Go to now Αγε νυν, come now, an interjection, calculated to excite attention; ye that say, To-day or to-morrow we will go, &c. As if future events were in your own power, and your health and lives were ensured to you for a certain time; whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow Whether your spirits before then shall not have passed into eternity; for what is your life? It is even a vapour An unsubstantial, uncertain, and fleeting vapour; that appeareth for a little time In this visible world; and then suddenly vanisheth away And is seen here no more. Thus Isaiah, All flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof as a flower of the field; a similitude used also by David, Psalms 103:15-16, As for man, his days are as grass, as a flower of the field so he flourisheth; for the wind passeth over it and it is gone, and the place thereof shall know it no more. And still more striking is the metaphor used by Asaph, Psalms 78:39, where he terms men, even a generation of them, A wind that passeth away and cometh not again. But in no author, sacred or profane, is there a finer image of the brevity and uncertainty of human life than this given by St. James, who likens it to a vapour, which, after continuing and engaging men's attention for a few moments, unexpectedly disappears while they are looking at it. For that ye ought, &c. That is, whereas ye ought to say In consideration of this your great frailty; If the Lord will, we shall live and do this or that
Intimating, even by your manner of speaking, the sense that you have of his being able, at pleasure, to cut you short in all your schemes and appointments. The apostle does not mean that these very words should always be used by us, when we speak of our purposes respecting futurity; but that, on such occasions, the sentiment which these words express should always be present to our minds.