For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
Parallel Translations
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For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
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For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
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For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told.
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Psalms 90:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 78:33 Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
- 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.”
- Psalms 90:4 For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (15 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 9. For all our days are passed away in…
9. For all our days are passed away in thy indignation. This might be viewed as a general confirmation of the preceding sentence, That the whole course of man’s life is suddenly brought to an end, as soon as God shows himself displeased. But in my opinion Moses rather amplifies what he has said above concerning the rigour of God’s wrath, and his strict examination of every case in which he punishes sin. He asserts that this terror which God brought upon his people was not only for a short time, but that it was extended without intermission even to death. He complains that the Jews had almost wasted away by continual miseries; because God neither remitted nor mitigated his anger. It is therefore not surprising to find him declaring that their years passed away like a tale, when God’s anger rested upon them so unremittingly.
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 Our days are not only short, but miserable, forasmuch…
Our days are not only short, but miserable, forasmuch as our sins daily provoke thy wrath.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 90:9 For all our days are passed away…
Psa 90:9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale [that is told].
Ver. 9. For all our days are passed away] Heb. do turn away the face. See Psa 90:3.
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We spend our years as a tale that is told] The grace whereof is brevity, q.d. dicto citius. Some render it, as a thought, that ariseth and passeth. To this sense the Greek poet;
Aιφα γαρ ωστε νοημα παρερχεται αγλαυς ηβη.
The Chaldee hath it, Ut flatus oris in Hyeme, as the breath of one’s mouth in winter. See Jas 4:14.
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 Are passed away; or, turn away themselves or their…
Are passed away; or, turn away themselves or their face from us. They do not continue with us, but quickly turn their backs upon us, and leave us.
As a tale that is told; which may a little affect us for the present, but is quickly ended and gone out of mind, Or, as a word, as Job 37:2, which in an instant is gone, and that irrevocably. Or, as a thought, or a sigh, or a breath; all which come to one sense.
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 For all our days are passed away in thy…
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath,.... The life of man is rather measured by days than by months or years; and these are but few, which pass away or "decline" (g) as the day does towards the evening; see Jer 6:4 or "turn away their face", as the word (h) may be rendered: they turn their backs upon us, and not the face to us; so that it is a hard thing to get time by the forelock; and these, which is worst of all, pass away in the "wrath" of God. This has a particular reference to the people of Israel in the wilderness, when God had swore in his wrath they should not enter into the land of Canaan, but wander about all their days in the wilderness, and be consumed there; so that their days manifestly passed away under visible marks of the divine displeasure; and this is true of all wicked men, who are by nature children of wrath, and go through the world, and out of it, as such: and even it may be said of man in general; the ailments, diseases, and calamities, that attend the state of infancy and youth; the losses, crosses, and disappointments, vexations and afflictions, which wait upon man in riper years; and the evils and infirmities of old age, do abundantly confirm this truth: none but God's people can, in any sense, be excepted from it, on whom no wrath comes, being loved with an everlasting love; and yet these, in their own apprehensions, have frequently the wrath of God upon them, and pass many days under a dreadful sense of it:
we spend our years as a tale that is told; or as a "meditation" (y) a thought of the heart, which quickly passes away; or as a "word" (z), as others, which is soon pronounced and gone; or as an assemblage of words, a tale or story told, a short and pleasant one; for long tales are not listened to; and the pleasanter they are, the shorter the time seems to be in which they are told: the design of the metaphor is to set forth the brevity, and also the vanity, of human life; for in tales there are often many trifling and vain things, as well as untruths told; men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree a lie, in every state; and, in their best state, they are altogether vanity: a tale is a mere amusement; affects for a while, if attended to, and then is lost in oblivion; and such is human life: in a tale there is oftentimes a mixture, something pleasant, and something tragic; such changes are there in life, which is filled up with different scenes of prosperity and adversity: and perhaps this phrase may point at the idle and unprofitable way and manner in which the years of life are spent, like that of consuming time by telling idle stories; some of them spent in youthful lusts and pleasures; others in an immoderate pursuit of the world, and the things of it; very few in a religious way, and these with great imperfection, and to very little purpose and profit; and particularly point to the children of Israel in the wilderness, who how they spent their time for thirty eight years there, we have no tale nor story of it. The Targum is,
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"we have consumed the days of our life as the breath or vapour of the mouth in winter,''
which is very visible, and soon passes away; see Jam 4:14.
