Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
Parallel translations
- WEB Man is like a breath. His days are like a shadow that passes away.
- KJV Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
- NKJV Man is like a breath; His days are like a passing shadow.
- NASB Man is like the breath; His days are like a passing shadow.
- NLT For they are like a breath of air; their days are like a passing shadow.
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
Man is like a breath, his days a passing shadow. It underscores the brevity and frailty of human life.
Overview
David soberly reflects that human life is fleeting, vapor-like and shadow-quick. This realism about mortality drives dependence on the eternal God rather than self. Recognizing life's brevity, believers are urged to number their days and find lasting life in Christ, who alone conquers death (Psalm 90:12; John 11:25).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Ps 102:11My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
- Ps 109:23I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
- 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
- Job 8:9For we were born yesterday and know nothing; our days on earth are but a shadow.
- Eccl 12:8“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”
- 2 Sam 14:14For surely we will die and be like water poured out on the ground, which cannot be recovered. Yet God does not take away a life; but He devises ways that the banished one may not be cast out from Him.
- Ps 39:11You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity, consuming like a moth what he holds dear; surely each man is but a vapor. Selah
- Eccl 8:13Yet because the wicked do not fear God, it will not go well with them, and their days will not lengthen like a shadow.
- Ps 89:47Remember the briefness of my lifespan! For what futility You have created all men!
- Ps 103:15–16As for man, his days are like grass—he blooms like a flower of the field;
- Eccl 1:14I have seen all the things that are done under the sun, and have found them all to be futile, a pursuit of the wind.
- Eccl 1:2“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
- Job 14:1–3“Man, who is born of woman, is short of days and full of trouble.
- Ps 62:9Lowborn men are but a vapor, the exalted but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.
- 1 Chr 29:15For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
- Job 4:19how much more those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundations are in the dust, who can be crushed like a moth!
Themes, concepts, people & topics
Resources, by level
Commentaries & study tools
Free animated overview and word-study videos for this book.
Sermons and teaching on this passage from across YouTube.
Clear, readable, conservative exposition — the best free place to start on any passage.
Matthew Henry, Barnes, Gill, the Pulpit Commentary, Ellicott, Cambridge, and more — stacked on one page for this exact verse.
The beloved Puritan exposition of this whole book — warm, devotional, and verse by verse (free, CCEL).
Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
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 144:4 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.