Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 89:47

"Oh remember how short my time is: For what vanity hast thou created all the children of men!" — Psalms 89:47 (ASV)

Remember how short my time is - The word rendered “time”—חלד cheled—means duration; lifetime (Psalms 39:5). It also means life, time, age, or the world. Literally, here, it is: “Remember; I; what duration.” The meaning is plain.

Remember that my time must soon come to an end. Life is brief. In a short period, the time will come for me to die; and if these promises are to be fulfilled for me, it must be done soon.

Remember that these troubles and sorrows cannot continue for a much longer period without exhausting all my appointed time on the earth. If God was ever to interpose and bless him, it must be done speedily, for he would soon pass away. The promised bestowal of favor must be conferred soon, or it could not be conferred at all. The psalmist prays that God would remember this.

So it is proper for us to pray that God would bless us soon; that he would not withhold his grace now; that there may be no delay; that he would (we may say it with reverence) remember that our life is very brief, and that if grace is to be bestowed to save us, or to make us useful, it must be bestowed soon. A young man may properly employ this prayer; how much more appropriately one who is rapidly approaching old age, and the end of life!

Why have you made all men in vain? - As you seem to have done, since they accomplish so little in the world, and since so many appear completely to miss the great purpose of life! Nothing, in certain moods of mind, will strike one more forcibly or more painfully than the thought that the mass of people seem to have been made in vain.

Nothing is accomplished by them worthy of the powers with which they are endowed; nothing worthy of so long living for; nothing worthy of the efforts which they actually make.

In a large portion of mankind, there is an utter failure in securing even the objects which they seek to secure. In numerous cases, when they have secured the object, it is not worth the effort which it has cost. In all cases, the same effort, or an effort less strenuous, laborious, costly, and continuous, would have secured an object of real value—worth all their effort—the immortal crown!