We Are All Guests on This Land

I_Chronicles.29.15

Just when you think it’s all about power and the privilege of land rights forever- David’s final words remind us that we are all mere guests about this earth and holy land.

The first Book of Chronicles ends with the final blessing of King David, handing over the reins to his son Solomon. The blessing is part of his final address to the people, full of piety and pomp. But King David offers not just triumph, but also a single surprising sentence of trembling humility.

It’s a verse thrown into his prayer for the people that has puzzled many translators and feels very resonant during these difficult days.

He begins by thanking God for everything he and his people have obtained and secured and then reminds his listeners that all is as fleeting as shadow and none of us truly own our land:

כִּֽי־גֵרִ֨ים אֲנַ֧חְנוּ לְפָנֶ֛יךָ וְתוֹשָׁבִ֖ים כְּכׇל־אֲבֹתֵ֑ינוּ כַּצֵּ֧ל ׀ יָמֵ֛ינוּ עַל־הָאָ֖רֶץ וְאֵ֥ין מִקְוֶֽה׃

For we are sojourners with You, mere transients like our fathers; our days on earth are like a shadow, with nothing in prospect.

I_Chronicles.29.15 (JPS 1985)

There are few Hebrew words here worth exploring for their multiple meanings. The word ‘Gerim’ is translated here as ‘sojourners’ and elsewhere as ‘foreigners’, ‘strangers’, ‘migrants’. It is the word used today to describe those who choose to become Jewish and in biblical context often referred to those who are foreign born yet part of the community or nation. David is here reminding the people, and us, that we were all once strangers, all of us both insiders and outsiders, with responsibilities towards all who share our life and land.

Our lives are short, he says, just like the shadows - we come and go. The only real owner of land and life is the divine, not us. And then he ends with the two words that translators and theologians struggle with: ‘V’Ein Mikveh’ - ‘with nothing in prospect’, or ‘there is no abiding’, or ‘there is no hope.’ The word ‘Mikveh’ also became the name of the ritual bath that defines Jewish rituals of immersion and transformation. In some poetic sense, ‘No Mikveh’ means there are no means of meaning making beyond what is here and now.

Each translator gazes on David’s weary admission with a slightly different shutter: despair, resignation, or realism.

Why does this resonant king—builder, warrior, founder—close with such bleak humility? Because he’s reminding Israel: this land is not ours forever. Our lives are fleeting. Our permanence is an illusion. Like our ancestors, we are guests here, we belong to the earth, not the other way around. David’s admission, inserted by the author here, undercuts the overall chronicler’s majestic closing. Or perhaps it was meant to add a sober humble note in the middle of the pomp? It’s a reminder that even redemptive vision must retain humility, that no empire is sacred by virtue of its lifespan. Readers today must ask: do we worship the land or the people?

Jewish-German scholar Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch reads this not as a lament, but a spiritual checkpoint: acknowledging earthly impermanence brings us face-to-face with the truly eternal. Without illusions, we can work with intention, free from pride or fatalism.

Kabbalists see the “shadow” as the husk of physical existence. Real consciousness lies beyond the shadow—in the hidden divine sparks. Only when we admit our transience can we tap into the light pulsing behind the scenes.

Rabbi Menachem Creditor, a contemporary activist and rabbi, calls this verse “a summons to action.” Amid broken systems and bloodshed, he argues that shadows must not paralyze us—but ignite our moral urgency. To live knowing we are briefly here, strangers in a strange land, is to claim responsibility before it’s too late.

To read King David’s final words today, as some Jews claim the land is ours by right and forever is an important and loud reminder that life comes before land, even as we seek a homeland of security and safety far from the storms and shadows of foreign fear and human hatred.

The claim of permanence fuels grief and violence all through the holy land. Who among us remembers that we were once strangers in our own strange lands, migrants and asylum seekers, foreigners and indigenous fighting for food and for rights?

What if we took David’s final words as modern wisdom to remind us of how temporary it all is, and that we are all travelers here, with provisional claims and humble hopes? That hope, abiding, is not the denial of sadness, but an invitation: action guided by moral recognition of our shared care for each others, not temporal ownership by some at the expense of others?

In 2025, this verse can shape a different conversation: not winners vs. losers, but fragile humans, compelled to treat each other as fellow travelers in the same temporary land.

The final word from David doesn’t say: give up on home and hope. Perhaps his message is meant to remind us: this life, this land—is not forever.

Why else would this verse be inserted among the grandiose words? Let that set us free—not to claim by force, but to build with conscience, even if we can’t know what may lay ahead.

The book ends with David’s death, having ruled for forty years. No words about the fights for who will claim his throne or any of the sordid stuff we find of his final days in the Book of Samuel. The throne is now occupied by his son Solomon. The second book of Chronicles and the final volume of the Hebrew Bible will begin tomorrow.

The king is dead, long live the king - lights and shadows, here and gone, here and now.

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