Psalm 144:3-4 LORD, what is man, that you take knowledge of him! or the son of man, that you make account of him!… : — I. AN INTELLECTUAL PROBLEM. 1. What is man in his constitution? (1) What is he corporeally? Medical science, from the beginning, has concerned itself with this question, and, as yet, has reached no satisfactory solution. (2) What is he mentally? Psychology has pondered on this question for ages, and has not, up to the present hour, reached a satisfactory explanation. (3) What is he morally? Ethical science has employed its most earnest efforts in order to find out whether man is a moral being or not, and, if he is, what are his distinguishing faculties, and what his ultimate destiny. 2. What is man in his relations? His relations to the material and the spiritual, the human and the Divine. 3. What is man in his character? Has he fallen from a higher type of character, or is he gradually rising out of a lower? Is his moral character a progressive evolution? Here is the problem, "What is man?" "Truly," says Sir Thomas Browne, "the whole creation is a mystery, and particularly that of man." "Man," says Carlyle, "stands in the centre of nature, his fraction of time encircled by eternity, his hand-breadth of space encircled by infinitude." II. A RELIGIOUS SENTIMENT. 1. The exclamation assumes that the Almighty does take special notice of man. The shepherd is interested in his one lost sheep. The housewife in her one lost piece of silver. The father in his one lost son. 2. The exclamation breathes the spirit of amazement at this. It is so contrary to what might antecedently have been expected, so contrary to what a guilty conscience would have foreboded. (David Thomas, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: LORD, what is man, that thou takest knowledge of him! or the son of man, that thou makest account of him!WEB: Yahweh, what is man, that you care for him? Or the son of man, that you think of him? |
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