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.

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 (p) 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" (q); of living long, of recalling time, and of avoiding death.

(p) De Senectute, c. 23. (q) "non est expectatio sive spes", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus, Michaelis.

For we are strangers (as Psalm 39:13), i.e., in this connection we have no property, no enduring possession, since God had only given them the usufruct of the land; and as of the land, so also of all the property of man, it is only a gift committed to us by God in usufruct. The truth that our life is a pilgrimage (Hebrews 11:12-14), is presented to us by the brevity of life. As a shadow, so swiftly passing away, are our days upon the earth (cf. Job 8:9; Psalm 90:9., Psalm 102:12; Psalm 144:4). מקוה ואין, and there is no trust, scil. in the continuance of life (cf. Jeremiah 14:8).

For we are {i} strangers before thee, and sojourners, as were all our fathers: our days on the earth are as a shadow, and there is none abiding.

(i) Therefore we have this land loaned to us for a time.

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 fathers once were mere strangers in it, even before men, so we at this day are no better before thee, having no absolute right in it, but only to travel through 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 we cannot keep to ourselves: and therefore it is a great favour that thou wilt accept such offerings. David's days had as much of substance in them 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 who must acknowledge, that their days on the earth are as a shadow: which speaks of our life as a vain life, a dark life, a transient life, and a life that will have its period, either in perfect light or perfect darkness.

abiding: Heb. expectation

29:10-19 We cannot form a right idea of the magnificence of the temple, and the buildings around it, about which such quantities of gold and silver were employed. But the unsearchable riches of Christ exceed the splendour of the temple, infinitely more than that surpassed the meanest cottage on earth. Instead of boasting of these large oblations, David gave solemn thanks to the Lord. All they gave for the Lord's temple was his own; if they attempted to keep it, death would soon have removed them from it. They only use they could make of it to their real advantage, was, to consecrate it to the service of Him who gave it.