For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone. Its place remembers it no more.
Parallel Translations
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For he knows how we are made. He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone. Its place remembers it no more.
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For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust.
As for man, his days are as grass: as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
Show all 3 translations
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For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.
As for man, his days are as grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourisheth.
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof knoweth it no more.
Cross-references (25)
- 1 Peter 1:24 (v15) 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;
- Ecclesiastes 12:7 (v14) and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- James 1:10-11 (v15) and the rich, in that he is made humble, because like the flower in the grass, he will pass away. For the sun arises with the scorching…
- Job 10:9 (v14) Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
- Psalms 78:38-39 (v14) But he, being merciful, forgave iniquity, and didn’t destroy them. Yes, many times he turned his anger away, and didn’t stir up all his…
Show all 25 cross-references
- Isaiah 40:7 (v16) The grass withers, the flower fades, because Yahweh’s breath blows on it. Surely the people are like grass.
- Psalms 89:47 (v14) Remember how short my time is, for what vanity you have created all the children of men!
- Genesis 3:19 (v14) You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall…
- Isaiah 51:12 (v15) “I, even I, am he who comforts you. Who are you, that you are afraid of man who shall die, and of the son of man who will be made as grass?
- Isaiah 28:1 (v15) Woe to the crown of pride of the drunkards of Ephraim, and to the fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile…
- Isaiah 40:6-8 (v15) The voice of one saying, “Cry!” One said, “What shall I cry?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory is like the flower of the field.…
- Job 14:1-3 (v15) “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,…
- Job 7:5-7 (v14) My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust. My skin closes up, and breaks out afresh. My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle,…
- Job 7:21 (v14) Why do you not pardon my disobedience, and take away my iniquity? For now will I lie down in the dust. You will seek me diligently, but I…
- Job 20:9 (v16) The eye which saw him will see him no more, neither will his place see him any more.
- Psalms 90:5-6 (v15) 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…
- Isaiah 28:4 (v15) The fading flower of his glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fertile valley, shall be like the first-ripe fig before the summer;…
- Nahum 1:4 (v15) He rebukes the sea, and makes it dry, and dries up all the rivers. Bashan languishes, and Carmel; and the flower of Lebanon languishes.
- Job 13:25 (v14) Will you harass a driven leaf? Will you pursue the dry stubble?
- Job 14:10 (v16) But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?
- Isaiah 29:16 (v14) You turn things upside down! Should the potter be thought to be like clay; that the thing made should say about him who made it, “He didn’t…
- Genesis 5:24 (v16) Enoch walked with God, and he was not found, for God took him.
- Job 7:6-10 (v16) 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…
- Job 8:18-19 (v16) If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have not seen you.’ Behold, this is the joy of his way: out of the…
- Job 27:20-21 (v16) Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night. The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out…
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (17 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv14–15 14. For he knoweth David here annihilates all the…
14. For he knoweth David here annihilates all the worth which men would arrogate to themselves, and asserts that it is the consideration of our misery, and that alone, which moves God to exercise patience towards us. This again we ought carefully to mark, not only for the purpose of subduing the pride of our flesh, but also that a sense of our unworthiness may not prevent us from trusting in God. The more wretched and despicable our condition is, the more inclined is God to show mercy, for the remembrance that we are clay and dust is enough to incite him to do us good.
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.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On v15 He declareth that man hath nothing in himself to…
He declareth that man hath nothing in himself to move God to mercy, but only the confession of his infirmity and misery.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv14–16 Psa 103:14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth…
Psa 103:14 For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we [are] dust.
Ver. 14. For he knoweth our frame] Our evil concupiscence, saith the Chaldee; Figulinam et fragilem constitutionem nostram, saith Junius, that we are nothing better than a compound of dirt and sin.
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He remembereth that we are dust] Our bodies are (for our souls are of a spiritual nature, divinae particula aurae), and sooner or later to be turned to dust again.
