Psalms 144:4
Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
BSB
ASV
Man is like to vanity: His days are as a shadow that passeth away.
KJV
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
Man is made like to vanity: his days pass away like a shadow. Truly our days are like a shadow. I was a little infant, I was a boy, I was a young lad, I was a youth, I was a man, that is, of perfect age, I was of middle age. While I know it not, I am an old man. Death creeps up upon old age. I am changed daily, and I do not perceive that I am nothing.
Man is like to vanity. Adam is like to Abel. He is like that which is nothing at all. He is actually vain, and he resembles that unsubstantial empty thing which is nothing but a blown up nothing, —a puff, a bubble. Yet he is not vanity, but only like it. He is not so substantial as that unreal thing; he is only the likeness of it. Lord, what is a man? It is wonderful that God should think of such a pretentious insignificance. His days are as a shadow that passeth away.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Job 8:9For we were born yesterday and know nothing; our days on earth are but a shadow.
leads to
Like a flower, he comes forth, then withers away; like a fleeting shadow, he does not endure.
Reached by 3 independent paths from here.
For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle; they come to an end without hope.
“My travels have lasted 130 years,” Jacob replied. “My years have been few and hard, and they have not matched the years of the travels of my fathers.”
Through
Ecclesiastes 12:8“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”
leads to
“Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher, “futility of futilities! Everything is futile!”
Through
Psalms 102:11My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
leads to
I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,