(g) "declinaverunt", Pagninus, Montanus; "declinant", Munster, Muis. (h) "Deflectunt faciem", Gejerus, so Ainsworth. (y) "sicut cogitationem", Gejerus, Michaelis; so Ainsworth. (z) "Sicut sermonem", Pagninus, Montanus; "instar locutionis", Musculus, Vatablus; "dicto citius", Tigurine version.
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 9. We spend our years as a tale]…
Verse 9. We spend our years as a tale] The Vulgate has: Anni nostri sicut aranea meditabuntur; "Our years pass away like those of the spider." Our plans and operations are like the spider's web; life is as frail, and the thread of it as brittle, as one of those that constitute the well-wrought and curious, but fragile, habitation of that insect. All the Versions have the word spider; but it neither appears in the Hebrew, nor in any of its MSS. which have been collated.
My old Psalter has a curious paraphrase here: "Als the iran (spider) makes vayne webe for to take flese (flies) with gile, swa our yeres ere ockupide in ydel and swikel castes about erthly thynges; and passes with outen frute of gude werks, and waste in ydel thynkyns." This is too true a picture of most lives.
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But the Hebrew is different from all the Versions. "We consume our years (כמו הגה kemo hegeh) like a groan." We live a dying, whining, complaining life, and at last a groan is its termination! How amazingly expressive!
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain For all our days are passed away in thy…
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath - Margin, “turned.” The Hebrew word - פנה pânâh - means to “turn;” then, to turn to or “from” anyone; and hence, to turn away as if to flee or depart. Here it means that our days seem to turn from us; to give the back to us; to be unwilling to remain with us; to leave us. This seems to be the fruit or result of the anger of God, as if he were unwilling that our days should attend us any longer. Or, it is as if he took away our days, or caused them to turn away, because he was angry and was unwilling that we should any longer enjoy them. The cutting off of life in any manner is a proof of the divine displeasure; and in every instance death should be regarded as a new illustration of the fact that the race is guilty.
We spend our years as a tale that is told - Margin, “meditation.” The Hebrew word - הגה hegeh - means properly
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(a) a muttering, or growling, as of thunder;
(b) a sighing or moaning;
(c) a meditation, thought.
It means here, evidently, thought; that is, life passes away as rapidly as thought. It has no permanency. It makes no impression. Thought is no sooner come than it is gone. So rapid, so fleeting, so unsubstantial is life. The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate in some unaccountable way render this “as a spider.” The translation in our common version, “as a tale that is told,” is equally unauthorized, as there is nothing corresponding to this in the Hebrew. The image in the original is very striking and beautiful. Life passes with the rapidity of thought!
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 9. Our days are passed away in thy wrath—They…
9. Our days are passed away in thy wrath—They are “passed away” under the dispensation of thy judicial death-sentence.
As a tale that is told—As a mourning. The sense of mourning, as if life were one prolonged death march, or moaning, is more in harmony with the first member of the verse and with the general scope, and is not an unfrequent use of the word. See Eze_2:10; Isa_16:7; Isa_38:14; Isa_59:11. The idea is, that of a low murmur, or muffled sound of sorrow, which dies from the ear as soon as uttered.
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 9. are passed away] Lit. turn or decline towards…
9. are passed away] Lit. turn or decline towards evening (Jer_6:4). We are “a generation of thy wrath” (Jer_7:29). Our life is drawing to a close under a cloud; there is no sign of ‘light at evening-tide.’
we spend &c.] Lit. we consume our years as a sigh: they are past as quickly as a sigh, itself the expression of sorrow and weariness. The meaning of the word is however uncertain. Some explain, as a thought, comparing Theognis, 979, “Swift as a thought gay youth is past and gone”: the Targ. gives as a breath: A.V. follows Jerome, “consumpsimus annos nostros quasi sermonem loquens.”
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 (9) Are passed away.—Better, are declining.
(9) Are passed away.—Better, are declining.