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 On vv14–16 Our frame; either,
Our frame; either,
1. The corruption of our natures; which God is pleased sometimes to make an argument to pity and spare men, as Gen 8:21. So the sense is, He considereth that great and constant propension to evil which is naturally in all mankind, and that therefore if he should deal severely with us, he should immediately destroy us all. So this clause contains one motive of God’s pity, and the next another. Or rather,
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2. The weakness and mortality of our natures, and the frailty and misery of our condition, as it seems to be explained in the following clause, that we are but dust. So the sense is, He considereth that if he should let loose his hand upon us, and pour forth all his wrath, we should be suddenly and irrecoverably destroyed, and therefore he spareth us.
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 On vv14–16 As for man, his days are as grass,.... He…
As for man, his days are as grass,.... He himself is like the grass which springs out of the earth; continues on it for a time, and then drops into it; the continuance of the grass is very short, it flourishes in the morning, is cut down at evening, and withers; see Psa 90:5. As a flower of the field, so he flourisheth; which denotes the goodliness of man, and describes him in his best estate, as possessed of health, riches, honour, and all the gifts and endowments of nature; and yet, with all these, is only like a field flower, exposed to every wind, liable to be cropped by every hand, and to be trampled upon by the beasts of the field; and therefore flourishes not long: so very precarious and uncertain is man in his most flourishing circumstances; see Isa 40:6.
.
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Psalms 103:16
psa 103:16
psa 103:16
psa 103:16For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,.... A stormy wind, as the Targum, which tears it up by its roots, or blows off the flower, and it is seen no more; or a blighting easterly wind, which, blowing on it, shrivels it up, and it dies at once; such an one as blasted the seven ears of corn in Pharaoh's dream, Gen 41:23 or any impetuous, drying, and noxious wind: and so when the east wind of adversity passes over a man, his riches, and honour, and estate, are presently gone; or some bodily distemper, which takes away health, strength, and beauty, and impairs the mind; and especially death, which removes at once into another world.
And the place thereof shall know it no more; the place where the flower grew shall know it no more; or it shall be seen no more in it: so man, when he dies, though he is not annihilated, he is somewhere; he is in another world, either of happiness or woe; yet he is not in this world, in the house and family, in the station and business he was; he is no longer known nor seen among men on earth; see Job 7:10.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On v14 Knoweth - The weakness and mortality of our natures,…
Knoweth - The weakness and mortality of our natures, and the frailty of our condition, so that if he should let loose his hand upon us, we should be irrecoverably destroyed.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv14–16 Verse 14. For he knoweth our frame] יצרנו yitsrenu,…
Verse 14. For he knoweth our frame] יצרנו yitsrenu, "our formation;" the manner in which we are constructed, and the materials of which we are made. He knows we cannot contend with him, and if he uses his power against us, we must be crushed to destruction. In all his conduct towards us he considers the frailty of our nature, the untowardness of our circumstances, the strength and subtlety of temptation, and the sure party (till the heart is renewed) that the tempter has within us. Though all these things are against us, yet it must ever be said, whatever use we make of it, "the grace of God is sufficient for us." But alas! alas! who makes use of that sufficient grace? Here, then, is cause for condemnation. But, O amazing mercy! if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him; for he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are but dust. The man who can say, in the face of these Scriptures, Let us sin that grace may abound, is a brute and demon, who has neither lot nor part in this thing.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v14 Psa 103:14-16. For he knoweth our frame — The…
