Psalm 62:9

Verse 9. Surely men of low degree are vanity.

"Who over the herd would wish to reign, Fantastic, fickle, fierce, and vain! Vain as the leaf upon the stream, And fickle as a changeful dream; Fantastic as a woman's mood, And fierce as Frenzy's fevered blood, Thou many headed monster thing, O, who would wish to be thy king!" Walter Scott (1771-1832).

Verse 9. Surely men of low degree are vanity, etc. Or, sons of Adam; of the earthly man; of fallen Adam; one of his immediate sons was called Hebel, vanity; and it is true of all his sons, but here it designs only one sort of them; such as are poor and low in the world; mean men, as the phrase is rendered in Isaiah 2:9 ; these are subject to sinful vanity; their thoughts are vain, their affections vain, their minds vain, their conversation vain, sinful, foolish, fallacious, and inconstant. John Gill.

Verse 9. Men... are a lie. An active lie -- they deceive others; and a passive lie -- they are deceived by others; and they who are most actively a lie, are most usually and most deservedly a passive lie, or fed with lies. Joseph Caryl.

Verse 9. Lighter than vanity. If there were any one among men immortal, not liable to sin, or change, whom it were impossible for any one to overcome, but who was strong as an angel, such a one might be something; but inasmuch as every one is a man, a sinner, mortal, weak, liable to sickness and death, exposed to pain and terror, like Pharaoh, even from the most insignificant animals, and liable to so many miseries that it is impossible to count them, the conclusion must be a valid one: "Man is nothing." Arndt.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

None.