A tale.—Rather, a murmur. (See Note, Psa_1:2.) Probably, from the parallelism with wrath, a moan of sadness. So in Eze_2:10, “a sound of woe.” Since the cognate verb often means “meditate,” some render here thought. Theognis says,
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“Gallant youth speeds by like a thought.”
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 For all our days are passed away in thy…
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath; or, "under thy wrath thou art still angry with us". (comp. Deu_32:15-25) We spend our years rather, bring our years to an end (Hengstenberg, Kay, Revised Version) as a tale that is told; rather, as a reverie, or "as a murmur.
"As a tale that is told.
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Yes, it is true; we do spend our lives as is here said. I know the word rendered "tale" may bear other meanings a thought, a breath, a meditation, a numbering. (Exo_5:8) But this in our text sets forth the psalmist"s thought as well as, if not better than, any other. His view of life is a very sad one, and is by no means true as concerns the blessed dead who die in the Lord. Their lives are not all "labour and sorrow;" still less are they "all passed away in" God"s wrath; nor are they so vain and worthless as, in his sadness, the psalmist represents them. His idea, in the similitude he here employs of "a tale," has in view the brevity, the trifling character, the speedy forgetfulness into which they fell; but these are not all the characteristics of a tale that is told. Oriental peoples are very fond of short bright stories, and one who can tell such stories well is ever welcome amongst them. The psalmist had no doubt often heard such recitals, and he says So is man"s life. Well, it is so
I IN THAT OUR DAYS ARE SOON OVER. The tale that was told was never long, but soon done, and room made for another. And so is it with our life, even at the longest, and especially that portion of our life which is of paramount importance the formative character fixing years. How soon they are over! And the life takes its bent and bias from them, and generally continues so to the end. In the tale of most lives you know very soon how it will go on. The child is father to the man, and you can generally foretell how it will wind up. Let such as are young, therefore, take heed to their days, the days of their youth they are all-important.
II IN ITS VARIED CHARACTER. There are tales told that are poor, mean, hurtful, not worth the telling; that stain the imagination, that incite to evil, and are doomed to a speedy and contemptuous oblivion. But there are others of an entirely different character. And so it is with men"s lives some evil, some blessed and good.
III IF EITHER IS TO BE WORTHY, THE ESSENTIAl, ELEMENTS ARE THE SAME.
1. Energy and activity.
2. Thoughtfulness.
3. Character must be revealed.
4. The aim must be generous and high.
5. It must end well. S.C.
Brief life as judgment on sin.
This is the point that is specially present to the mind of the author of the psalm; and it is the point specially impressed by the historical associations of the psalm. "Human transitoriness, the creature made subject to vanity, death in its much-disregarded connection with sin, these and the awful contrast, God"s eternity, his absolute disposition of men"s lives, his mindfulness of their misdeeds, are here the theme of melancholy contemplation." Recall the fact that during the thirty-eight years of the Israelite wanderings in the wilderness, they were subject to an extraordinary mortality, which was a direct judgment of Jehovah on their rebellion. A whole generation was punished, for the sin at Kadesh, by premature death. All from twenty years old and upward perished during the following years, so that only two representatives of the entire generation, Caleb and Joshua, actually entered the promised land. It is true that Moses himself lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, but his generation could not have reached a higher standard than seventy or eighty years. The truth that "the wages of sin is death" is forcibly illustrated by the historical record of the wilderness generation. We may trace the Divine wisdom in giving the judgment on sin this particular form, of shortened life.
I PROLONGED LIFE GIVES OPPORTUNITY FOR INCREASE OF SIN. See the case of the antediluvian sinners, who went on sinning through long lives until they became hopelessly corrupt, and had to be swept away by the Flood. It may, indeed, be a severe judgment to prolong a life, and a gracious judgment to shorten it.
II THE LOVE AND CLINGING TO LIFE MAKE SHORTENING LIFE A VERY EFFECTIVE JUDGMENT. Love of life is natural to man. It is the expression of his consciousness of immortality, only it leads him to want his immortality here . The things which man begins to do make it extremely trying to have to leave them unfinished. Life means pleasant relationships, which man feels it a very bitter thing to break off.
