Psalm XC
A Prayer of Jloses, the man of God.
1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the
earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night.
5 Thou earnest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: In the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up;
In the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
7 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee.
Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a
tale that is told.
10 The days of our years are threescore years and ten; And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, Yet is their strength labour and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is
thy wrath.
12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all
our days.
15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, And the years wherein we have seen evil.
16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy gloiy unto their children.
17 And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: And establish thou the work of our hands upon us; Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
Part 1 V. of the Book of Psalms, according to the Jewish division, begins here. It is, however, unsuitable in this way to separate the 90th from the 89th, inasmuch as the latter sets forth the abiding faithfulness of God the Lord, while the former shews the need of that faithful covenant, because of man’s sin and frailty. Perhaps the reference in the close of Psa. lxxxix. to the words of Moses, in Num. xi. 12, may have in part led to the position of this Psalm next to it.
The title, “The prayer of Moses, the man of God,” is a title, the genuineness of which we have no grounds for disputing, as all manuscripts have it. Some diminish the interest of this title by giving it a figurative turn, as if all that was meant was that the Psalm is a proper prayer for one who, like Moses, is a pilgrim in the world’s wilderness. But it is far better to take it as it stands — a real prayer and psalm of Moses, perhaps written about the time of that awful event. Num. xi., or, in the 88th year of the desert-journey, when himself had so sinned as to be forbidden to enter the land. Some even fix on Pisgah as the spot where he sang so pensively.
Moses, bemoaning the sentence gone forth on Israel, and already in prospect seeing the sands of the desert covering the whitening bones of the thousands that had followed him, sings of these three themes —
(a) From 1-10, Nothing found stable hut Jehovah. He is ]iyD, not a tent in the desert, but a fixed abode (ver. 1); and shall be so more gloriously still, (Home).
“Thou turnest them even to broJcenness, {i. e., crumbling down the mass of dust); And say est, Return, ye children of men,^^ {q. d., let the sentence recorded in Gen. iii. 19, take its course).
Man fades though his sentence of death be deferred, and even if he were, like those before the flood, to live onward to a thousand years. All this because of sin, — sin which God’s holy eye cannot overlook, for his countenance is spoken of (ver. 8) as liXD, a luminary. And then the shortened period of seventy years ever tells of the limit to man. Our days pass away as “a tale,” or “ejaculation,” or “sigh,” or “thought;”
and if there be fourscore years, yet D2n, that in which they prided themselves (their Rahab), becomes toil and suffering. (Hengst.)
(h) In verses 11, 12, he sings, Kothing able to stand before the wrath of the Lord —
“Who knoios the poioer of thine anger, (Ezra viii. 22) And thy wrath, up to the measure of thy fear?
Who knows, or cares for, thy wrath in a manner suitable to what is demanded by thy perfection, O to knoAV it so as to be led thereby to wisdom —
“Cause us to hioiv (it), numbering our days!
That we may bring our heart to wisdom.’”
(c) But in verses 13-17, he sings of The days of the Restitution of all things — days when “the Lord returns,” that is, “turns back from his wrath,” and comforts his senants — days, when the dark night is past, and when “at morning” {lip’^2, ver. 14) the Lord satiates his own, so that they are evermore rejoicing — days like what Jesus speaks of, John xvi, 20-22, that make anguish no more remembered — days when the Lord’s work appears in power, and his glory is unveiled — days, when the “beauty (Dyj, see Psa. xxvii. 4,*) of the Lord,” his well-pleased look, rests on all his people, and on earth at large. Of such days the times of David and Solomon were a type, and the times of Immanuel on earth and his apostles were so far a specimen. But the fulness is still a thing hoped for, to be brought us at the Lord’s appearing.
The meeker than Moses, Christ on earth, could use this Psalm ^Z^., “”«■ in sympathy with us. As in Psa. cii. 3, 10, 11, he mourns over sin, and the results of sin, which he by imputation was made to share, so here he might speak as one of us throughout.
This very ancient Psalm, “The prayer of Moses, the man of God,” has for its burden Man’s sin and frailty leading to the cry for the better days.
* The Targum has here —” Let the sweetness of the garden of Eden be upon
Heafl.
PSALM XCI. — MORE THAN ISRAEL S BLESSING