Psa 103:14-16. For he knoweth our frame — The weakness and mortality of our natures, and the frailty and misery of our condition, (as the expression seems to be explained in the following clause) That we are but dust — And that if he should let loose his hand upon us, we should be irrecoverably destroyed. For, as for man — Fallen, mortal man; his days are as grass — Which grows out of the earth, rises but a little way above it, and soon withers and returns to it again: see Isa 40:6-7. As a flower of the field — If man, in his best estate, seem somewhat more than grass; if he flourish in health and strength, youth and beauty, riches and honour; if he look fresh and fair, gay and lovely, glorious and powerful; yet even then he is but as a flower which, though distinguished a little from the grass, will wither with it; yea, as a flower of the field — Which is more exposed to winds and other violences than the flowers of the garden, that are secured by the art and care of the gardener; so he flourisheth — Unfolds his beauty in youth, and flourishes a while in the vigour of manhood; but the wind — A blasting or blighting wind, unseen and unlooked for; passeth over it — Over the flower, even when it is in its perfection; and it is gone — It droops, shrinks, and bows its head; its leaves fall off, and it sinks into the ground that gave it birth. And the place thereof shall know it no more — There is no more any appearance or remembrance of it in the place where it stood and flourished. Thus the life of man is not only wasting of itself, but its period is liable to be anticipated by a thousand accidents. If the breath of the divine displeasure pass over him, and God, with rebukes, correct him for iniquity, his beauty consumes away like a moth fretting a garment: his comeliness and vigour; his prosperity, wealth, and glory; his health, strength, and life, waste away gradually, or vanish suddenly; and he bows his drooping head and mingles again with his native dust; his friends and his companions look for him at the accustomed spot which he once adorned, but in vain: the earth has opened her mouth to receive him, and his place shall know him no more.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv14–16 For he knoweth our frame - Our formation; of…
For he knoweth our frame - Our formation; of what we are made; how we are made. That is, he knows that we are made of dust; that we are frail; that we are subject to decay; that we soon sink under a heavy load. This is given as a reason why he pities us - that we are so frail and feeble, and that we are so easily broken down by a pressure of trial.
He remembereth that we are dust - Made of the earth. Gen 2:7; Gen 3:19. In his dealings with us he does not forget of what frail materials he made us, and how little our frames can bear. He tempers his dealings to the weakness and frailty of our nature, and his compassion interposes when the weight of sorrows would crush us. Remembering, too, our weakness, he interposes by his power to sustain us, and to enable us to bear what our frame could not otherwise endure. Compare the notes at Isa 57:16.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv14–16 14. Our frame—Our formation, or workmanship, referring specially to…
14. Our frame—Our formation, or workmanship, referring specially to the body, or perishable nature. The reference is to Gen_2:7 : “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.” See notes on Psa_139:15-16
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv14–16 14. Here as often the frailty of man is…
14. Here as often the frailty of man is pleaded as a motive for mercy. Cp. Psa_78:39; Psa_89:47.
our frame] Lit. our formation; what we are made of. The verse is an allusion to Gen_2:7, “The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground.”
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 On vv14, 16 (14) Frame.—Rather, fashioning; referring to Gen_2:7, or possibly to…
(14) Frame.—Rather, fashioning; referring to Gen_2:7, or possibly to the image so common in the prophecy of the potter’s vessel.
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 On vv14–16 For he knoweth our frame; or, our formation (Kay)…
For he knoweth our frame; or, our formation (Kay) the manner in which we were formed. (see Gen_2:7) He remembereth that we are dust. (comp. Gen_2:7 Gen_3:19 Gen_19:27 Job_34:15, etc.)
"This body of our humiliation.
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There is a truth revealed in God"s Word which seems to have a painful side. God is to us as we are to him. "Thou renderest to every man according to his work;" "With the froward thou wilt show thyself froward." It is a truth which needs careful qualifications. We have one such in this text. God"s ways with us are taken upon due consideration of our bodily frailty. There may be a right or a wrong excuse drawn from the weakness of human nature. We certainly are under limited conditions, and these must be duly considered.
I GOD"S WAYS WITH US ARE TAKEN WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE OF OUR BODIES. Observe that "frame" is more than "body." This vehicle of the human spirit is wholly the plan of God.
1. Its actual parts, powers, relations, are known to him. "Fearfully and wonderfully made." Illustrate hand, eye, brain.
2. The special tone and habit of each individual are known to him. We may think of him studying each one as a parent does the disposition of each child.