III MAN"S UTTER HELPLESSNESS IN THE PRESENCE OF EARLY DEATH MAKES THIS FORM OF JUDGMENT SPECIALLY HUMILIATING. To conquer, rise above, mate and master everything, is man"s supreme passion. Early death is God it may be the neglected God mastering him. 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 Ver. 9. For all our days are passed away…
Ver. 9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath. Justice shortened the days of rebellious Israel; each halting place became a graveyard; they marked their march by the tombs they left behind them. Because of the penal sentence their days were dried up, and their lives wasted away.
We spend our years as a tale that is told. Yea, not their days only, but their years flew by them like a thought, swift as a meditation, rapid and idle as a gossip's story. Sin had cast a shadow over all things, and made the lives of the dying wanderers to be both vain and brief. The first sentence is not intended for believers to quote, as though it applied to themselves, for our days are all passed amid the lovingkindness of the Lord, even as David says in the Ps 23:6 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." Neither is the life of the gracious man unsubstantial as a story teller's tale; he lives in Jesus, he has the divine Spirit within him, and to him "life is real, life is earnest" —the simile only holds good if we consider that a holy life is rich in interest, full of wonders, chequered with many changes, yet as easily ordered by providence as the improvisatore arranges the details of the story with which he beguiles the hour. Our lives are illustrations of heavenly goodness, parables of divine wisdom, poems of sacred thought, and records of infinite love; happy are we whose lives are such tales.
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Ver 9. For all our days go back again (wnp) in thy wrath. Hitherto he has spoken of the cause of that wrath of God which moveth him to smite the world with such mortality. Now here he further sets forth the same by the effects thereof in reference to that present argument he hath in hand. 1. That our days do as it were go backward in his wrath: that whereas God gave us being to live, our life and our being are nothing else but a going backward, as it were, to death and to nothing. Even as if a stranger being suddenly rapt and carried midway to his home, where are all his comforts, he should spend all the time that is behind, not in going forward to his home, but in going backward to the place from which he was suddenly brought. All the sons of Adam as soon as they have being and live are brought suddenly a great part of their way: and whereas they should go forward and live longer and longer, they from their first beginning to live go backward again to death and to nothing. This is the sum in effect of that which the Lord saith in the beginning of the Psalm, (Ps 90:3:) Thou bringest men to destruction; saying, Return again, ye sons of Adam: as if he should say, Thou makest a man, and when he is made, he in thy wrath doth haste to nothing else but destruction and to be marred again. Thus do our days as it were go backward, and we in them return from whence we came. —William Bradshaw.
Ver. 9. When I was in Egypt, three or four years ago, I saw what Moses himself might have seen, and what the Israelites, no doubt, very often witnessed: —a crowd of people surrounding a professed story teller, who was going through some tale, riveting the attention and exciting the feelings of those who listened to him. This is one of the customs of the East. It naturally springs up among any people who have few books, or none; where the masses are unable to read, and where, therefore, they are dependent for excitement or information on those who can address the ear, and who recite, in prose or verse, traditionary tales and popular legends. I dare say this sort of thing would be much in repute among the Israelites themselves during their detention in the wilderness, and that it served to beguile for them many a tedious hour. It is by this custom, then, that we venture to illustrate the statement of the text.
The hearing of a story is attended by a rapid and passing interest —it leaves behind it a vague impression, beyond which comparatively but few incidents may stand out distinctly in the after thought. In our own day even, when tales are put into printed books, and run through three or four volumes, we feel when we have finished one, how short it appears after all, or how short the time it seemed to take for its perusal. If full of incident, it may seem sometimes long to remember, but we generally come to the close with a sort of feeling that says, "And so that's all." But this must have been much more the case with the tales "that were told." These had to be compressed into what could be repeated at one time, or of which three or four might be given in an evening or an hour. The story ended; and then came the sense of shortness, brevity, the rapid flight of the period employed by it, with something like a feeling of wonder and dissatisfaction at the discovery of this. "For what is your life? It is even as a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away." —Thomas Binney.
Ver. 9. As a tale. The grace whereof is brevity. —John Trapp.
Ver. 9. As a tale that is told. The Chaldee has it, like the breath of our mouth in winter. —Daniel Cresswell.
