“His days are like a passing shadow.” (144:4)

A cloud, an object comprised of a wisp of substance, blows across the sun and casts a shadow. The human life is compared to that shadow, a non-object of no substance at all. When we are here, we are barely here. Our lives hardly make a difference, the equivalent of a brief cool respite on a hot day. Yet we are human, we are sentient, and we have the power as a species to recognize our mortality and construct elaborate mythic structures to give our lives meaning. Even a wisp of a cloud has the power to eclipse the sun, and a weary traveler on a hot day gives thanks for that moment of shade.