Make me to know, Jehovah, mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is I shall know how frail I am.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
Behold, thou hast made my days [as] hand-breadths, and my lifetime is as nothing before thee; verily, every man, [even] the high placed, is altogether vanity. Selah.
The psalmist breaks a long silence, and what he asks God for is the measure of his own days. The answer is not comfort but a measurement: a lifetime is a few handbreadths, and even a man at his best is only a breath.
This prayer is not idle curiosity. Two pressures produce it.
When at length he speaks, it is to the Lord. His own failure brings home to the godly soul how frail man is. So does the wickedness of men, who use the failure of God's people as their chance to exalt themselves. Through this trial he wants to learn the shortness of life, the weakness of the flesh, and the vanity of the world.
A handbreadth is the width of a hand — the smallest ruler a man carries with him. Set against God, that measure shrinks to nothing. What alarms the psalmist is not only his frailty but how little he feels it.
He cries out to know his end, his days that are measured, and yet he does not know the measure. His frailty alarms him, and how little he realizes that frailty alarms him too. His days are only handbreadths. God has fixed their limit — a short space that is nothing before the Eternal. It is the common condition of man: take the most stable, what is he? A puff of air — a breath.
The lesson lands hardest on the confident, and the New Testament repeats the verdict. These writers quote older translations: where the ESV says all mankind is "a mere breath," they read "every man at his best state is altogether vanity," or "but vapour."
If we think we are capable, let us consider the measure of our days. Old age exposes how useless our ability was! And sickness often comes before old age. Our frailty is always with us, however strong we think we are. Verse 5 shows that our age is as nothing, even if it runs to 100 years — and "every man at his best state is but vapour." James 4:14 confirms it: "For what is your life? It is even a vapour that appears for a little time and then vanishes away."
The verse does not measure the worst of men. It picks the finest sample available and weighs that.
So we take up the great men of earth to see what is in man. We take the best sample, a man in whom natural character, opportunity and education have combined to produce the nearest thing to perfection. Having learned what he is, we remember that most of humanity are only poor samples of the same class.
One writer sees the verse proved in the prophet Isaiah.
Here we see the statement shown true, "Verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity" (Ps. 39:5). This happened to Isaiah in the year King Uzziah died — one of the better kings, who ended his days a leper because he dared to push his way into the temple of God. Standing before God in His temple, Isaiah confessed that he was unclean, and at once the way of cleansing appeared. A live coal, which had touched the sacrifice, was put to his lips, and his sin and uncleanness were taken away. Only sacrifice can cleanse sin; a foreshadowing of the death of Christ.
Short days make everything inside them unreal — including the savings a man cannot keep.
Then the unreality this gives to things, even while they last! Vain worry; vain heaping up of what must soon be left to others, he knows not whom. This is a well-worn story, but we are certainly actors in it, so its familiarity must not lessen our interest.
The psalm does not stop at the bleak sum. Reaching zero frees the man to look elsewhere.
At last his heart bursts out; but it is to bring to God the nothingness he has now come to feel. He desires to know his days. How little he is! He sees that all is vanity. But he also sees his own transgression and sin in the presence of One whose rebuke consumes the beauty of man like a moth… There is great beauty when vanity finds its level in coming to nothing, and then trusting God to deliver from the pride of men.
"Every man" is a total verdict, and only one Man stands outside it.
Satan's influence enslaved every other man. Christ lived by the word of God, and He defeated him completely (Matt. 4:1-10). "Every man at his best state is altogether vanity" (Psalm 39:5). The children of men have become "altogether filthy" (Psalm 53:3). But He is "altogether lovely" (Song of Solomon 5:16).
- Measured — Life is a handbreadth. Even a hundred years is nothing to God, and the danger is how little we notice it.
- Best — The verse tests the best of us, not the worst. If the peak is a breath, the rest are poorer samples of the same class.
- Empty — Short days make worry and hoarding empty. A man piles up what he must leave to someone unknown.
- Level — Coming to nothing is not despair. The man who reaches zero stops defending himself and trusts God to deliver him.
- Altogether — Every man at his best is altogether vanity. Christ alone is altogether lovely, and only sacrifice can cleanse.