Psalms 90 - Introduction

Book IV.
XC.

Notwithstanding the unanimous rejection of the Mosaic title of this psalm by the ancient and mediaeval Christian commentators, it has found supporters among modern critics. It is urged that the transitoriness of human life was a theme peculiarly suited to the leader of a race doomed to wander in the wilderness till the sinful generation had died out, and that the general train of thought and feeling is worthy of Moses standing on the threshold of hopes he was not to be allowed to realise. It is a slender thread to support what, if we must regard it as more than a rabbinical conjecture, was probably the vaguest of traditions. (See General Introduction on the titles.) The subject of the brevity and vanity of life has occupied reflective minds in all periods and countries. Only a Hebrew could have handled it as it is handled here; but the contrast drawn between human frailty and Divine immutability is more suited to a later age of Israel than an early one. The very first verse seems to take a far more extended retrospect than was possible to Moses, while the pathetic cry, “How long?” in Psalms 90:13, suggests, as we have seen in the case of other psalms, even the Maccabæan age (but see title).

In one view it would be a misfortune to be able to fix on the precise moment when this poem was composed, and the voice that first spoke it. For it is what it has been well called “the funeral hymn of the world,” and it belongs not to one race or age, but to the sorrows and the hopes of all the successive generations, who at the open grave have derived, or shall derive, consolation and faith from its Divine words. There is no definite verse structure. The rhythm is subordinated to the feeling.

Title. — Moses is called “the man of God,” as in Deuteronomy 33:1; Joshua 14:6; 1 Chronicles 23:14; 2 Chronicles 30:16; Ezra 3:2.

The Mosaic authorship is a question depending in a great measure on the view held as to the date of the later part of Deuteronomy, to which there are resemblances in many points of style and some points of detail. Those who bring the composition of that work down to the eighth century before Christ will unhesitatingly refer this psalm to a date as late, if not later. (For more, see Introduction.)