Ver. 9. The thirty-eight years, which after this they were away in the wilderness, were not the subject of the sacred history, for little or nothing is recorded of that which happened to them from the second year to the fortieth. After they came out of Egypt, their time was perfectly trifled away, and was not worthy to be the subject of a history, but only of a tale that is told; for it was only to pass away time like telling stories, that they spent those years in the wilderness; all that while they were in the consuming, and another generation was in the rising...The spending of our years is like the telling of a tale. A year when it is past is like a tale when it is told. Some of our years are as a pleasant story, others as a tragical one; most mixed, but all short and transient; that which was long in the doing may be told in a short time. —Matthew Henry.
Ver. 9. We spend our year as a tale that is told, or, as a meditation (so some translate) suddenly or swiftly: a discourse is quickly over, whether it be a discourse from the mouth, or in the mind; and of the two the latter is far the more swift and nimble of foot. A discourse in our thoughts outruns the sun, as much as the sun outruns a snail; the thoughts of a man will travel the world over in a moment; he that now sits in this place, may be at the world's end in his thoughts, before I can speak another word. —Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 9. We spend our years as a tale that is told. This seems to express both a necessary fact and a censure. The rapid consumption of our years—their speedy passing away, is inevitable. But they may be spent also in a trifling manner to little valuable purpose, which would complete the disconsolate reflection on them, by the addition of guilt and censure. —John Foster, 1768-1843.
Ver. 9. As a tale that is told. In the Hebrew it is hgx-wmk, sicut meditatio, (as a meditation) and so we read it in the margin, as if all our years were little else than a continual meditation upon the things of this world. Indeed, much of man's time is spent in this kind of vain meditation, as how to deceive and play fast and loose for advantage; such a meditation had they, Isa 59:13, or meditating with the heart lying words; the same word in the Hebrew as in my text; or how to heap up riches, such a meditation had that covetous man in the gospel, Lu 12:17; or how to violate the sacred bonds of religion and laws of God, such a meditation had they, Ps 2:1-3; and in such vain meditations as these do men spend their years "as a tale that is told" ...
To close this point with Gregory Nazianzen.
What are we but a vain dream that hath no existence or being, a mere phantasm or apparition that cannot be held, a ship sailing in the sea which leaves no impression or trace behind it, a dust, a vapour, a morning dew, a flower flourishing one day and fading another, yea, the same day behold it springing and withered, but my text adds another metaphor from the flying of a bird, and we fly away, not go and run but fly, the quickest motion that any corporeal creature hath. Our life is like the fight of a bird, it is here now and it is gone out of sight suddenly. The Prophet therefore speaking of the speedy departure of Ephraim's glory expresses it thus, "It shall flee away like a bird", Ho 9:11; and Solomon saith the like of riches, "they make themselves wings and flee away like an eagle toward heaven": Pr 23:5. David wished for the wings of a dove that he might flee away and be at rest and good cause he had for it, for this life is not more short than miserable...
Be it our care then not to come creeping and coughing to God with a load of diseases and infirmities about us, when we are at death's door and not before, but to consecrate the first fruits of our life to his service. It is in the spending our time (as one compares it) as in the distilling of waters, the thinnest and purest part runs out first and only the lees at last: what an unworthy thing will it be to offer the prime of our time to the world, the flesh, and the devil, and the dregs of it to God. He that forbade the lame and the blind in beasts to be sacrificed, will not surely allow it in men; if they come not to present their bodies a living sacrifice, while they are living and lively too, ere they be lame or blind or deformed with extremity of age, it is even a miracle if it prove then a holy, acceptable, or reasonable service. —Thomas Washbourne, 1655.
Ver. 9. (second clause). —The Hebrew is different from all the Versions. We consume our years (hgx-wmk kemo hegeh) like a groan. We live a dying, whining, complaining life, and at last a groan is its termination! —Adam Clarke.
Ver. 9. —The Vulgate translation has, Our years pass away like those of a spider. It implies that our life is as frail as the thread of a spider's web. Constituted most curiously the spider's web is; but what more fragile? In what is there more wisdom than in the complicated frame of the human body; and what more easily destroyed? Glass is granite compared with flesh; and vapours are rocks compared with life. —C.H.S.