3. The conditions due to hereditary taint and to civilization. Some have a great fight with bodily and mental taint or bias. And there are special influences of disease, and mischievous results often follow it.
4. The general frailty, the passing away, the gradual decaying of the vital powers, God knows and estimates.
II GOD"S WAYS WITH US ARE TAKEN WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN OUR BODIES AND OUR MINDS. Minds are spiritual things, but they work through a material frame. The brain is the central machine, to which are attached the separate machines of the senses. The force of the machine is the blood. The spiritual operations of the mind are helped or hindered by the condition of the body. Illustrate a speck in the brain, or weakness in the heart. Sometimes we cannot think we must just be still. Sometimes we feel depressed, and a sombre tone is put on our thinking. We fret over such things, until we remember that our God knows all. He expects no more work from us than he knows we can do; and he never counts the times of repairing and refreshing our bodily machine to be idle or wasted times.
III GOD"S WAYS WITH US ARE TAKEN WITH FULL KNOWLEDGE OF THE CONNECTION BETWEEN OUR BODIES AND OUR RELIGION. What he asks from each of us is just this the noblest religious life we can reach under our existing body conditions. We fret to be free from the body, as St. Paul apparently did: "Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" But precisely the test under which each one of us is placed is this Can you live a godly life in that body of yours, and under those precise body conditions of yours? Only when you can will God find it fitting to entrust you with the immortal and incorruptible body. Oar religious life is a thing of varying moods. Sometimes our "title is clear;" sometimes "our feet are firm;" sometimes our "head is lifted up;" sometimes we "walk in darkness, and have no light;" sometimes we say, "All these things are against me;" "I shall one day perish by the hand of Saul." The very variety unduly troubles us, and we fear lest God should regard us as unstable. But he "knows our frame." Christian joy is very closely linked with bodily health, and Christian gloom with bodily disease. Some diseases spoil the vision. And the body is the great spoiler of the soul"s vision. The glorious attainment of the religious life is to get above body hinderings; to become master of our bodies in Christ; to "know how to possess the vessels of our bodies in sanctification and honour." Feeling this to be the great aim in life leads to the excesses and extravagances of hermits and devotees. Remember, then, two things:
1. God sees souls.
2. God duly reckons for the body.
It may be that we shall be surprised to find what soul progress we have really made, when the body-clog drops off. This tender and considerate representation of God is full of comfort to us. But then God has not left this sentence to lie in his Word as a general statement. He has taken our frame on himself, so that he might gain experimental knowledge of it. Jesus is the Brother-Man of sorrows. We may think of God"s ways with us as based on the experience of Jesus. And if God"s omniscience is a reason for trust, how much more is Christ"s human experience! R.T.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain On vv14–16 Ver. 14. For he knoweth our frame. He knows…
Ver. 14. For he knoweth our frame. He knows how we are made, for he made us. Our make and build, our constitution and temperament, our prevailing infirmity and most besetting temptation he well perceives, for he searches our inmost nature.
He remembereth that we are dust. Made of dust, dust still, and ready to return to dust. We have sometimes heard of "the Iron Duke, " and of iron constitutions, but the words are soon belied, for the Iron Duke is dissolved, and other men of like rigour are following to the grave, where "dust to dust" is an appropriate requiem. We too often forget that we are dust, and try our minds and bodies unduly by excessive mental and bodily exertion, we are also too little mindful of the infirmities of others, and impose upon them burdens grievous to be borne; but our heavenly Father never overloads us, and never fails to give us strength equal to our day, because he always takes our frailty into account when he is apportioning to us our lot. Blessed be his holy name for this gentleness towards his frail creatures.
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Ver. 14. He knoweth our frame. "Our formation; "the manner in which we are constructed, and the materials of which we are made. Adam Clarke.
Ver. 14. He knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust. Not like some unskilled empiric, who hath but one receipt for all, strong or weak, young or old; but as a wise physician considers his patient, and then writes his bill. Men and devils are but God's apothecaries, they make not our physic, but give what God prescribes. Balaam loved Balak's fee well enough, but could not go a hair's breadth beyond God's commission. William Gumall.
