He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down - Nothing can be more obvious and more beautiful than this, and the image has been employed by writers in all ages, but nowhere with more beauty, or with more frequency than in the Bible; see Isaiah 40:6; Psalms 37:2; Psalms 90:6; Psalms 103:15. Next to the Bible, it is probable that Shakespeare has employed the image with the most exquisite beauty of any poet:
This is the state of man; today he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, tomorrow blossoms,
And bears his blushing honors thick upon him;
The third day comes a frost a killing frost,
And - when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening - nips his root,
And then he falls.
Henry viii. Act iii. Sc. 2.
He fleeth also as a shadow - Another exquisite figure, and as true as it is beautiful. So the Psalmist:
My days are like a shadow that declineth.
Man is like to vanity;
His days are as a shadowy that passeth away.
The idea of Job is, that there is no substance, nothing that is permanent. A shadow moves on gently and silently, and is soon gone. It leaves no trace of its being, and returns no more. They who have watched the beautiful shadow of a cloud on a landscape, and have seen how rapidly it passes ever meadows and fields of grain, and rolls up the mountain side and disappears, will have a vivid conception of this figure. How gently yet how rapidly it moves. How soon it is gone. How void of impression is its course. Who can track its way; who can reach it? So man moves on. Soon he is gone; he leaves no trace of his being, and returns no more.