Ver. 9.
1. Every man has a history. His life is as a tale—a separate tale—to be told.
2. Every man's history has some display of God in it. All our days, some may say, are passed away in thy wrath— all, others may say, in thy love—and others, some of our days in anger and some in love.
3. Every man's history will be told. In death, at judgment, through eternity.
—G.R.
Psalms 90:10*
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 We spend our years as a tale that is…
Psa_90:9
We spend our years as a tale that is told.
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Life--a tale
Assuming this version to give the true idea of the author, we have here three thoughts,
1. Significance. A tale has some meaning; is intended to impart some idea to others. Life is big with meaning. Amongst the many things which the tale of life speaks out are two wonderful things.
(1) Mans power of opposing himself, the arrangements of creation, and the will of God.
(2) The amazing patience and condescending mercy of God.
2. Observance. A tale implies, if written, readers; if oral, listeners. It is intended for observers. What observers has the life of every man! Society, devils, angels, God, are all observing, all reading us. Every act tells out some portion of this tale, and falls upon unnumbered ears.
3. Transitoriness. A tale told. Not inscribed upon marble or brass, not even written in a book,--but just told. The transitoriness of this tale, however, is not in its influence that is everlasting, every idea will tell on the ages, but in its earthly form of expression. It is passing away from here like a flower, a vapour. (Homilist.)
Life--a tale
I. Seeing that life imperceptibly passes, it should be the care of us all, that it be not misspent, or its opportunities unimproved. Life may be passed as vainly as the time occupied in hearing an idle tale.
1. Some tales are light and trifling,--merely to amuse and make the reader laugh. Such, also, is the life of some. Always light-hearted, never serious. They tread a round of vanity.
2. Other tales are of a grave caste, and turn on the interests of human life; but they are altogether worldly in their tone and tendency. So with the lives of many. They occupy their days with business; they are industrious, enterprising: but they have no concern about spiritual things.
3. Some tales are tales of truth. They give an account of godly men who served God in their generation, and died in peace. Such are the lives of Christians. They are using the means of grace, and growing in weanedness from the world; they seek the salvation of others, and prepare themselves for the coming of the Lord.
II. The most important of the tale is its close, and so also it is with life, The interest thickens towards the end.
1. Some tales, whether serious or trifling, have an unhappy termination. So the life of many. They die without preparation and without hope. The tale of human life is soon told, but how momentous are its issues!
2. Other tales have a joyful ending. Hope is realized. So the life of Gods people. Whatever doubts, troubles, trials, disappointments chequered it, the close of it is peace.
III. Some tales come sooner to a close than others. So life;--in some cases three-score years and ten, or four-score years; in other cases not sixty, not fifty, not forty years--not thirty or twenty years, or even ten. Delay not. Make sure of salvation now. (W. H. Hewitson, M.A.)
Life an exclamation
I. The main idea of the text is the transientness of life; it has the brevity of a cry. Some lives have only one word, some several, yet is each an exclamation. Some have the completeness of finished sentences; some fail in the midst; some have only a beginning, rather intimate that there is something to be said than say it. Then is life short, indeed, when man dies, not because he has exhausted a force so much as because he has met with an obstruction. And yet how often is this the case! The days are cut off; the sun goes down while it is yet day; the flower fadeth. Then, also, is life short when, though its voice fails not at the commencement of its utterance, it is broken off in the midst, and gives no complete expression to the deep meaning with which it is charged. And yet how often is it as an unfinished cry! How often do men pass away before they have half revealed the significance of their being! Things are long and short in comparison. The sense of duration is not absolute. The insect that lives but a day has, or might have, the feelings with which we regard seventy years . . . Suppose a being to live two millions of years, he would look down on our existence of seventy years with the same feelings as those with which we regard the creature of a day. It is only eternity that is really long--absolutely long. Eternity makes life nothing, and yet everything; sinks it to utter significance, and yet invests it with inconceivable importance.
