A Prayer of Moses the man of God. It may help us to understand this Psalm if we recollect the circumstances which surrounded Moses when he was in the desert. For forty years, he had to see a whole generation of people die in the wilderness. In addition to the deaths which might occur among those who were born in the wilderness, the whole of that great host which came out of Egypt, numbering, probably, between two and three millions of persons, must lie in their graves in the desert, so that there must have been constant funerals, and the march of the children of Israel could be perceived along the desert track by the graves which they left behind them. You do not wonder, therefore, at this expression of the awe of «Moses the man of God» as he was so continually reminded of the mortality of mankind, and you note how reverently and trustfully he turns to the ever-living and eternal God, and rests in him.
Psalms 90:1. LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
«Did not Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all our fathers dwell in thee?
And though we are now weary-footed pilgrims, who have no fixed dwelling place on earth, we do dwell in thee. Thou, Lord, art the true home of all the generations of thy people.»
Psalms 90:2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
God is the only being who has had eternal and essential existence independently of all others, and all others have owed their existence to him.
Psalms 90:3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
He sends us forth into life, and he calls us back again in death.
Psalms 90:4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Yesterday, while it was with us, was a short period of four and twenty hours; but when it is past, it seems like nothing at all. A thousand years, all big with events which we consider to be full of weight and importance, make up a long period in which myriads of men come and go; yet these thousand years, in God's sight, «are but as yesterday when it is past,» or but as the few hours in the night during which the mariner keeps watch at sea, and then is relieved by another. A thousand years are but «as a watch in the night» to the Eternal, and he needs no one to relieve him, for «he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.»
Psalms 90:5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood;
They have no power to stem the torrent.
Psalms 90:5. They are as a sleep:
Our earthly existence is but «as a sleep.» Many things are not what they seem to us to be in our fevered dreams. The time of awaking is coming, and then things will appear very different to us from what they seem to be now.
Psalms 90:5. They are like grass which groweth up.
Fresh, green, vigorous, lovely, restful to the eye.
Psalms 90:6. In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth.
It needs no long period, ages upon ages, to destroy its beauty; only let the swiftly-passing day come to its waning, and the grass «is cut down, and withereth.»
Psalms 90:7. For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
If we had to endure the flames of God's anger, we should be consumed by it; but I think that Christians should not read this passage as though it applied to them. They are not under the divine anger, nor need they fear being troubled by the divine wrath, for his anger is turned away from them through the great atoning sacrifice of his Son Jesus Christ. But the children of Israel in the wilderness were being consumed by God's anger, and by his wrath they were being troubled, so that the words of Moses did apply to them.
Psalms 90:8-9. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
Like a romance, with which the Orientals still delight to beguile the passing hours. Such is the life of man: «as a tale that is told.»
Psalms 90:10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten;
This was a gloomy fact to Moses, who lived to be a hundred and twenty years of age, and who probably remembered other men who had been far older than himself. Yet it is well that the ordinary period of human life has been shortened. It is still far too long for those who do evil, though it may not be too long for those who do good. Yet there are, even now, some who outlive their usefulness, and who might have been happier if they had finished their course sooner. «The days of our years are threescore years and ten;»
Psalms 90:10. 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.
Whither do we fly? That is the all-important point. The cutting of the string that holds the bird by the foot is a blessing or a curse according to the way in which it takes its flight. If we fly up to build our nest on yonder trees of God that are full of sap, then, indeed, we do well when we fly away; and we may even long for the wings of a dove, that we may fly away, and be at rest.
Psalms 90:11-12. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
It has been well said that many men will number their cows, and number their coins, but forget to number their days. Yet that is a kind of arithmetic that would be exceedingly profitable to those who practiced it aright. Counting our days, and finding them but few, we should seek to use them discreetly, and we should not reckon that we could afford to lose so much as one of them. Who would be a spendthrift with so small a store as that which belongs to us?
Psalms 90:13-14. Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
«If they are but few, yet let them be happy. Give us an abundance of thy mercy, O Lord, and let us have it at once, so that, however few our days may he, every one of them may be spent in the ways of wisdom, and, consequently, in the ways of peace and happiness.»
Psalms 90:15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.
«Balance our sorrows with an equal weight of joys. Give us grace equivalent to our griefs; and if thou hast given to us a bitter cup of woe, now let us drink from the golden chalice of thy love, and so let our fainting spirits be refreshed.»
Psalms 90:16. Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
May we have grace to devote ourselves entirely to God's service, and do the work which he has appointed us to do!
Psalms 90:16. And thy glory unto their children.
If we may not live to see the success of our efforts, may our children see it! If the glory of that bright millennial age, which is certain to come in due time, shall not gladden our eyes before we fall asleep in Jesus, let us do the Lord's work so far as we can that our children may see his glory.
Psalms 90:17. And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
Even if we die, let our work live. May there be something permanent remaining after we are gone; not wood, hay, and stubble, which the fire will consume; but a building of gold, silver, and precious stones which will endure the fire that, sooner or later, will «try every man's work of what sort it is.»
Psalms 90:17. Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.