Remember how short my time is! For what vanity have you created all the children of men!
Parallel translations
- KJV Remember how short my time is: wherefore hast thou made all men in vain?
- BSB Remember the briefness of my lifespan! For what futility You have created all men!
- NKJV Remember how short my time is; For what futility have You created all the children of men?
- NASB Remember what my lifespan is; For what futility You have created all the sons of mankind!
- NLT Remember how short my life is, how empty and futile this human existence!
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.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Job 14:1“Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble.
- Job 7:7Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.
- Job 10:9Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
- Jas 4:14Whereas you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor, that appears for a little time, and then vanishes away.
- Job 9:25–26“Now my days are swifter than a runner. They flee away, they see no good.
- Ps 144:4Man is like a breath. His days are like a shadow that passes away.
- Ps 119:84How many are the days of your servant? When will you execute judgment on those who persecute me?
- 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.
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 89:47 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.