And Ecclesiastes says: “Man does not know his time. As fish are caught in an evil net, and as birds are caught in a snare, so the sons of men are snared at an evil time, when it suddenly falls upon them” (Eccl 9:12).
“For what is your life? It is a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” According to blessed Theophylact, vapor is a certain composition of air, exhaled from moisture or from the heat of fire. It has the slightest substance, that is, an extreme fineness, and therefore quickly disappears into the air.
Saint James likened human life to this vapor. According to Saint Mitrophanes, he rebukes the Christians mentioned above, who speak senseless words, and says to them: Christian brothers, if by your natural ignorance you do not know what tomorrow will bring you. And if you have no certainty that you will live until tomorrow, because life is swift and brief, like a vapor that quickly vanishes, why do you dream in your mind of many years?
Why do you fantasize about gaining much profit and trading? Do you not consider, senseless men, that death may suddenly come upon you? Do you not think of the temptations and calamities that may meet you, from which only the Almighty Lord Himself is able to deliver you?
Through the prophet Hosea He says: “There is no savior besides Me” (Hos 13:4). Why then do you abandon the providence of God and try by your own powers to enjoy the profits you desire?
In agreement with Saint James, the Old Scripture also reproves this swiftly vanishing character of human life. In Job it is said: “Our life on earth is a shadow” (Job 8:9). And again: “Man born of woman is short-lived and full of wrath. He comes forth like a flower and falls away. He flees like a shadow and does not remain” (Job 14:1-2).
And again: “Those who dwell in houses of clay, that is, in bodies, from which we ourselves are of the same clay, He strikes like a moth. From morning until evening they are no more. Because they could not help themselves, they perished” (Job 4:19-20).
In Isaiah it is written: “A wind blew upon them, and they withered, and the tempest will carry them away like stubble” (Isa 40:24).
The prophet David, showing the vanity of life, puts us to shame, because all our labor is wasted upon vanity. He says: “Surely man walks about as an image; surely he is troubled in vain” (Ps 38:7).
That is, the wretched man labors as though for what does not exist. He possesses a certain unstable likeness of an image, not things that truly exist, according to the interpretation of Saint Theophylact and Oecumenius.
THEOSIS