Psalm 90
“Man’s Transitoriness” “Only Isaiah 40 can compare with this psalm for its presentation of God’s grandeur and eternity over against the frailty of man…In an age which was readier than our own to reflect on mortality and judgment, this psalm was an appointed reading with 1 Corinthians 15 at the burial of the dead: a rehearsal of the facts of death and life which, if it was harsh at such a moment, wounded to heal” (Kidner pp. 327-328). According to the superscription, Moses was the author of this psalm, which would make it the oldest of all the psalms. Moses wrote two other pieces of poetry, Exodus 15:1-18 and Deuteronomy 32:1-43. Boice notes that the historical setting of this psalm might be the events surrounding Numbers chapter 20. Miriam, the sister of Moses has just died. The sin of Moses in striking the rock in the wilderness, which keep him from entering the Promised Land. And the brother of Moses, Aaron, will also die. Psalm 90 does not have a bitter or defeated tone, rather it is just plain, realistic thinking. Man is frail and a sinner and he needs the eternal God as his only possible hope and home. Some say that Moses couldn’t have been the author because he lived longer than eighty years (90:10). However, when one reads Exodus through Deuteronomy it is clearly understood that Moses’ longevity was an exception. The generation of his contemporaries must have died comparatively young if it had been removed from the scene by the time the forty years of wandering in the wilderness were at an end. In addition, the writer is speaking of what is generally true, or the average life span.
God The Eternal 90:1 “This opening of the psalm corresponds to the close, in that God is seen here as our God, whose eternity is the answer, not simply the antithesis, to our homelessness and our brevity of life” (Kidner p. 328). 90:1 “Lord”: Is a title and not a substitute for the name of Jehovah. “So God is addressed as our sovereign as well as our shelter: we are His to command, though He is also ours to enjoy” (Kidner p. 328). When we address Jesus as Lord let us remember that we are acknowledging that He has the right to tell us how to think and live (2 Corinthians 10:1ff).
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90:1 “Our dwelling place in all generations”: God is the foundation for everything. “Moses was aware, probably more than most of us, that life is uncertain at best. There is no permanence to be found in it” (Boice p. 742). The only permanence is found in God. “Here a great foundational reality is confessed. Throughout her history, God has been home to Israel. He is like a house, filled with comfort and security. It is not the Promised Land or even the temple that lets God’s people be at home, but God Himself. Like the prodigal in Jesus’ parable, to go home is to go home to the waiting Father (Luke 15:11ff)” (Williams p. 160). In all generations people have taken refuge in Him (Hebrews 11:10,16). That is, God has been tested and found true and faithful by countless generations. 90:2 God, however, preexists His creation. Even without the earth or Israel, He would still be God. God exists independently of the creation, which means that God isn’t the invention of the human mind, and neither does God deprive His power from the universe or human praise. 90:2 “Even from everlasting to everlasting, Thou art God”: Which means that God is self-existent and depends upon absolutely nothing or no one for His existence and power (Acts 17:25). “The life of the creation is always derivative from Him. There can never be a confusion between God and humankind. We have no independent existence, and since we cannot create ourselves, we must submit to ‘God as God’” (Williams p. 160). 90:3 “From the confession of God as the center of Israel’s security and as the eternal Creator, the psalmist now turns to man. Thus we must always see ourselves in the light of God. To reverse the equation can lead to theological ruin, because it puts us in danger of recreating God in our own image” (Williams p. 161) Point To Note: The above is an excellent observation, for most false doctrines start when people assume that God thinks or feels the same way they do about something. When we assume that He sees things from our perspective and that our feelings are His feelings, we are creating God in our own image. The idea of turning back into dust almost certainly alludes to the curse of Adam (Genesis 3:19). In contrast with God’s eternity, man is frail and temporary and in the end his body is nothing more than dust. The word rendered “dust” in this verse means something pulverized like dust.