Ver. 14. He remembereth that we are dust. As if the very matter out of which man was first made, though without sin, were a disadvantage to him, in the resisting of sin. It was a disadvantage before man had any sin in him, how much more is it now when most men have nothing at all in them but sin, and the best have very much. "That which is born of the flesh, "saith Christ, "is flesh." Corrupt nature can produce none but corrupt acts. Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 14. We are dust.
O how in this Thy quire of souls I stand,
Propt by Thy hand
A heap of sand!
Which busie thoughtslike windswould scatter quite,
And put to flight,
But for Thy might;
Thy hand alone doth tame
Those blasts, and knit my frame. Henry Vaughan.
Ver. 14, 16. We are dust. I never see one of those spiral pillars of dust which, like a mimic simoon, rush along the road upon a windy day, with- ont thinking, "There is an image of life." Dust and a breath! Observe how the apparent "pillar" is but a condition, an active condition, of the particles of dust, and those particles continually changing. The form depends upon the incessant movement. The heavy sand floats on the impalpable air while it partakes its motion; let that cease and it fails, So the dull clods of the field, smitten by force, take wings and soar in life, partake for a time its rapid course, and then, the force exhausted, fall back into their former state. A whirl, a flux, maintained by forces without, and ceasing when they are withdrawn; that is our life. James Hinton, in "Thoughts on, Health and some of its Conditions, " 1871.
Ver. 14.
1. Man's Constitution.
2. God's Consideration. W. D.
Psalms 103:15*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv14–16 For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we…
Psa_103:14
For He knoweth our frame; He remembereth that we are dust.
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Gods perfect knowledge and merciful consideration of our frame
I. The nature of the human frame.
1. The body.
(1) Its wants and necessities.
(2) Its weakness.
(3) Its pains and sicknesses.
(4) Its mortality.
2. The soul, as in union with the body.
(1) The disadvantage arising from hence to that faculty of the soul which we call the understanding; the foundation of all the excellency and glory of man, but liable to be sadly confined, clouded and even distracted by the alterations that happen in the temperature of the body.
(2) Being united to a fleshly body, the soul is beset and agitated by a variety of passions, that are not natural to it, and yet could not more vex and influence it if they were.
(3) The consequence of all the rest is, that the embodied soul has a great many difficulties to struggle with and surmount, in the steady exercise of virtue and piety, in the regular exercises of devotion, and in maintaining its integrity and faithfulness to the end of this mortal life.
II. Gods knowledge of the human frame.
1. Immediate and direct.
2. Perfect. He sees us through and through, without and within. This perfect knowledge of God extends not to some actions only, but to all; not only to our external actions, but even those which pass no further than the mind itself; its thoughts, and purposes, and affections; its least tendencies to good or evil; and the degree of good or evil in each.
III. Gods compassionate regard to the nature and weakness of our frame in all His dealings with those that fear Him.
1. He does not expect that they should new-model and alter their frame. This is absolutely out of their power, and therefore no part of their duty.
2. God, who knoweth our frame, requires no other measures of virtue, obedience, and devotion, than are proportioned to the nature He hath given us, and the state and circumstances of being in which we are placed.
3. He knoweth our frame, and therefore does not willingly afflict and grieve us, not for His pleasure but for our profit, and that we may be made partakers of His holiness. And when He sees it necessary to correct us, it is in measure, and for no longer time than is expedient.
4. Out of a merciful regard to our frame, and remembrance that we are but dust, our gracious God grants us all that assistance and support and consolation of which we stand in need.
5. Remembering that we are dust (as liable to be swept out of the world as dust is to be scattered and blown away by the wind), He watches over us with a most tender care, and preserves us in life, as long as His own glory and our interest requires it.
