Job 8:9

For we are but of yesterday . "We," i.e. "of the present generation, old men though we may be, are but of yesterday; our experience is as nothing compared with the long, long experience of the past centuries, wherein the men of old "hived wisdom with each studious year," not, like ourselves, hurried and pressed by the shortness of the term to which life is now reduced, but having ample time for reflection and consideration in their long lives of five, six, seven, centuries ( Genesis 11:10-17 ), which enabled them to give their attention to everything in its turn, and to exhaust all the experiences that human life has to offer. And know nothing ; i.e. comparatively. Sir IsaActs Newton said that he felt like a child gathering shells upon the seashore, while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him. Because our days upon earth are a shadow (comp. Job 14:2 ; Psalms 102:11 ; Isaiah 40:6 ). So brief and fleeting that they can scarcely be called a reality.