the “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Read Mat_24:42-51.)
For what is your life? It is even a vapour.—The rebuke is stronger still, the home-thrust more sharp and piercing—Ye are even a vapour: ye yourselves, and all belonging to you; not merely life itself, for that confessedly is a breath; and many a man, acknowledging so much, counts of the morrow that he may lay up in store for other wants besides his own.
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A vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away (or, disappeareth).—There is a play upon words to mark the sad antithesis. The vision of life vanisheth as it came; and thus even a heathen poet says—
“Dust we are, and a shadow.”
(Comp. Wis_5:9-14.)
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Ver. 14 fortifies the rebuke of ver. 13 by…
Ver. 14 fortifies the rebuke of ver. 13 by showing the folly of their action; rion), Pro_27:1, "Boast not thyself of tomorrow (ta eijv au) for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." Whereas ye know not; rather, seeing that, or, inasmuch as ye know not, etc. (oitinev oujk ejpistasqe). The text in this verse again in a somewhat disorganized condition, but the general drift is clear. We should probably read, Oitinev oujk ejpistasqe toahJ zwh uJmwn ajtmiv gar ejste hJ progon fainomenh epeita kainh, R.V, "Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. What is your life? For ye are a vapor, our that appeareth for a little time and then vanisheth away."
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain 14. What is your life? Who knows that he…
14. What is your life? Who knows that he will have a to-morrow, since life is like a vanishing vapor?
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.