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psalm 90
Haystack bible commentary"Stacks and stacks of commentary...."
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The book of Psalms is a book of poems, songs, and prayers that’s divided into five separate books written by several different authors. Psalm 90 was written by Moses and is one of the oldest Psalms.
==psalm 90:1-4:
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Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever You had formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. 3 You turn man to destruction, And say, “Return, O children of men.” 4 For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night. 5 You carry them away like a flood; |
God actually inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15). That is, just as men inhabit or live on earth, God lives in eternity. This is, of course, a realm above and beyond time and space. It would be a mistake to try to understand eternity by time. Someone suggested that eternity is time with both ends knocked out, but eternity is actually something quite apart from time. Eternity is not just a long, long time. It is apparently more a state of being. Perhaps one way to think of it is as the "eternal present."
God actually inhabits eternity (Isaiah 57:15). That is, just as men inhabit or live on earth. Gods lives in eternity. This is, of course, a realm above and beyond time and space. It would be a mistake to try to understand eternity by time., Someone suggested that eternity is time with both ends knocked out, but eternity is actually something quite apart from time. Eternity is not just a klong, long time. It is apparently more than a state of being. Perhaps one way to think of it is as the "eternal present."
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September 24, 2024: Jon Bloom wrote: Moses cuts right to the chase when he says, You return man to dust and say , “Return, O children of man!” (Psalm 90:3). We all dread death. We dread it for myriad reasons, but underneath all others is a primal root reason: death is God’s judgment on sinful humanity, and we intuitively know God’s judgment is dreadful. When Moses prays, “You return man to dust,” we can see he’s in touch with reality because he’s quoting God’s words back to him: You [shall] return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. (Genesis 3:19) Perhaps you and I will be among those alive when Jesus returns, and we will experience our mortal bodies being “swallowed up by life” (2 Corinthians 5:4). I imagine every saint since Jesus’s resurrection has hoped and prayed for that experience. But there is wisdom to be gained from pondering the significant likelihood that someday soon — bewilderingly soon — God will say to us, “Return, O child of man.” |
The first verse expresses confidence in God as the source of protection and care. “Dwelling place” is closely related to the term “refuge” which appears frequently in the Psalms (2:12; 34:8; 71:3). The claim about God here is very personal— the Lord is “our dwelling place” (italics added). The concern for time is also apparent from the start. The Lord has been our dwelling place “in all generations.” Verse 2, however, declares God’s greatness by pointing to God’s time. Before the world was put in order God was God. --Ministry Matter
Lord - Not יהוה Yahweh here, but אדני 'Adonāy. The word is properly rendered "Lord," but it is a term which is often applied to God. It indicates, however, nothing in regard to his character or attributes except that he is a "Ruler or Governor."
Thou hast been our dwelling-place - The Septuagint renders this, "refuge" - καταφυγἡ kataphugē. So the Latin Vulgate, "refugium;" and Luther, "Zuflucht." The Hebrew word - מעון mâ‛ôn - means properly a habitation, a dwelling, as of God in his temple, Psalm 26:8; heaven, Psalm 68:5; Deuteronomy 26:15. It also means a den or lair for wild beasts, Nahum 2:12; Jeremiah 9:11. But here the idea seems to be, as in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Luther, "a refuge"; a place to which one may come as to his home, as one does from a journey; from wandering; from toil; from danger: a place to which such a one naturally resorts, which he loves, and where he feels that he may rest secure. The idea is, that a friend of God has that feeling in respect to Him, which one has toward his own home - his abode - the place which he loves and calls his own.
In all generations - Margin, "generation and generation." That is, A succeeding generation has found him to be the same as the previous generation had. He was unchanged, though the successive generations of men passed away.
--Barnes Notes on the Bible
Thou hast been our dwelling-place - The Septuagint renders this, "refuge" - καταφυγἡ kataphugē. So the Latin Vulgate, "refugium;" and Luther, "Zuflucht." The Hebrew word - מעון mâ‛ôn - means properly a habitation, a dwelling, as of God in his temple, Psalm 26:8; heaven, Psalm 68:5; Deuteronomy 26:15. It also means a den or lair for wild beasts, Nahum 2:12; Jeremiah 9:11. But here the idea seems to be, as in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Luther, "a refuge"; a place to which one may come as to his home, as one does from a journey; from wandering; from toil; from danger: a place to which such a one naturally resorts, which he loves, and where he feels that he may rest secure. The idea is, that a friend of God has that feeling in respect to Him, which one has toward his own home - his abode - the place which he loves and calls his own.
In all generations - Margin, "generation and generation." That is, A succeeding generation has found him to be the same as the previous generation had. He was unchanged, though the successive generations of men passed away.
--Barnes Notes on the Bible
==psalm 90:6-11:
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.
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.
==psalm 90:12:
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“So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.”
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Make each day count and be fruitful…..there’s really not that many of them. Man’s life is, “like the grass which growth up. In the morning it flourisheth, and growth up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth” (v.5-6). Or as that of the leaf: “we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6). Here we are in winter and just a half a year ago it was summer. But soon will be spring and summer again…until we move into the final September of our lives……Our life is but a mist, which appears for a little time and then vanishes away and you don’t see it (James 4:14). You open the curtains in the morning and there’s mist upon the hill. By lunchtime the mist has evaporated and gone. So is the life of man.
I know this all sounds a bit depressing. But our hope has to be real hope if it’s going to sustain us through real life, not the illusory hope of the mirage-like dreams my classmates and I likely had when we graduated. Real hope is only realized when we come to terms with the dismaying reality we all face in this age. Truly facing it is what forges in us “a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12), the kind of heart that Psalm 90 teaches how to cultivate. --Jon Bloom
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January 19, 2024: Heidi SD De Jonge wrote: Yesterday was my 47th birthday. As I prepared to celebrate the day and to write this blog, I paged through my underlinings in James K.A. Smith’s book, How to Inhabit Time. I found in his writing an invitation to rejoice in my age, my numbered days, even my mortality. To resent mortality is a mark of hubris. When we resent our own mortality, we resent the fact that what is given is not eternal. Then, all too often, we try to fabricate eternity: we cling and dig in our claws, refusing to let go. The irony is that we lose in grasping. Sometimes it is precisely when we try to seize and freeze what is passing that we abjure our creaturehood and lose something that is right in front of us. Smith goes on: To live mortally, we might say, is to receive gifts by letting go, finding joy in the fleeting present. This is temporal contentment: to inhabit time with eyes wide open, hands outstretched, not to grasp but to receive, enjoy, and let go. Sometimes knowing this won’t last forever compels us to hold hands in the present. Whatever our relationship with counting, may we number our days aright – receiving rather than grasping. And instead of merely tabulating, lifting and considering with open hands and a grateful heart. |
==psalm 90:13-17:
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 glory 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.
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 glory 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.