Remember how short my time is; For what futility have You created all the children of men?
Parallel translations
- WEB Remember how short my time is! For what vanity have you created all the children of men!
- 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!
- 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.
Quick answer
The psalmist pleads with God to remember how brief and fragile human life is.
Overview
Appealing to the shortness of life, the psalmist asks God to act before his days run out. Human existence seems fleeting and even "vain" apart from God's intervention. The brevity of life heightens the longing for the eternal life secured in the resurrection of Christ (1 Cor. 15:53-54).
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 10:9Remember, I beg you, that you have fashioned me as clay. Will you bring me into dust again?
- Job 7:7Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good.
- 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
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Commentaries & study tools
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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 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.