Psalms 39:5 - meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Psalms 39:5
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
to give · verb, qal perfect, 2nd person masculine singular
days
יָמַ֗יya.Mai
H3117
a day (as the warm hours) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
handbreadth
טְפָח֨וֹתte.fa.Chot
H2947
a spread of the hand · noun, common feminine plural absolute
age
וְחֶלְדִּ֣יve.chel.Di
H2465
life (as a fleeting portion of time) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
every
כָּֽלkal-
H3605
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
man
אָ֝דָ֗ם'a.Dam
H120
ruddy i.e. a human being (an individual or the species · noun, common masculine singular absolute
state
נִצָּ֥בni.Tzav
H5324
to station · verb, niphal active participle, masculine singular absolute
altogether
כָּלkol-
H3605
properly · noun, common masculine singular construct
vanity
הֶ֥בֶלHe.vel
H1892
emptiness or vanity · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Selah
סֶֽלָהSe.lah
H5542
suspension (of music) · interjection
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 89:47 Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
Psalms 144:4 Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
Psalms 62:9 Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
Psalms 90:9-10 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
Psalms 39:11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
Ecclesiastes 2:11 Then I looked on all the works that my hands had wrought, and on the labour that I had laboured to do: and, behold, all was vanity and vexat…
Job 14:1-2 Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.
James 4:14 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 vani…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 39:1-6
David here recollects, and leaves upon record, the workings of his heart under his afflictions; and it is good for us to do so, that what was thought amiss may be amended, and what was well thought of may be improved the next time.
I. He remembered the covenants he had made with God to walk circumspectly, and to be very cautious both of what he did and what he said. When at any time we are tempted to sin, and are in danger of falling into it, we must call to mind the solemn vows we have made against sin, against the particular sin we are upon the brink of. God can, and will, remind us of them (Jer 2:20, Thou saidst, I will not transgress), and therefore we ought to remind ourselves of them.…
His prayer is answered in his obtaining an impressive view of the vanity of the life of all men, and their transient state. Their pomp is a mere image, and their wealth is gathered they know not for whom.
John Gill on Psalms 39:5
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth,.... These words, with the following clause, are the psalmist's answer to his own inquiries; or rather a correction of his inquiry and impatience, showing how needless it was to ask such questions, and be impatient to die, when it was so clear and certain a case that life was so short; not a yard or ell (forty five inches), but an handbreadth, the breadth of four fingers; or at most a span of time was allowed to man, whose days are few, like the shadow that declineth, and the grass that withers; by which figurative expressions the brevity of human life is described, Psalm 102:11; and this is the measure made, cut out, and appointed by the Lord…
Psalm 39:4-6
4. O Jehovah! cause me to know my end, and the number of my days, that I may understand how long I may live. [64] 5. Behold, thou hast made my days as a hand-breadth, and mine age as if it were nothing before thee: truly every man, while he standeth, is wholly vanity. Selah. 6. Surely man walketh in a shadow; surely he disquieteth himself in vain: they heap together [riches, [65] ] and know not who shall gather them.
4. O Jehovah! cause me to know my end. It appears from this, that David was transported by an improper and sinful excess of passion, seeing he finds fault with God. This will appear still more clearly from the following verses. It is true, indeed, that in what fol…
The Church Fathers
The life of mortals is a hard cause. What else is it to be born here, except to enter into a laborious life? Of the greater future labor, the very crying of the infant is a witness. From this troublesome banquet no one excuses himself. We must drink what Adam has offered. We were made by the hands of truth, but because of sin, we were cast into days of vanity. We were made in the image of God, but we wore it down through the transgression of sin. Therefore, the psalm admonishes us about how we were made, and to where we have arrived.
Such, brothers, is our life, we whose existence is so transitory. Such is the game we play on earth: we do not exist, and we are born, and being born we are dissolved. We are a fleeting dream, an apparition without substance, the flight of a bird that passes, a ship that leaves no trace on the sea. We are dust, a vapor, the morning dew, a flower growing but a moment and withering in a moment. "A person's days are as grass: as the flower of the field, so shall he flourish." Beautifully has holy David meditated on our weakness … and he defines the days of a person as the measure of a span.
God, who knows precisely the allotted days of each one of us, regards nothing as immeasurable. His knowledge embraces the measure of all things. To him nothing is beyond his understanding, nothing is unweighed, nothing is unmeasured, nothing is unnumbered. He says, "The very hairs of your head have been numbered." … We know that God is said to have measured the heavens with the palm of his hand22—the palm, from thumb to little finger, being the span by which a thing is measured and its length ascertained. Those who accept this reading understand that our days are measured or numbered, and in that sense they are short. However, the all-knowing God has measured, as we said above, and fully comprehends the very heavens.… The prophet's days are not short but great, for God has measured them with the same palm as that with which he measured the heavens.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Handbreadth — A measure of four fingers, equal to about four inches (Ex. 25:25; 37:12; Ps. 39:5, etc.).
Jeduthun — Lauder; praising, a Levite of the family of Merari, and one of the three masters of music appointed by David (1 Chr. 16:41, 42; 25:1-6). He is called in 2 Chr. 35:15 “the king’s seer.” His…
Psalms — The psalms are the production of various authors. “Only a portion of the Book of Psalms claims David as its author. Other inspired poets in successive generations added now one now another…
Weights And Measures — A. WEIGHTS.—The general principle of the present inquiry is to give the evidence of the monuments the preference on all doubtful points. All ancient Greek systems of weight were derived, either…
Death, Natural · Regard, as at hand — Regard, as at hand
Handbreadth · 4:5; — 4:5;
Life · BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF — BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF
Life, Natural · Is compared to: A hand-breadth — Is compared to: A hand-breadth
Measures · Of length: Handbreadth — Of length: Handbreadth
Providence Of God, The · Is exercised in: Determining the period of human life — Is exercised in: Determining the period of human life
Vanity · Man, at his best estate, is — Man, at his best estate, is
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
(Heb.: 39:5-7) He prays God to set the transitoriness of earthly life clearly before his eyes (cf. Psa 90:12); for if life is only a few spans long, then even his suffering and the prosperity of the ungodly will last only a short time. Oh that God would then grant him to know his end (Job 6:11), i.e., the end of his life, which is at the same time the end of his affliction, and the measure of his days, how it is with this (מה, interrog. extenuantis, as in Psa 8:5), in order that he may become fully conscious of his own frailty! Hupfeld corrects the text to אני מה־חלד, after the analogy of Psa 89:48, because חדל cannot signify "frail." But חדל signifies that which leaves off and ceases, and c…
Because of his suffering and sin, the psalmist concludes that life is meaningless and fleeting (see Job 7:7-10; Isa 40:6-8). He had expected a wicked life to have those qualities (see Pss 37:2, 20; 103:15-16), but now whether a person is godly or not seems to be irrelevant.
39:4-5 how fleeting my life is: This perspective comes out of suffering (see 78:39; 89:47-48; 90:3-10). The human lifetime is but a moment to God (90:4), as temporary as a breath (see 39:11; 144:4).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 39:5
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth. Upon consideration, the psalmist finds little room to bewail the length of life, but rather to bemoan its shortness. What changeful creatures we are! One moment we cry to be rid of existence, and the next instant beg to have it prolonged! A handbreadth is one of the shortest natural measures, being the breadth of four fingers; such is the brevity of life, by divine appointment; God hath made it so, fixing the period in wisdom. The behold calls us to attention; to some the thoughts of life's…
