(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:)
The verse belongs to the early exchanges between Job and his friends about overruling providence and the cause and purpose of sin and suffering. Within that discussion it stands among the repeated accusations troubling Job from chapter 8 through chapter 27, a section ending in the middle of Job's final reply after his friends fall silent, and it is to be read together with the replies in chapters 9 and 10. In its setting God is disciplining Job through the fire of affliction while the three friends charge him with sin and insist his suffering is because of sin, showing how people misjudge one another. Statements by the friends in this part of the book, though generally true in themselves, were misapplied to Job, so what is said here must not be taken as automatically reliable about God or Job but compared with the rest of Scripture.
The verse teaches that living people are only of yesterday, having existed a short time with comparatively little knowledge and experience, and that their days on earth are like a shadow, brief and swiftly passing like a breath or fading shadow. That brevity covers all generations and lifespans, from an infant living only a day to one reaching a patriarchal age, and underscores that people are frail and mortal with little time before the eternal future.
The verse describes only the limited experience and knowledge of the living and does not teach that the dead know nothing, with its lesson being to keep living in order to keep learning. Those who held the other reading took its reference to limited knowledge to support the teaching that the dead have no knowledge. Because life is so brief and knowledge so limited, human judgment and wisdom are not to be trusted in place of God's instruction. Because life is a passing shadow, people should be ready to meet death and remain faithful while life lasts.
Because days are a swiftly passing shadow, time is precious and must not be wasted. To spend one day in ten, thirty-six days a year, in tobacco use is a willful waste of valuable hours, of golden hours and precious moments. This is especially so when the same people spend no hour in humble secret prayer, cannot spare time to read the Bible, neglect thought about the end of life and the coming future, and neglect mental cultivation through thinking and reading.
The verse belongs to the early exchanges between Job and his friends about overruling providence and the cause and purpose of sin and suffering. Within that discussion it stands among the repeated accusations troubling Job from chapter 8 through chapter 27, a section ending in the middle of Job's final reply after his friends fall silent, and it is to be read together with the replies in chapters 9 and 10. In its setting God is disciplining Job through the fire of affliction while the three friends charge him with sin and insist his suffering is because of sin, showing how people misjudge one another. Statements by the friends in this part of the book, though generally true in themselves, were misapplied to Job, so what is said here must not be taken as automatically reliable about God or Job but compared with the rest of Scripture.
The verse teaches that living people are only of yesterday, having existed a short time with comparatively little knowledge and experience, and that their days on earth are like a shadow, brief and swiftly passing like a breath or fading shadow. That brevity covers all generations and lifespans, from an infant living only a day to one reaching a patriarchal age, and underscores that people are frail and mortal with little time before the eternal future.
The verse describes only the limited experience and knowledge of the living and does not teach that the dead know nothing, with its lesson being to keep living in order to keep learning. Those who held the other reading took its reference to limited knowledge to support the teaching that the dead have no knowledge. Because life is so brief and knowledge so limited, human judgment and wisdom are not to be trusted in place of God's instruction. Because life is a passing shadow, people should be ready to meet death and remain faithful while life lasts.
Because days are a swiftly passing shadow, time is precious and must not be wasted. To spend one day in ten, thirty-six days a year, in tobacco use is a willful waste of valuable hours, of golden hours and precious moments. This is especially so when the same people spend no hour in humble secret prayer, cannot spare time to read the Bible, neglect thought about the end of life and the coming future, and neglect mental cultivation through thinking and reading.