II. If life is transient as a cry, it is a cry full of meaning. The importance of utterances does not depend on their length; it is not how long it takes to express a thing, but the nature of the thing expressed, which decides the greatness of the expression. A few words may reveal a world of meaning. Life is a cry, but what does it not reveal? The broken speech of our earthly days is the voice of souls. It shows what we are as souls; our principles, habits, etc . . . And, showing what we are, it shows also what we shall be, what we shall be for ever. And it does more than show what we shall be, it helps to make us it. Many different cries proceed from our common nature. Life in some is a cry of wonder, an expression of amazement at this mysterious universe, and their own mysterious being. Life in some is a cry of pain, grief from physical suffering, grief from adversities of lot, grief from social pressure on the hearts affections. Life in some is a cry of joy, the rapid, incoherent speech of ecstatic feeling. I do not ask which of these your life is, nor does it much signify in relation to the most important of all matters. But I do ask you, what is the temper and the form of your life? Time, which is so short, is the season for conversion, salvation; and without these, when it is passed, you will find yourselves in an eternity for which no preparation has been made. Everlasting life dates from regeneration, not from death; we cannot have the life immortal if we be not born again. (A. J. Morris.)
The tale of our years
I. The tale of our years is told in chapters. This is necessary for reference, for the understanding of the main points and features of the story--chap, 1, chap. 2, chap. 3, and so through the table of contents. But what are these chapters? Is there one devoted to infancy, that piece that every one forgets if he ever knew it? Is there another for childhood with its gambols, summer days in the woods and on the shore, and Christmas Days in the dear old home? Is there another for youth, that sentimental time, so foolish and yet so sweet? Is there one for manhood, with its responsibilities and strenuous work, and yet one more for old age with its pensiveness and its memories, the tender grace of a day that is dead? But these are, after all, only the headings of the chapters. When you read what is written you would perhaps be inclined to make other divisions. There is, e.g., a chapter of sins. Every tale told has that in it. Then there is the chapter of opportunities, the chapter of change, the chapter of sorrows, the chapter of mistakes. When the true man turns to read through some of these, the tears fall upon the page. He can hardly, dare to think. But blessed be God he can pray. To read the story of the years m a spirit of penitence and trust is so to number our days as to get us a heart of wisdom.
II. The tale of our years is illustrated. Illustrations are exceedingly popular in these days. Now, one advantage of an illustration is that by it an impression is conveyed immediately. It is to a page or two of writing what a photograph is to a water-colour drawing, or what a telegram is to a letter. The salient features of the situation are seized at once; what would take ten minutes to read is taken in from a picture in ten seconds. So there are many people who see the illustrations who never read the story. Has it ever struck you that it is precisely so in our lives? For one who reads their story there are a hundred who see the pictures. From them they form their opinion of the story. For example, such a comparatively unimportant thing as manners is an illustration of lifes story. If you acknowledge an acquaintance in the street as if you saw a ticket-of-leave sticking out of his pocket, you will make an impression on him. It may be that behind a lofty look and a disdainful air there is a kindly heart and a really humble nature. But it was the illustration that was seen and that lingers in the mind. How true it is, too, that our habits illustrate the tale. Such things as exaggeration, little mean ways, indolence, unpunctuality. Or, again, how often we illustrate our story by exhibitions of temper. This is seen by our children and servants, and perhaps by some who have read less of the tale of our years than those who share our home. Now, there is a sense in which all our acts are illustrative.
III. The tale of our years has a plot. It is often not intricate and dramatic. It may be free from excitement, from that which in some stories is so unhealthy, the sensational. It may be homely, familiar, and commonplace. But it is there. God has a plan for my life. Not more surely had He for Abraham and David or for a Tennyson, a Gladstone or a Bismarck, the greatest of great men than He has for me. There is a hidden unity, an interaction and a coinciding, a sequence, to which we have at present no complete key. Life is not a chaos, it is a cosmos.
IV. The story of our years has an end. It is soon told, the days of our years are threescore years and ten, etc. A thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday, etc. Twas but yesterday that we were children, our world the nursery. Twas but yesterday that we were wed, that our children were born, and now tis toward evening; the day is far spent-the tale of our years will soon be told. Now of 999 out of every 1,000 of these tales it might be said, they are fleeting literature, they soon pass out of circulation; even the critics forget them, and they are interred in the vast literary sepulchre of the British Museum. But are they on that account valueless? Not necessarily. Those forgotten books may have suggested ideas to greater minds than their authors. A spark may be dropped that kindles the fires of genius, and they blaze out in a splendour that impresses the world. So these lives of ours, which seem so commonplace, may enrich others.
