My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
Parallel translations
- WEB My days are like a long shadow. I have withered like grass.
- KJV My days are like a shadow that declineth; and I am withered like grass.
- NKJV My days are like a shadow that lengthens, And I wither away like grass.
- NASB My days are like a lengthened shadow, And I wither away like grass.
- NLT My life passes as swiftly as the evening shadows. I am withering away like grass.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
His days are like a lengthening evening shadow, and he withers like grass. He feels his life slipping toward its end.
Overview
The image of a declining shadow and fading grass underscores the brevity and frailty of the psalmist's life. He senses death drawing near. This honest acknowledgment of mortality sets the stage for the psalm's turn to God's eternity in the verses that follow.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 10
- Job 14:2Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
- Ps 109:23I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
- 1 Pet 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
- Ps 144:4Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
- Jas 4:14You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- Jas 1:10But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.
- Isa 40:6–8A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
- Eccl 6:12For who knows what is good for a man during the few days in which he passes through his fleeting life like a shadow? Who can tell a man what will come after him under the sun?
- Ps 39:5–6You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Ps 102:3–4For my days vanish like smoke, and my bones burn like glowing embers.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 102:11 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.