IV. The ground or reason of that mercy which God exercises towards them that fear Him. He has the relation of a father to us, and the affection of a father for us; the affection or love without any of the imperfections attending it in earthly parents. Application.
1. Since the words of the text are designed not only for the consolation of those that fear God, they that do not fear Him have nothing to do with the comfort they administer, as long as they continue in their sins.
2. This should make us more favourable in our censures of the characters and actions of others, than we too commonly are.
3. Let such as truly fear God often revolve the subject of this discourse in their thoughts: it would be of great use to them, by affording them ground of caution on the one hand, and of comfort and encouragement on the other.
(1) Let me consider that I am dust, and from hence learn not to boast of anything I call mine, or to presume upon it: for, alas! what is anything merely human as such? human life, or reason, or virtue, or any other accomplishment? how weak the foundation! how uncertain the tenure!
(2) The comfort which the same consideration yields to persons of integrity is very great, and very apparent. Does not my heart condemn me, as wanting sincerity? I may, then, have confidence towards God, that He will not condemn me for the want of perfection: all my desire is before Him, and my groaning is not hid from Him. As He knoweth my most secret sins, so my sorrow for them, and my conflicts with them. As He knoweth all my weaknesses, so He knoweth how to pity them, and is both willing and able to help them. He will proportion my burdens to my strength, or my strength to my burdens. (H. Grove.)
God remembers mans weakness
1. God is absolutely faithful in all His dealings with us. He treats us as just such creatures as we really are. He remembers that we are dust. But He remembers, too, what is in this dust: our insignificance in connection with our immortality, our powers and capacities of spirit. He therefore does not despise, but pities us. As a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him. And this knowledge of our frailty is given as the occasion of His compassion, For He knoweth our frame, etc. It is thus contrast in us which stirs the Divine heart. I never had my sympathy more excited than once when I found a man, of superb education and talent, doing the most menial tasks, in order to get food and raiment. Had he been a boor, of spirit in keeping with his condition, he would have hardly awakened a passing thought. And if mans soul were as limited as his bodily condition, as the materialist says, only animated dust, God would have evinced no such concern, for there would have been no occasion for it. It is the reflection of Gods own image in human nature, spirituality, that might glow at His throne, confined in clay, an incorruptible chrysalized in corruption, that brings the Divine to bow in solicitude over us.
2. But the Divine compassion is not of the nature of comfort in our perishing condition, to sustain us until all is over. He does not let us perish. Note the contrast in a succeeding verse, But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear Him. How many once familiar faces I miss! Others are getting ready to fold up the tent of the flesh and disappear over the horizon of time. I shall soon miss others, or you will miss me; but not much. Lord Macaulay, speaking of the death of Wilberforce, says, I was truly fond of him. And how is that? How very little the world misses anybody! If I were to die to-morrow, not one of the fine people with whom I dine every week will take the less on Saturday at the table to which I was invited to meet them . . . And I am quite even with them . . . There are not ten people in the world whose deaths would spoil my dinner; but there are one or two whose deaths would break my heart. Macaulay was not hard-hearted, only plain-spoken, to say that, for it is true of all of us. God alone follows us with His solicitous care when we leave the world. If we have accepted His companionship, and walked with Him on earth, He will conduct us for ever in the land of His rest.
3. The expression, God remembereth that we are dust, suggests that the plan of salvation which He has devised for us may be easily understood. If we were fallen angels, with powerful intellects, accustomed to solve eternal mysteries, glowing, like stars in this, our nether firmament, and with vast moral energies, and ages in which to perform, I can imagine that God would have given us a very different and immensely fuller scheme of doctrine and duties than He has given. But remembering that so brief is life that we can know but little, He has flashed the saving truth before our souls, so that he may run that reads. Behold the consideration of God in telling us, so simply and vet so clearly, all we need to know; and telling it in such a way that it falls into the heart as easily as light through a window into your dwelling, if you will only make your heart walls transparent with sincerity.
