Skip to main content
Psalmlog Logo
Read

Psalm 39:6

“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.

4“LORD, show me my end, what is the measure of my days. Let me know how frail I am.
5Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.” Selah.
6“Surely every man walks like a shadow. Surely they busy themselves in vain. He heaps up, and doesn’t know who shall gather.
7Now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in you.
8Deliver me from all my transgressions. Don’t make me the reproach of the foolish.
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →
← Psalm 39:5Psalm 39:7 →
Notice

A shadow moves through a life of gathering, and the unknown person who receives the heap exposes how little control all that effort has secured.

Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.

What part of your present busyness looks different when you picture yourself walking like a shadow?

Write on this

What comes to mind when you consider someone else receiving what you have spent years gathering?

Write on this
Connect

Where else Scripture says this

11 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.

This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
Matthew 6:19“Don’t lay up treasures for yourselves on the earth, where moth and rust consume, and where thieves break through and steal;Both passages expose the insecurity of accumulated possessions: the psalm names an unknown recipient, while Jesus names decay and theft.
Luke 12:20“But God said to him, ‘You foolish one, tonight your soul is required of you. The things which you have prepared—whose will they be?’Both texts ask who will receive accumulated goods when the person who prepared them can no longer possess them.
James 4:14Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.The shadow in the psalm and the brief vapor in James picture human life as fleeting and beyond human control.
Ecclesiastes 2:26For to the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge, and joy; but to the sinner he gives travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him who …Both describe gathering and heaping up possessions that another person receives, exposing the vanity of that labor.
Psalm 49:10For he sees that wise men die; likewise the fool and the senseless perish, and leave their wealth to others.Both describe people leaving accumulated wealth behind for others, beyond the reach of their own possession.
1 Peter 1:18knowing that you were redeemed, not with corruptible things like silver or gold, from the useless way of life handed down from your fathers,Both speak of futile living; Peter also names silver and gold as corruptible things that cannot redeem.
Ecclesiastes 12:13This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.Both concern the shape of human life, though Ecclesiastes names duty before God where the psalm describes vain busyness.
1 Corinthians 7:31and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.Both place human activity against transience: people walk like shadows, and the present form of the world passes away.
Psalm 127:2It is vain for you to rise up early, to stay up late, eating the bread of toil, for he gives sleep to his loved ones.Both name human effort as vain, whether in heaping up possessions or extending toil from dawn into night.
Psalm 62:10Don’t trust in oppression. Don’t become vain in robbery. If riches increase, don’t set your heart on them.Both question confidence in growing wealth: one describes its uncertain destination, while the other warns against setting the heart on riches.
1 John 2:17The world is passing away with its lusts, but he who does God’s will remains forever.Both describe what passes away: the psalm pictures human life as a shadow, while John names the world and its lusts.
Where this verse fits

Retirement or purpose. envy and comparison. death and what comes after.

What the Bible says about death →
One step

Something small to carry out of this verse

Write a list of what you are accumulating

practicaloncelight
Encouragement

The uncertainty about who will gather remains unresolved here. In the next verse, David turns toward God in hope; his brief life and unfinished questions are still before the Lord.

Now put it in your words.

Start an entry on Psalm 39:6. Write what it stirs. Psalmlog sets your words beside Scripture and gives you one next step. Your first entry is free, no account needed.

Keep goingPsalm 39 · the whole chapter with its connection mapPsalms · every chapterBuild a reading plan through Psalms

Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).