Whereas ye know not.... — Read, Whereas ye know not aught of the morrow — what, i.e., the event may be. The hopeless misery of the unfaithful servant comes into mind at this; he has left the greater business to perform the less; or, it may be, said in heart, “My lord delayeth his coming,” and so has begun “to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken.” And lo! the thunder of the chariot wheels, the flash of the avenging sword, the “portion with the hypocrites,” the “weeping and gnashing of teeth.” (Read Matthew 24:42-51.)
For what is your life? It is even a vapour. — The rebuke is stronger still, the home-thrust more sharp and piercing — Ye are even a vapour: ye yourselves, and all belonging to you; not merely life itself, for that confessedly is a breath; and many a man, acknowledging so much, counts of the morrow that he may lay up in store for other wants besides his own.
A vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away (or, disappeareth). — There is a play upon words to mark the sad antithesis. The vision of life vanisheth as it came; and thus even a heathen poet says —
“Dust we are, and a shadow.”
(Comp. Wis. 5:9-14.)