What Does Psalm 144:4 Mean in the King James?
Man is like to vanity: his days are as a shadow that passeth away.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The verse calls a human life הֶבֶל (hevel), vapor that vanishes, and its days a shadow already passing.
THE MEANING
Your life is like vapor, and your days move past like a shadow crossing the ground. The verse holds that passing quality in view now; it describes how brief human life is, not whether it has worth.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that being alive means being permanent: your days are already passing while you live them.
THE ROOT
הֶבֶל
hevel
GROWS FROM
הבל
Vapor or mist; something fleeting and insubstantial.
“vanity” in this verse is hevel. Here, hevel carries the image of vapor: something that appears and dissipates. The verse pairs that image with a shadow in motion, showing not worthlessness but how quickly a human life passes.
ALSO GROWS
havalim: Vapors or vanities, the plural form of hevel.
הֲבָלִים
The repeated word in Ecclesiastes, “Vanity of vanities,” carries the same vapor-like sense of what does not last.
Hevel: The name given to Abel in Hebrew; it is the same word as hevel.
הֶבֶל
The shared word and name let the vapor image echo in another portrait of human life.
THE PATTERN
Human life is present and real, yet its days pass like vapor, shadow, or mist.
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not.Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.THE THREAD
Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.Both verses use הֶבֶל (hevel) for human life’s fleeting quality. Psalm 39:5 extends the image even to a person at their best, so the vapor in Psalm 144:4 describes human life itself, not only a season of loss.
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