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90. Psalm 90

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place
   throughout all generations.
² Before the mountains were born
   or you brought forth the whole world,
   from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

    ³ You turn people back to dust,
   saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
⁴ A thousand years in your sight
   are like a day that has just gone by,
   or like a watch in the night.
⁵ Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
   they are like the new grass of the morning:
⁶ In the morning it springs up new,
   but by evening it is dry and withered.

    ⁷ We are consumed by your anger
   and terrified by your indignation.
⁸ You have set our iniquities before you,
   our secret sins in the light of your presence.
⁹ All our days pass away under your wrath;
   we finish our years with a moan.
¹⁰ Our days may come to seventy years,
   or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
   for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
¹¹ If only we knew the power of your anger!
   Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
¹² Teach us to number our days,
   that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

    ¹³ Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
   Have compassion on your servants.
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
   that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
   for as many years as we have seen trouble.
¹⁶ May your deeds be shown to your servants,
   your splendor to their children.

    ¹⁷ May the favor Or beauty of the Lord our God rest on us;
   establish the work of our hands for us—
   yes, establish the work of our hands.

8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee. To show that by this complaint he is far from intending to murmur against God, he asserts that the Divine anger, however terrible it had been, was just, inasmuch as the people had provoked it by their iniquities; for those who, when stricken by the Divine hand, are not brought to genuine humiliation, harden themselves more and more. The true way to profit, and also to subdue our pride, is to feel that He is a righteous judge. Accordingly Moses, after having briefly taught that men by nature vanish away like smoke, gathers from thence that it is not to be wondered at if God exanimates and consumes those whom he pursues with his wrath. The manner of the expression by which God is described as showing the tokens of his anger is to be observed — he sets the iniquities of men before his eyes Hence it follows, that whatever intermission of punishment we experience ought in justice to be ascribed to the forbearance of. God, who buries our sins that he may spare us. The word עלומים, alumim, which I have rendered our secret sins, is translated by some, our youth; ⁵⁶⁷⁵⁶⁷ “In the Indies,” says Sir John Chardin, “the parts of the night are made known, as well by instruments (of music,) in great cities, as by the rounds of the watchmen, who, with cries and small drums, give notice that a fourth part of the night is passed. Now, as these cries awaked those who had slept all that quarter part of the night, it appeared to them but as a moment.” — Harmer’s Observations, volume 1, page 333. If this psalm was the production of Moses, it is observable that night watches were in use in his time. as if Moses had said that the faults committed in youth are brought to remembrance. But this is too forced, and inconsistent with the scope of the passage; for it would destroy the contrast between secret sins and the light of God’s countenance, by which Moses intimates that men hide themselves in darkness, and wrap themselves in many deceits, so long as God does not shine upon them with the light of his judgment; whereas, when he draws them back from their subterfuges, by which they endeavor to escape from him, and sets before his eyes the sins which they hide by hypocrisy, being subdued by fear and dread, they are brought sincerely to humble themselves before him.