Man The Short-Lived
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90:4 From this verse some have tried to argue that the “days” of Genesis chapter one were each a thousand years long. But the phrase “as a watch in the night”, rules out such an interpretation. “The comparison is like that of Isaiah 40:15ff., where the nations are ‘like a drop from a bucket, and…as the dust on the scales’. It puts our world into its context, which is God, and our time-span into its huge setting of eternity. This is humbling to human pride, but heartening with regard to God’s interventions and their timing (2 Peter 3:8)” (Kidner p. 329). The point is not that time passes quickly for God, rather that God lives outside of time and is completely unaffected by it. Rather, time passes quickly for mankind! Even if we should live a thousand years, as Methuselah almost did (Genesis 5:27), it (compared to eternity) would still only be as a day that has gone by or a watch in the night. A watch in the night was approximately four hours in length. 90:5-6 Within the context of time, the life of the writer speeds away, carried like a flood. “The swift changes of metaphor adds to the sense of insecurity and flux” (Kidner p. 329). “In the arid climate of the Near East a night rain will often cause a carpet of green grass to spring up in the morning on the otherwise brown hills. But the blazing daytime sun will frequently also scorch it out by nightfall. Moses is saying that our lives are like that” (Boice p. 742). Compare with 1 Peter 1:2425. Human life is as frail and brief as the grass. “The deception lies in the flourishing, because even then, when the grass looks its best, the day is close to ending” (Williams pp. 161-162). This verse, “points to a landscape reclothed in morning freshness, and so to the human scene as a whole, ever renewed but ever fading” (Isaiah 40:6ff; Matthew 6:28-30) (Kidner p. 329). 90:5 “They fall asleep”: Or, “they are like a sleep”. “Men have become like sleep. For when one awakens, whether it be the whole of life that one thinks back upon or merely the night just passed, both seem to be of about the same duration” (Leupold p. 645).
Man Under Wrath 90:7 This section recognizes that man’s greatest problem is not his physical frailty, rather, it is the fact that man sins. When he or she violates the will of God they become a sinner and are thereby subject to the just wrath of God. In fact, sin was the cause of physical death in the first place (Romans 5:12). Man’s life is short because of God’s wrath against sin. “The setting is the fall (Genesis 3), which reveals death as our sentence, not our intended lot. Its universal shadow is a standing reminder of our human solidarity in sin, and of the seriousness with which God views this” (Kidner p. 329).
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Point To Note: Every graveyard and funeral is a physical reminder that God takes sin seriously! Moses had learned the lesson taught in Genesis chapter three very well. He had watched an entire generation die because of their selfishness, stubbornness, and defiance. God’s wrath is unrelenting (7), and we are without excuse (8). We need to learn the lesson that God is angry when man sins and when we sin. God will punish unrepentant sinners, and such a thought should terrify us! In the Old Testament God’s wrath is seen in His plagues on Egypt, in drought and famine, and in avenging enemy armies. Since He is the Lord of history, He uses the nations as the rod of His anger (Isaiah 10:5). And in the New Testament, He is still a consuming fire when it comes to dealing with human rebellion and defiance (Hebrews 10:26ff). 90:8 God sees everything. (Hebrews 4:12-13), both public and private sins. “As for our secret sins, they must include those that we would disguise even from ourselves” (Kidner p. 330). God addresses the sins of the heart (Matthew 5:21,28). The good news is that God’s word can help us see and expose such sins (Psalms 19:12). 90:9 The “sigh” of this verse may be both a sigh of grief and a final fleeting sound, a last breath. Remember, Moses is the writer and he may be speaking on behalf of the nation. The generation in the wilderness was an unbelieving generation and they were subject to God’s displeasure. For the rest of their lives they were suffering the physical consequences of their unbelief, i.e., wandering in the wilderness. So repent! So forsake your sins! Because do you want to spend the last half of your life regretting the past and suffering the consequences of your foolishness! Point To Note: “Are you aware that sins always leads to death? Sins lead to the death of dreams, hopes, plans, relationships, health, and eventually even to that ultimate spiritual death that is separation from God forever. If you are aware of this, you will not treat sin lightly, as many do” (Boice p. 743). 90:10 The writer now sums up life. The average span of it was seventy years. A few are more sturdy than the rest; they reach eighty years (which in our culture would include a low-cholesterol diet and exercise). Yet, that part of life and its natural endowments that mankind generally prizes highest are not gotten without much toil and in itself amounted to nothing but vanity (apart from spiritual values). And this is again due chiefly to the fact that the things of ‘what we take pride in’ quickly pass and are held in hand but a brief moment.
