Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 103:16
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
16. The verse may refer to the withering of the flower (A.V.), but it is more poetical to understand it metaphorically of the disappearance of the man.
For a wind passeth over him, and he is not,
And his place shall know him no more.
“The east wind, blowing over the desert in summer, is dry and parching, and withers up all vegetation.” Tristram, Nat. Hist. p. 34. Cp. Hos 13:15. The second line is from Job 7:10; cp. Job 8:18, Job 20:9.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone – Margin, as in Hebrew, it is not. The reference is either to a hot and burning wind, that dries up the flower; or to a furious wind that tears it from its stem; or to a gentle breeze that takes off its petals as they loosen their hold, and are ready to fall. So man falls – as if a breath – a breeze – came over him, and he is gone. How easily is man swept off! How little force, apparently, does it require to remove the most beautiful and blooming youth of either sex from the earth! How speedily does beauty vanish; how soon, like a fading flower, does such a one pass away!
And the place thereof shall know it no more – That is, It shall no more appear in the place where it was seen and known. The place is here personified as if capable of recognizing the objects which are present, and as if it missed the things which were once there. They are gone. So it will soon be in all the places where we have been; where we have been seen; where we have been known. In our dwellings; at our tables; in our places of business; in our offices, counting-rooms, studies, laboratories; in the streets where we have walked from day to day; in the pulpit, the court-room, the legislation-hall; in the place of revelry or festivity; in the prayer-room, the Sabbath-school, the sanctuary – we shall be seen no longer. We shall be gone: and the impression on those who are there, and with whom we have been associated, will be best expressed by the language, he is gone! Gone; – where? No one that survives can tell. All that they whom we leave will know will be that we are absent – that we are gone. But to us now, how momentous the inquiry, Where shall we be, when we are gone from among the living? Other places will know us; will it be in heaven, or hell?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 103:16
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
The autumn wind: an emblem of death
I. The autumn wind works gradually. Blade by blade, the herbs wither under its influence; and leaf by leaf, the tree is stripped of its foliage. Thus on gradually until all is dust. So death works gradually. We die daily.
II. The autumn wind works universally. It is on all herbage, in all forests, it withers all, sows death everywhere. All are dying, individuals, families, nations, the whole generation.
III. The autumn wind works insidiously. Only occasionally does it come with the rush of violence, and scatter the leaves. Quietly, invisibly, insidiously it works. So does death. It is working in their systems when men are utterly unconscious of it. The wind passeth over it and it is gone. And when the wind of death passeth over us, we are gone, gone for ever. (Homilist.)
Soon forgotten
We shall sleep none the less sweetly, though none be talking about us over our heads. The world has a short memory, and, as the years go on the list that it has to remember grows so crowded that it is harder and harder to find room to write a new name on it, or to read the old. The letters on the tombstones are soon erased by the feet that tramp across the churchyard. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. The wind passeth over it] Referring perhaps to some blasting pestilential wind.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A blasting or stormy wind bloweth upon it, and there is no more any appearance nor remembrance of it in the place where it stood and flourished.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone,…. A stormy wind, as the Targum, which tears it up by its roots, or blows off the flower, and it is seen no more; or a blighting easterly wind, which, blowing on it, shrivels it up, and it dies at once; such an one as blasted the seven ears of corn in Pharaoh’s dream, Ge 41:23 or any impetuous, drying, and noxious wind: and so when the east wind of adversity passes over a man, his riches, and honour, and estate, are presently gone; or some bodily distemper, which takes away health, strength, and beauty, and impairs the mind; and especially death, which removes at once into another world.
And the place thereof shall know it no more; the place where the flower grew shall know it no more; or it shall be seen no more in it: so man, when he dies, though he is not annihilated, he is somewhere; he is in another world, either of happiness or woe; yet he is not in this world, in the house and family, in the station and business he was; he is no longer known nor seen among men on earth; see Job 7:10.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(16) The windi.e., the hot, scorching blast, as in Isa. 40:7. Even in our humid climate, it may be said of a flower
If one sharp wind sweep oer the field,
It withers in an hour.
But the pestilential winds of the East are described as bringing a heat like that of an oven, which immediately blasts every green thing.
Know it no more.Comp. Job. 7:10. Man vanishes away without leaving a trace behind. The pathos of the verse has been well caught in the well-known lines of Gray:
One morn I missed him on the accustomed hill,
Along the heath, and near his favourite tree:
Another came, nor yet beside the rill,
Nor up the lawn, nor at the wood was he.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. The wind passeth over it The allusion is to the east and southeast winds, which, coming from the hot desert of Arabia, pass over Palestine with vehemence, destroying life, withering grass and herbage, and exhausting the strength of men and animals. See Eze 17:10; Eze 19:12; Hos 13:15.
It is gone Hebrew, It is not. Such is our transient, mortal life. But the language applies specially to wicked and worldly men who have their portion in this life and forget God. See Job 20:9; Psa 37:10; Psa 73:19-20.
The place thereof shall know it no more Taken almost literally from Job 7:8
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 103:16 For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
Ver. 16. For the wind passeth over it, and it is gone ] Heb. it is not; that is, it neither continues any longer in being nor returns any more into being: so here, Job 14:7-12 .
And the place thereof shall know it no more
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
wind. Hebrew. ruach. App-9.
it is gone = there is no sign of it.
the place . . . know it. Figure of speech Prosopopoeia.
know = recognize.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
the wind: Job 27:20, Job 27:21, Isa 40:7
it is gone: Heb. it is not, Gen 5:24, Job 14:10
and the: Job 7:6-10, Job 8:18, Job 8:19, Job 20:9
Reciprocal: Job 4:19 – crushed Job 7:10 – shall return Job 10:20 – my days few Job 14:2 – like Psa 37:10 – wicked Psa 90:5 – morning Psa 92:7 – wicked Psa 144:4 – his days Ecc 2:16 – there is Isa 40:6 – All flesh Isa 51:12 – man which Dan 2:35 – no place Luk 8:42 – and she 1Co 7:29 – the time