For we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
For we are strangers before you, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.
For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.
For we, as all our fathers were, are like men from a strange country before you, who have got a place for a time in the land; our days on the earth are like a shade, and there is no hope of going on.
For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.
For we are strangers before you, and foreigners, as all our fathers were. Our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no remaining.
For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as all our fathers were: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is no abiding.
For we are strangers - We have here neither right nor property.
And sojourners - Lodging as it were for a night, in the mansion of another.
As were all our fathers - These were, as we are supported by thy bounty, and tenants at will to thee.
Our days on the earth are as a shadow - They are continually declining, fading, and passing away. This is the place of our sojourning, and here we have no substantial, permanent residence.
There is none abiding - However we may wish to settle and remain in this state of things, it is impossible, because every earthly form is passing swiftly away, all is in a state of revolution and decay, and there is no abiding, מקוה mikveh, no expectation, that we shall be exempt from those changes and chances to which our fathers were subjected. "As the shadow of a bird flying in the air [אויר avir] of heaven, such are our days upon the earth; nor is there any hope to any son of man that he shall live for ever." - Targum.
29:15 Strangers - For the land which we possess is thine, not ours; we are not the proprietors but only thy tenants: and as our fathersonce were mere strangers in it, even before men, so we at this day areno better before thee, having no absolute right in it, but only to travelthrough it, and sojourn in it for the short time that we live in the world.None abiding - We only give thee what we must shortly leave, and what wecannot keep to ourselves: and therefore it is a great favour that thouwilt accept such offerings. David's days had as much of substance inthem as most men: for he was upon the whole a good man, an useful man,and now an old man. And yet he puts himself in the front of those whomust acknowledge, that their days on the earth are as a shadow: whichspeaks of our life as a vain life, a dark life, a transient life, and alife that will have its period, either in perfect light or perfect darkness.