Bible Strands
Psalms 144:4
Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the LORD directly, declaring human fragility immediately after asking why God would regard mankind at all. This statement occurs in the pivot between a meditation on divine power and a petition for God to descend and intervene.
The words — The Hebrew הֶ֣בֶל (hevel) literally means "breath" or "vapor," while צֵ֣ל (tzel) means "shadow," modified by עוֹבֵֽר (over) to indicate something passing. These terms establish a physical comparison of impermanence rather than a metaphorical one.
The thread — This imagery of transient life runs through Psalms 39:5, where days are measured as handbreadths, and Job 8:9, which calls earthly days "but a shadow." The same shadow motif appears in Psalms 102:11 alongside the image of withering grass.
Why it lands — The text states that human existence is as fleeting as breath and as temporary as a passing shadow. This factual observation requires a reader to acknowledge mortality as a given condition before making any request of God.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
Cross-references
- Psalms 102:11 My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
- Job 8:9 For we were born yesterday and know nothing; our days on earth are but a shadow.
- Psalms 39:5 You, 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
- Psalms 109:23 I am fading away like a lengthening shadow; I am shaken off like a locust.
- 2 Samuel 14:14 For we will surely 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.
- Ecclesiastes 12:8 “Futility of futilities,” says the Teacher. “Everything is futile!”
- 1 Chronicles 29:15 For we are foreigners and strangers in Your presence, as were all our forefathers. Our days on earth are like a shadow, without hope.
- Job 14:1 “Man, who is born of woman, is short of days and full of trouble.
- Psalms 39:11 You discipline and correct a man for his iniquity, consuming like a moth what he holds dear; surely each man is but a vapor. Selah
- Psalms 62:9 Lowborn men are but a vapor; the exalted are but a lie. Weighed on the scale, they go up; together they are but a vapor.