Go to Related Reading
About this book

Psalms

About this book
Psalm 144

1 By David. The Lord, my Protector, deserves praise—the one who trains my hands for battle and my fingers for war, 2 who loves me and is my stronghold, my refuge and my deliverer, my shield and the one in whom I take shelter, who makes nations submit to me. 3 O Lord, of what importance is the human race that you should notice them? Of what importance is mankind that you should be concerned about them?⁠ 4 People are like a vapor,⁠ their days like a shadow that disappears.⁠ 5 O Lord, make the sky sink and come down. Touch the mountains and make them smolder. 6 Hurl lightning bolts and scatter the enemy. Shoot your arrows and rout them. 7 Reach down from above. Grab me and rescue me from the surging water, from the power of foreigners 8 who speak lies, and make false promises. 9 O God, I will sing a new song to you. Accompanied by a ten-stringed instrument, I will sing praises to you, 10 the one who delivers kings and rescued David his servant from a deadly sword. 11 Grab me and rescue me from the power of foreigners who speak lies and make false promises. 12 Then our sons will be like plants, that quickly grow to full size. Our daughters will be like corner pillars, carved like those in a palace. 13 Our storehouses will be full, providing all kinds of food. Our sheep will multiply by the thousands and fill our pastures. 14 Our cattle will be weighted down with produce. No one will break through our walls, no one will be taken captive, and there will be no terrified cries in our city squares. 15 How blessed are the people who experience these things. How blessed are the people whose God is the Lord.

Texts in conversation

Compare Psalm 144:4 and Ecclesiastes Rabbah 6:12

Hebrew Bible · Rabbinic

Share:

Summary

Psalm 144 describes a person's life as a shadow that disappears. Rabbinic tradition in Ecclesiastes Rabbah says Solomon left that metaphor unexplained, and uses the psalm to say David provided the explanation.

Passages

Psalm 144:4

Hebrew Bible
3 O Lord, of what importance is the human race that you should notice them? Of what importance is mankind that you should be concerned about them? 4 People are like a vapor, their days like a shadow that disappears. 5 O Lord, make the sky sink and come down. Touch the mountains and make them smolder.
600–201 BCE (scholarly estimate) Read in Psalms

Ecclesiastes Rabbah 6:12

Rabbinic · Aggadah
“For who knows what is good for man in his life” – Rabbi Huna [said] in the name of Rabbi Aḥa: David made a statement and did not explain it, but his son Solomon explained it. Solomon made a statement and did not explain it, but his father David explained it. Solomon said: “For who knows what is good for man in his life… that he spends like a shadow?” How so? If you say it is the shadow of a wall, it has substance. If it is the shadow of a palm tree, it has substance. David came and explained: “His days pass like a shadow” (Psalms 144:4).
700–950 CE (scholarly estimate) Read in Ecclesiastes Rabbah

References

“... The rabbinic effort that aims to demonstrate the proximity between Ecclesiastes and Psalms is continued in this midrashic passage in which David is presented to explain the meaning of Solomon’s thoughts. Again, the pattern of questions–answers and the dialectical development of the rabbinic text intensify the vividness of the narration. On the other hand, by interconnecting Eccl 6:12 and Ps 144:4 we get a text with conceptual coherence, where the intertextual verse explicates the contextual meaning of the base verse. It is this explicatory relation of the intertextual verse to the base verse that justifies the explicative intertextuality of the following passage: [...] Ecclesiastes 6:12, which vividly describes man’s transient role, persists with a pessimistic view on man’s futile efforts to determine his scope on earth. The Rabbis ascertained the contextual closeness between Eccl 6:12 and Ps 144:4 and presented David (through Ps 144:4) in order to interpret Solomon (Eccl 6:12); man’s life is as transitory as the shadow to which it is likened. The rabbis wish to create contextual affinity and semantic continuity between the books of Psalms and Ecclesiastes by highlighting their semantic ties. ...”
Michail Kitsos, “Examples of Intertextuality in Ecclesiastes Rabbah: An Examination of the Book of Psalms in Ecclesiastes Rabbah with Methodological Nuances,” in Reading Ecclesiastes Intertextually, ed. Katharine Dell and Will Kynes (London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014), 274–275.

References are not endorsements of their contents. Read each reference in full to understand its author's intentions in using these texts.

Your feedback

Psalm 144:4 and Ecclesiastes Rabbah 6:12

Leave a comment

Your questions and comments are welcome!

Comments

Glossary

Search the Library