Psalms 90:7-9 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

We are consumed by thine anger Caused by our sinful state and lives. Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might do by the course of nature. And by thy wrath are we troubled The generations of men are troubled and consumed by divers diseases, and sundry kinds of death, through the displeasure of God, occasioned by their sins. The provocations and chastisements of Israel are here alluded to. But their case in the wilderness is the case of mankind in the world, and the same thing is true in them and in us. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee Thou observest them as a righteous judge, and art calling us to an account for them. Our secret sins, &c. Which, though hidden from the eyes of men, thou hast set before thine eyes, and brought to light by thy judgments. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath That is, under the tokens of thy displeasure. We spend our years as a tale that is told Which may a little affect us for the present, but is quickly ended, and gone out of mind. Hebrew, כמי הגה, chemo hege, as a sound, as the expression is rendered Job 32:2; or as a word, which is but air and breath, and vanishes into nothing as soon as spoken. Or, as the word more properly signifies, a meditation or thought, which is of a nature still more fleeting and transient.