Psalms 90:1-17
1 Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
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.
3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
6 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 daysa 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.
12 So teach us to number our days, that we may applyb our hearts unto wisdom.
13 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.
The main purpose of this psalm is revealed in the prayer with which it concludes (vv. Psa 90:13-17). This prayer is prefaced by a meditation on the frailty of man (vv. Psa 90:3-12), in the light of eternity of god (vv. Psa 90:1-2). By this backward method of analysis we gain a conception of the general scheme of the psalm which now enables us to take the three movements in their orderly sequence.
The eternity of God is described in three stages. First, as measured by the history of His people, He has ever been their dwelling-place. Secondly, as measure by creation, He was before all. Finally, whether the mind travel backward or forward to the vanishing point, He is still god. In this light man is seen in the frailty of his being.
To God a thousand years are comparatively nothing, and in every millennium men appear and pass in a sequence as orderly as that of the grass, but in a life as transitory. This frailty is the more feeble because man is a sinner; and therefore out of harmony with God. Yet this very eternity of God is the hope of man in his frailty and sin, and the heart is lifted to Jehovah in a prayer that the mornings, the days, the years of brief life may all be set in true relation to Him. Satisfaction, gladness, success in work must all come from the right relation of man in his frailty to the eternal Lord.