One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
(One) generation passeth away, and (another) generation cometh: but the earth abideth forever. While the earth remains the same, the generations of men are ever changing. What lasting profit, then, can there be from the toils of one whose sojourn on earth, as an individual, is so brief? The "forever" is comparative, not absolute (Psalms 102:26), a future of unmeasured length, whose limit we know not. The contrast between the permanence of the earth, which, while doomed to the curse, precludes a better state of things, and the non-permanence of man aggravates the sadness of the present state of things (Genesis 3:17-19). Like the fabled Sisyphus, man is ever wearily labouring, and then having his labour undone in a moment.