What is puny man in the presence of the Infinite God?
(Charles Spurgeon, "Treasury of David")
"O LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?" Psalm 144:3
What a contrast between Jehovah and man! The Psalmist turns from the glorious all-sufficiency of God-to the insignificance and nothingness of man. He sees Jehovah to be everything, and then cries, "O LORD, what is man!" What is puny man in the presence of the Infinite God? What can man be compared to? He is too little to be described at all; only God, who knows the most minute object, can tell what man is.
Certainly man is not fit to be the rock of our confidence-he is at once too feeble and too fickle to be relied upon.
The Psalmist's wonder is that God should stoop to know him, and indeed it is more remarkable than if the greatest archangel should make a study of worms, or become the friend of mites.
"O LORD, what is man, that You take knowledge of him?"
That God should make man . . .
the subject of eternal election,
the object of plenteous redemption,
the child of eternal love,
the darling of infallible providence,
the next of kin to Deity-
is indeed unfathomable!