What Does 1 Chronicles 29:15 Mean?
For we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as were all our fathers. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no cord that holds.
Key words are shown with the Hebrew or Greek and what each word meant.
Selah Decoded Version The Selah Decoded Version renders what the Hebrew and Greek words meant to the people who first heard them.
King James wording
King James Version
For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.THE KEY
The verse calls you both a resident and a guest, then says even your days cannot be held.
THE MEANING
You stand before God now as one whose stay is temporary. Your days pass over the earth like a shadow, and no human dwelling lasts forever.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that a stable home or long life can make your place here permanent.
THE ROOT
תּוֹשָׁבִים
toshavim
GROWS FROM
ישב
y-sh-b
To sit, dwell, or settle.
“Sojourners” grows from the word for dwelling: the verse holds temporary residence and settled life together. Both are lived before God, yet neither makes a human stay permanent.
ALSO GROWS
yashav: To sit or dwell.
יָשַׁב
The sojourner’s word carries the act of dwelling within it.
moshav: A dwelling, seat, or settlement.
מוֹשָׁב
It shows the root’s movement from dwelling to the place where someone dwells.
yoshav: One who dwells; an inhabitant.
יוֹשֵׁב
The verse names people who inhabit the earth while remaining temporary guests.
גֵּרִים
gerim
GROWS FROM
גור
g-w-r
To reside temporarily or dwell as an outsider.
“strangers” in this verse is gerim. A “stranger” here is not simply someone unknown; the word carries the condition of living somewhere without permanent possession. Paired with “sojourners,” it gives your life two angles at once: you are here, and your stay is passing.
ALSO GROWS
ger: A resident stranger or temporary resident.
גֵּר
It names someone who lives in a place without being its permanent owner.
gur: To sojourn or reside as an outsider.
גּוּר
The verb shows the temporary stay contained in the verse’s image of human life.
megurim: Sojournings or temporary dwelling places.
מְגוּרִים
This branch extends the root from the resident to the places where a temporary life is spent.
THE PATTERN
Human life is lived before God as a temporary stay, with no claim to permanence.
Hear and respond to my prayer, LORD. Tilt your ear to my cry, and do not be deaf to my tears. For I am a sojourner with you, one who settles, like all my fathers.In trust all these died, not having brought home the promises, but seeing them from far off, and embracing them, and saying together that they were strangers and those passing through on the earth.You do not know what tomorrow holds. For what is your life? You are a mist, showing itself for a little while, and then made unseen.THE THREAD
Hear and respond to my prayer, LORD. Tilt your ear to my cry, and do not be deaf to my tears. For I am a sojourner with you, one who settles, like all my fathers.Psalm 39:12 repeats the same pair: גֵּר (ger, resident stranger) and תּוֹשָׁב (toshav, temporary resident). The echo makes the passing stay intimate: it is still lived before God.
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