V. The tale of our years has a moral. Every tale has, implicitly if not explicitly. And so has every life. When it is finished, it leaves on the mind of those who have known it intimately, some impression. There are some features that stand out, some moral qualities that have given a tone to the personality, or some principles that it has livingly illustrated. Men sum up their impression of the character. He was a successful man, but he never lost the simplicity of his tastes or the geniality of his demeanour. He was a prosperous man, but his wealth corrupted his spirituality. He was a disappointed man, but his sorrow never soured him. He had an uphill fight, but he won the respect of all and the love of many. But what the moral will be depends upon the dominant motives of the life. Are all lower considerations brought into subservience to that all-comprehending and ennobling ideal--Mans chief end is to glorify God and enjoy Him for ever? Then, if it be that, the story told by the years will be a Pilgrims Progress, a progress out from sin and bondage and selfishness, guided by the heavenly light, up to the Cross, where the burden of guilt rolls off into the grave of the Divine forgiveness; through the dark valley of temptation and awful conflict with him who would spill your soul; through Vanity Fair, unsoiled by its corruptions, to the Delectable Mountains of a solid and settled peace; then to the land Beulah, where the shining ones commonly walk, because it is nigh unto the city; until only the river remains, over which there is no bridge, but for which there is a Divine Pilot who makes it shallow for all who trust: when thou passest through the waters I will be with thee, etc. Then through the gate over which is written, Blessed are they who do His commandments, etc. (R. B. Brindley.)
Our years
1. Our years are determined (Job_14:5); give entertainment to this thought, close as we are upon the end of another year. Fear not, fret not, weary not, poor pilgrim of a day. The pilgrimage will soon be over. Thy days are determined. The number of thy months is with me. I have appointed thy bounds that thou canst not pass. Thou wilt soon accomplish as an hireling thy day. There is a time to be born, and a time to die.
2. Our years are connected the one with the other. They are not like adjacent islands, deep water flowing around and between. We go right onwards, treading on the same kind of ground to the end. Such, too, usually, is the growth of character in the individual man. It goes on growing through the year, and it will not stop growing at the end of one year, and then begin again to-morrow morning when the year is new. The growing may be quickened or it may be confirmed a little, by the impressions and the sanctities of this last hour; quickened or confirmed in goodness; or else, alas, the heart, passing through these solemnities and agitations without a real religious faith, will be hardened in evil, and made more impervious to the impressions of any future season. And yet here let us be careful, else we shall come near to the acceptance of the very worst intellectual doctrine of this time--the doctrine of inevitable necessity, or, religiously viewed, the doctrine of a moral continuity in character and being, which nothing can break. We never lose our personal identity, character runs on, the same thinking substance, the same immortal soul continues; but grace, that renovating, cleansing, saving power, is introduced into the consciousness, transforms the character, lives in the experience, brings out the Divine images, makes the new creature in Christ Jesus. Need I say how prophetic our years become when we thus begin them in grace? Grace is the earthly name for glory. Glory is the heavenly name for grace. (A. Raleigh, 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 Our life passes away under your wrath
Our life passes away under your wrath
The word "because" can be used to make clear that God's wrath causes human life to end. AT: "Our lives come to an end because of your wrath" (See: Connecting Words)
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like a sigh
The writer compares human life to a sigh to emphasize that life is very brief. (See: Simile)
seventy
"70" (See: Numbers)
eighty
"80" (See: Numbers)
even our best years are marked by trouble and sorrow
This can be stated in active form. AT: "Even in our best years we experience trouble and sorrow" (See: Active or Passive)
we fly away
This is a polite way of referring to people dying. AT: "we die" (See: Euphemism)
translationWords
life
wrath
year
trouble
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 90:9-10 A groan of sorrow (Ezek 2:10) sums up…
90:9-10 A groan of sorrow (Ezek 2:10) sums up a life spent in facing the consequences of sin. • Humans cause trouble (see Ps 10:6) and receive pain in return.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.