90:11 If there is in the face of all this one truth that man should have discerned, it is the power of God’s wrath. “But that just happens to be the one truth that 4
men do not regard” (Leupold p. 646). The reason that life is short and full of toil is that sin has merited God’s displeasure (Genesis 3). Points To Note: 1.
Even professed Christians at times will say that we talk too much about the wrath of God. But Moses said that we don’t talk about it enough. The implied answer is that “no one” really understands or grasps how God feels about sin. “We continue to sin and whistle in the dark” (Williams p. 163). 2. “In spite of all these signs of God’s displeasure, the message never registers until God brings it home to us….The psalmist includes himself among those who need this lesson” (Kidner p. 330). 3. The verse also implies that when we treat sin casually or lightly, we are guilty of treating God lightly.
90:12 “So teach us to number our days”: 1. How do we make each day count for God? 2. When faced with the above truths of our own morality and God’s wrath against sin, we won’t engage in some infantile fantasy about our omnipotence and immortality. 3. “One Bible student wrote wisely, ‘We cannot apply our hearts unto wisdom, as instructed by Moses, except we number every day as our possible last day….Of all the mathematical disciplines this is the hardest: to number our days. We count everything else, but we do not seem able to use our days rightly and with wisdom” (Boice p. 744). See Luke 12:1320.
The God Of Grace
90:13 “With the boldness of verse 1, which claimed relationship with God, the remainder of the prayer largely begs for a reversal of what has gone before. God had rebuked man with His ‘turn back’ (3); now man returns this cry to God: ‘Turn back---for mercy’” (Kidner p. 331). We can’t really repent or plead for God’s mercy until we see the true impact of our sins. 90:14-15 Even though the physical consequences of sin will not be erased, i.e., man will continue to age and die, a right relationship with God can make our short life here joyful and meaningful. “The only thing that will secure life-long gladness is a heart satisfied with the experience of God’s love. This means that nothing will satisfy the human heart ultimately except God. So forget trying to fill your life with mere things. They will perish. Do not even put your hope in other people. They will die” (Boice p. 745). Compare with 2 Corinthians 4:17. The realization that we are loved by God and right with Him is the only factor that can outweigh or counterbalance the days of affliction or the years wherein evil has been the order of the day. 5
90:16-17 “The crowning contrast is between what was seen as perishable in verses 3-12 and the abiding glory of what God does. Here is a heritage for our children in a transitory world; here is delight…the possibility of labor that is ‘not in vain’ (1 Corinthians 15:58). Not only God’s work will endure, but, with His blessing, the work of our hands as well (work done in His service). It has been worth facing the unwelcome facts of time, wrath, and death, to have been moved to such a prayer and such assurance” (Kidner p. 331). Points To Note: Only when we forsake our sins and draw close to God and His people can we begin to see the work that God is doing. We start seeing what is really important and lasting in life, we start engaging in good works which will survive into eternity. 2. Do we have the desire to make our lives count for God? Do we really want to do something which will have eternal consequences for good? Do you want your life here and what you do here to have meaning? Do you want to be a blessing to others? The only way that can happen is if you are involved in God’s good works (Ephesians 2:10; 2 Timothy 3:16-17). And instead of doing your own thing—do God’s thing. 3. Sin doesn’t have to destroy us. If one will only learn from their sins, and take God’s rebuke and punishment to heart, one can turn to God and immediately realize that life is worth living and that life can have tremendous meaning and purpose!
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