4. God, remembering that we are dust, has given a religion which may be readily accepted. We have no time to transform our natures by any process of development in virtue, by the evolution of any slight germ of spirituality we may have within us, for have we the strength any more than the leaves now dropping from the trees in the winter winds have strength of growth to grow into a forest? Some of you have tried it; ten, twenty, thirty years have been spent in the honest attempt to make over your lives, refine your dispositions, spiritualize your natures. But you will confess that you have made hardly perceptible progress; perhaps have only felt more strangely the downward current in your attempt to buffet it.
5. Behold the loving consideration of God, in making, not the complete renovation of heart and life the condition of salvation, but simple faith and repentance, and the acceptance of the peace of the Spirit, which transforms the nature. I cannot revive myself, lying as a poor, drooping, dying plant; but I can give myself up to the showers of heaven which quicken me. I can accept of immortality with the gasp of my mortality. (J. M. Ludlow, D.D.)
The pity of the Lord
The pity of the Lord is here said to spring out of His knowledge and His memory; but if He were not pitifully inclined towards the frail children of the dust, no amount of knowledge and memory could in themselves originate in Him the sweet qualities of tenderness and mercy. A hard man may fully know and well remember the sorrows and afflictions of his neighbours, and yet feel no pity, and exercise no benevolence. Even the fact that such an one is a father is no absolute security here; for there are fathers without natural affection, who harden their hearts against their children, and close their doors against their own flesh and blood. As to the limitation that is here, them that fear Him, there need be no thought for a moment of narrowness or exclusiveness; for if the Lord pitied only those who fear Him, what would have become of us when we feared Him not? He knoweth our frame, for He hath made it. He, and He alone, understands the mystery of life, and the invisible link that binds together the body and the spirit, the silver cord which, being loosened, ends the feast of life so far as this present world is concerned. He knoweth our frame, too, for He has taken part with us in our very flesh in the person of His Son Jesus Christ. Forasmuch as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself took part in the same. The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. He knows the weakness of our flesh, for He Himself was weak; when shrinking from the Cup He said, If it be possible, let it pass, while yet, in the impossibility of loves failure, it passed not. Could ye not watch with Me one hour? not one brief hour? Verily, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. We are but dust. He knows it, and by the experience of His humanity remembers it. He knows, too, the strength of our temptation, matched, and, alas! sometimes overmatched, against this weakness, and He will not burden us above our strength; or if even for wise ends this should be, and we should faint and fall, we shall be sure still of His pity, for He knoweth our frame. (J. W. Lance.)
Gods individual care
The historian tells us that the great Duke of Wellington, who was known as the Iron Duke, before one of his earliest campaigns had a soldier with his full marching equipment accurately weighed. Knowing what one soldier of average strength had to carry, he could judge how far his army might be called to march without breaking down. Our Heavenly Father does not deal in averages. With infinite wisdom and love He cares individually for us. (L. A. Banks, D.D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v14 how we are formed
how we are formed
This can be stated in active form. AT: "what our bodies are like" or "how he formed our bodies" (See: Active or Passive)
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he knows that we are dust
When Yahweh created Adam the first man he created him from dust. AT: "he remembers that he created us from dust" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
As for man, his days are like grass
In this simile, the length of man's life is being compared to the short length of time that grass grows before it dies. AT: "The length of man's life is short like that of grass" (See: Simile)
he flourishes like a flower in a field
In this simile, how man grows over time is compared to how a flower grows. (See: Simile)
flourishes
To "flourish" is to grow well or be healthy.
The wind blows over it, and it disappears ... where it once grew
These phrases continue to talk about flowers and grass. They compare how flowers and grass die to how man dies. AT: "The wind blows over the flowers and grass and they disappear, and no one can tell where they once grew—it is the same way with man" (See: Simile)
translationWords
know
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On v14 103:14-16 The Lord compassionately cares for frail humans (see…
103:14-16 The Lord compassionately cares for frail humans (see 37:2; 90:5; 92:7; 102:4; Isa 40:6-8).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.