Bible Strands
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.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses the assembled people, urging them to anchor their trust in God after declaring Him their refuge in the preceding verse. The declaration follows a call to pour out hearts before God and precedes a warning against placing hope in wealth or stolen goods.
The words — The Hebrew term הֶבֶל (Hevel) literally means breath or vapor, while כָּזָב (kaZav) denotes falsehood. The text also uses בְּמֹאזְנַיִם (be-moZnayim) for the balances or scales used to weigh the subjects.
The thread — The vapor motif recurs in Psalms 39:5, where human lifespan is measured as nothing before God. The weighing imagery and divine dismissal of human power appear in Isaiah 40:15 and Isaiah 40:17.
Why it lands — The text asserts that both the lowborn and the exalted are insubstantial and deceptive when measured against God's standard. It demands the reader abandon reliance on human status or material accumulation and place trust solely in 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
Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
Cross-references
- 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
- Isaiah 40:15 Surely the nations are like a drop in a bucket; they are considered a speck of dust on the scales; He lifts up the islands like fine dust.
- Isaiah 40:17 All the nations are as nothing before Him; He regards them as nothingness and emptiness.
- Psalms 118:9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD than to trust in princes.
- 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
- 1 Samuel 18:5 So David marched out and prospered in everything Saul sent him to do, and Saul set him over the men of war. And this was pleasing in the sight of all the people, and of Saul’s officers as well.
- 1 Samuel 18:21 “I will give her to David,” Saul thought, “so that she may be a snare to him, and the hand of the Philistines may be against him.” So Saul said to David, “For a second time now you can be my son-in-law.”
- 1 Samuel 23:12 So David asked, “Will the citizens of Keilah surrender me and my men into the hand of Saul?” “They will,” said the LORD.
- 1 Samuel 23:19 Then the Ziphites came up to Saul at Gibeah and said, “Is not David hiding among us in the strongholds at Horesh, on the hill of Hachilah south of Jeshimon?
- 2 Samuel 15:6 Absalom did this to all the Israelites who came to the king for justice. In this way he stole the hearts of the men of Israel.