PSALM 90 [1]

Teach us to number our days and years

A description of God as eternal (vv.1-2)

1 Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations. [2]

2 Before the mountains were born

Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,

Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. [3] [4]

A description of man’s frailty (vv.3-6)

3 You turn man back into dust		And say, “Return/Repent, O children of men.”
4 For a thousand years in Your sight	Are like yesterday when it passes by,		Or as a watch in the night. [5]
5 You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;		In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
6 In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;		Toward evening it fades and withers away.

A sin cursed world is the reason for man’s vanity (vv.7-12; see Romans 1:18-32)

7 For we have been consumed by Your anger	And by Your wrath we have been dismayed.
8 You have placed our iniquities before You,	Our secret sins in the light of Your presence.
9 For all our days have declined in Your fury;	We have finished our years [6] like a sigh.
10 As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years,	Or if due to strength, eighty years, [7]
Yet their pride is but labor and sorrow;	For soon it is gone and we fly away.
11 Who understands the power of Your anger	And Your fury, according to the fear that is due You?
12 So teach us to number our days,	That we may present to You a heart of wisdom. [8]

Prayer for Yahweh’s favor (vv.13-17)

13 Do return, O Yahweh; [9] how long will it be?		And be sorry for Your servants.
14 O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,		That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad according to the days You have afflicted us,		And the years we have seen evil.
16 Let Your work appear to Your servants		And Your majesty to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;	And confirm for us the work of our hands;		Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

[1] “The caption of Psalm 90 attributes it to Moses, who appears seven times in Book Four, (cf. 99:6; 103:7; 105:26; 106:16,23,32), and elsewhere in the Psalter only in 77:20” (Schaeffer 225). Psalm 91 is anonymous. Some commentators believe this points to the two Psalms as being expansions of the two lines of Moses’ final blessing,

“The eternal God is a dwelling place,

And underneath are the everlasting arms… (Deuteronomy 33:27)

The superscription of Psalm 92 is, “A Psalm, a Song for the Sabbath day.” Perhaps a Psalm for the Sabbath was purposely placed after a Psalm about work.

[2] “The verse almost always consists of two or three cola, never more. Sometimes, however, we encounter a verse that consists of only one colon. The book of Psalms contains twenty-one of these versets functioning as verses. There are none at all in Job, and almost none in Proverbs” (J.P. Fokkelman, Reading Biblical Poetry p.38). Fokkelman notes that almost 12.5 percent of the verses in the Psalms are tricola (e.g. Psalm 90:2,4,17).

[3] The Westminster Confession of Faith (II:1); Larger Catechism (Q.7); and Shorter Catechism (Q.4) use Psalm 90:2 as a proof text for God’s eternality. Question 4 of the Shorter Catechism asks,

What is God?

Answer:

God is a Spirit (John 4:24), infinite (Job 11:7–9), eternal (Psalm 90:2), and unchangeable (James 1:17), in his being (Exodus 3:14), wisdom (Psalm 147:5), power (Revelation 4:8), holiness (Revelation 15:4), justice, goodness, and truth. (Exodus 34:6–7)

[4] J. Clinton McCann Jr. notes how the literary structure of verses 1-2 makes a theological point. The divine “You” is all-encompassing of time and space. Human life and the life of the world find their origin and destiny in God:

A “Lord, you…´(God)

B “all generations” (time)

C “mountains” (space)

C’ “earth and the world” (space)

B’ “everlasting to everlasting” (time)

A’ “you are God” (God) (p.1041)

[5] Many people forget that a thousand years is also like a watch in the night (3 hours). Verse 5 then progresses to sleep, morning and then evening. McCann notes that the chiastic structure re-creates the progression of fa day:

A v.5a “like a dream” (night)

B v.5b morning

B’ v.6a morning

A’ v.6b evening (p.1042)

[6] The Hebrew word for “days” occurs 6x in Psalm 90 (7x in Psalm 104) and “years” also occurs 6x.

[7] “The pair “seventy” and “eighty” in verse 10 is an instance of parallel numbers, like the numbers “three” and “four” in Amos 1-2, and “six” and “seven” in Job 5:19 and Prov 6:16-19” (Clifford, 99).

[8] On April 27, 1720 Thomas Boston preached two sermons on v.12 entitled, “The Right Improvement of a time of Sickness and Mortality.” It was a fast-day occasioned by great sickness and mortality in his congregation and in the country-side. Conditions were so bad that he said during the afternoon sermon, “Some sermons have of late been the last to them that heard them. Some heard the sermon on the Lord's day in health, that were in eternity ere the next Sabbath.”

In the morning sermon he observed, “Many good counters, who can dexterously count great sums, are quite out in the calculation of their days, Luke 12.19,20. There is a necessity of the teaching of the Spirit, in order to learn this divine arithmetic.”

[9] The Name Yahweh, “I AM” is a constant reminder of His eternality. Yahweh occurs once in Psalm 90; 104x in Book IV of the Psalter (Psalms 90-106). Other frequency of occurrences of the divine Name and titles in Book IV: Yah 7x; Lord (Adonai) 3x (2x in Psalm 90 [vv.1,17]); God (el) 9x; God (Elohim) 23x.