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.
- BSB 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 a long shadow. I have withered like grass.
- Ps 109:23I fade away like an evening shadow. I am shaken off like a locust.
- Ps 39:5–6Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.” Selah.
- Job 8:9(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow.)
- Eccl 12:8“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher. “All is vanity!”
- 2 Sam 14:14For we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can’t be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is banished not be an outcast from him.
- Ps 39:11When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, You consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.” Selah.
- Eccl 8:13But it shall not be well with the wicked, neither shall he lengthen days like a shadow; because he doesn’t fear God.
- Ps 89:47Remember how short my time is! For what vanity have you created all the children of men!
- Ps 103:15–16As for man, his days are like grass. As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
- Eccl 1:14I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and behold, all is vanity and a chasing after wind.
- Eccl 1:2“Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher; “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”
- Job 14:1–3“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
- Ps 62:9Surely men of low degree are just a breath, and men of high degree are a lie. In the balances they will go up. They are together lighter than a breath.
- 1 Chr 29:15For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.
- Job 4:19How much more, those who dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, who are crushed before the moth!
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 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.