1 Chronicles 29:15

15 As far as you're concerned, we're homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.

1 Chronicles 29:15 Meaning and Commentary

1 Chronicles 29:15

For we are strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all
our fathers
For though they were in possession of the land of Canaan, yet they held it not in their own right, but as the Lord's,

who said, the land is mine,
( Leviticus 25:23 ) , they were but tenants in it, and were not to abide long here; they belonged to another city and country; the consideration of which might tend to set them loose to worldly things, and the more easily to part with them for the service of God, and the honour of his name:

our days on the earth are as a shadow;
man's life is expressed by days, not months and years, being so short; and by days on earth, in distinction from the days of heaven, or eternity; and these said to be as a shadow, of a short continuance, empty, mutable, and uncertain, dark and obscure, quickly gone, like the shadow of the sun; and not only like that, or of a mountain, tree or wall; but, as the Targum, of a bird that is flying, which passes away at once:

and [there is] none abiding;
not long, much less always, being but sojourners as before; so Cato in Cicero ^F16 is represented as saying,

``I depart out of this life as from an inn, and not an house; for nature has given us an inn to sojourn, not a place to dwell in:''

or "there is no hope or expectation" ^F17; of living long, of recalling time, and of avoiding death.

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FOOTNOTES:

F16 De Senectute, c. 23.
F17 (hwqm Nya) "non est expectatio sive spes", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Michaelis.

1 Chronicles 29:15 In-Context

13 And here we are, O God, our God, giving thanks to you, praising your splendid Name.

14 "But me - who am I, and who are these my people, that we should presume to be giving something to you? Everything comes from you; all we're doing is giving back what we've been given from your generous hand.

15 As far as you're concerned, we're homeless, shiftless wanderers like our ancestors, our lives mere shadows, hardly anything to us.

16 God, our God, all these materials - these piles of stuff for building a house of worship for you, honoring your Holy Name - it all came from you! It was all yours in the first place!

17 I know, dear God, that you care nothing for the surface - you want us, our true selves - and so I have given from the heart, honestly and happily. And now see all these people doing the same, giving freely, willingly - what a joy!