Psalms 144:3,4 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Lord, what is man He magnifies and illustrates God's goodness to him, by the consideration of his own meanness. Though I am a king over my people, yet, alas, I am but a man, a base, sinful; and mortal creature; if compared with thee, less than nothing and vanity; that thou takest knowledge of him That thou so much as takest notice, or makest any account of him, especially that thou hast any care over, or kindness for him; or the son of man, &c. The same thing repeated in other words: see on Psalms 8:4; Job 7:17-18. Man In his nature and continuance in the world; is like to vanity Or, to a vapour, or a breath, as Isaiah 57:13, which is gone in an instant. His days are as a shadow that passeth away That declineth, as Psalms 102:11; Psalms 109:23, (where see the notes,) or “that glides over the earth, vanishes, and is seen no more. Such was human nature; but the Son of God hath taken it upon himself, rendered it immortal, and exalted it to heaven; whither all will follow him hereafter who follow him now in the paths of righteousness and holiness. It is justly observed here by Dr. Horne, (as had been suggested by Dr. Hammond,) that, “if David, upon the remembrance of what God had done for him, could break forth into this reflection, much more may we do so, for whom the Redeemer hath been manifested in the form of a servant, and in that form hath humbled himself to the death of the cross, to gain the victory over principalities and powers, to put all things under our feet, and to make us partakers of his everlasting kingdom. Lord, what, indeed, is man, or what is the son of such a miserable creature, that thou shouldst take this knowledge, and make this account of him!”