Behold, thou hast made my days [as] an handbreadth; and mine age [is] as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state [is] altogether vanity. Selah.
Ver. 5. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth] i.e. Four fingers broad (which is one of the least geometrical measures, or a spanlong), as some interpret it. Now, to spend the span of this transitory life after the ways of a man's own heart is to bereave himself of a room in that city of pearl, and to perish for ever. Or take it for a handbreadth; should a man, having his lands divided into four parts (answerable to those four fingers' breadth), leave three of them untilled? should he not make the best of that little time that he hath, that he be not taken with his task undone? Themistocles died about a hundred and seven years of age; and when he was to die he was grieved upon this ground: Now I am to die, saith he, when I begin to be wise. But stultus semper incipit vivere, saith Seneca; and such complaints are bootless. Oh live quickly, live apace, and learn of the devil at least to be most busy, as knowing that our time is short, Revelation 12:12. To complain of the miseries of life, and to wish for death, as David here seemeth to do (and as did Job, Job 3:19; Job 6:9; Job 7:15; and Moses, Numbers 11:11; Numbers 11:15; Elijah, 1 Kings 19:4; Jeremiah, Jeremiah 20:14; Jonah, Jon 4:3), is a sign of a prevailing temptation, and of a spirit fainting under it. We must fight against such impatience; and learn to do the like by life, as we do by a lease, wherein, if our time be short, we rip up the grounds, eat up the grass, cut down the underbrush, and take all the liberty the lease will afford.
Mine age is as nothing] Heb. My world, that is, my time of abroad in the world, is but a magnum Nihil, as one saith of honour, Puncture est quod vivimus, et puncto minus; a mere salve vale, hello and goodbye a nonentity.
Verily every man at his best state] When he is best constituted and underlaid, set to live, as one would think, firmus et fixus, settled on his best bottom, yet even then be is all over vanity. Profecto omnimoda vanltas omnis homo est quantumvis constitutus maxime (Tremel.). All Adam is all Abel, as the original runs elegantly, alluding to those two proper names, like as Psalms 144:3,4, Adam is Abel's mate, or man is like to a soon vanishing vapour; such as is the breath of one's mouth, see Jam 4:14 a feeble flash, a curious picture of nothing.