4 Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
4 They are like a breath; their days are like a fleeting shadow.
4 Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
4 All we are is a puff of air; we're like shadows in a campfire.
4 Man is like a breath; His days are like a passing shadow.
4 For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow.
15 We are foreigners and strangers in your sight, as were all our ancestors. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
15 For we are strangers before you and sojourners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are like a shadow, and there is no abiding.
15 As far as you're concerned, we're homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.
15 For we are aliens and pilgrims before You, As were all our fathers; Our days on earth are as a shadow, And without hope.
15 We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace.
(Read 1 Chronicles 29:10-19)
We cannot form a right idea of the magnificence of the temple, and the buildings around it, about which such quantities of gold and silver were employed. But the unsearchable riches of Christ exceed the splendour of the temple, infinitely more than that surpassed the meanest cottage on earth. Instead of boasting of these large oblations, David gave solemn thanks to the Lord. All they gave for the Lord's temple was his own; if they attempted to keep it, death would soon have removed them from it. They only use they could make of it to their real advantage, was, to consecrate it to the service of Him who gave it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 144:4
Commentary on Psalm 144:1-8
(Read Psalm 144:1-8)
When men become eminent for things as to which they have had few advantages, they should be more deeply sensible that God has been their Teacher. Happy those to whom the Lord gives that noblest victory, conquest and dominion over their own spirits. A prayer for further mercy is fitly begun with a thanksgiving for former mercy. There was a special power of God, inclining the people of Israel to be subject to David; it was typical of the bringing souls into subjection to the Lord Jesus. Man's days have little substance, considering how many thoughts and cares of a never-dying soul are employed about a poor dying body. Man's life is as a shadow that passes away. In their highest earthly exaltation, believers will recollect how mean, sinful, and vile they are in themselves; thus they will be preserved from self-importance and presumption. God's time to help his people is, when they are sinking, and all other helps fail.