Human Life in Retrospect
Homilist
Genesis 47:9
And Jacob said to Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years…


I. HUMAN LIFE IS RETROSPECT IS SADDENING.

1. Unsettled.

2. Brief. The shorter perhaps the better.

3. Evil. Because —

(1)  Never to be recalled.

(2)  Memory of moral imperfections more or less distressing.

II. IT STANDS IN CONTRAST WITH IT IN PROSPECT. Hope makes life to the young a settled, lengthened, and joyous thing.

III. IT SUGGESTS THE IDEA OF A BETTER EXISTENCE. Underlying this wail of the old patriarch, there was an impression of a life settled, long, and blessed. This impression was the standard by which he measured the ever-changing, brief, and unblessed past. Truly, a belief in a future life is almost necessary to reconcile us to the present.

(Homilist.)



Parallel Verses
KJV: And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.

WEB: Jacob said to Pharaoh, "The days of the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage."




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