This week’s psalm is attributed to Moses, as the superscription indicates: A prayer of Moses, the man of God. This is the same way he is described in Deuteronomy (33:1): Mose ish ha-elohim.
Now this is the blessing with which Moses, the man of God, blessed the Israelites before his death. — Deut 33:1 (LEB)
This psalm is designed in three parts, along a chiastic structure. The Greek letter chi, after which the poetic arrangement is named, looks like the English letter X and describes series of parallel statements around a central theme. The irst statements lead in like the left side of the X from the top to the middle, and then the statements afterward flow outward like the bottom half of it. The sequence is usually depicted as A, B, C, D, E, D’, C’, B’, A’.
In the case of Psalm 90, the outline looks like this:
A) The Lord is God (vv. 1–2)
B) God’s Authority Over Humanity (vv. 3–6)
C) God’s Wrath (vv. 7–10)
C′) Proper Response to it (vv. 11–12)
B′) Prayer for God’s Mercy (vv. 13–16)
A′) May the Lord be Our God (v. 17)
The psalm opens and closes declaring that God is the “Lord” (Adonai).
O Lord, you have been our help in all generations. 2 Before the mountains were born and you brought forth the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God. — Ps 90:1–2
and
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish for us the work of our hands, yes, the work of our hands, establish it. — Ps 90:17
In verses 3-6 we read about God’s expansive control over his entire creation, including humanity.
You return man to the dust, saying, “Return, O sons of man.” 4 For a thousand years in your eyes are like yesterday when it passes, or like a watch in the night. 5 You sweep them away like a flood. They fall asleep. In the morning they are like grass that sprouts anew. 6 In the morning it blossoms and sprouts anew; by evening it withers and dries up. — Ps 90:3–6
Think about verse 4 for a moment. Even if humans lived for a thousand years (Methuselah lived for 969 according to Gen 5:27), it would still be less than a day to God, or only four hours (a watch in the night). This is a symbolic image, not a mathematical formula to gauge heavenly time structures.
The rotation of this planet on its axis means nothing if viewed from space, and likewise for its rotation around the sun. Earth’s days and months and years are a handy way for us to track events here according to a repeating cycle, but expecting a particular day or hour to have any meaning or significance in Heaven is fanciful at best, and self-centered at worst. In verses 7-10 we read about God’s wrath.
For we are brought to an end by your anger, and we hasten off by your wrath. 8 You have put our iniquities before you, our hidden sins into the light of your countenance. 9 For all of our days dwindle away in your rage; we complete our years like a sigh. 10 As for the days of our years, within them are seventy years or if by strength eighty years, and their pride is trouble and disaster, for it passes quickly and we fly away. — Ps 90:7–10
All our sins, even our hidden ones, become revealed by God who sees everything. When Moses wrote this psalm, human life expectancy was apparently about 70-80 years. He was at the end of his natural lifetime when God chose him to serve him in a supernatural way (Ex 7:7). He lived an additional 40 years (Deut 34:7) and warns about how fleeting life is. To live such a brief existence only to face God’s wrath is foolish. So, Moses tells us the proper response to God’s wrath in the next two verses.
Who knows the strength of your anger, and your rage consistent with the fear due you? 12 So teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. — Ps 90:11–12
Teaching us to number our days means to help us realize how limited our lifetimes are and guide us toward wise choices and obedience during that time. In the 70-year lifetime described here, that gives us 25,567 and a half
days (including leap years). That’s about 3,653 Sundays.
As you get older, however, that number starts to reduce drastically. It’s also not a guaranteed minimum. Many people have succumbed to fatal disease or accidents well before that age. The question almost always asked when we are told about a terminal illness is, “How much time do I have left?”
We know the doctor doesn’t have an actual date, but we also know that over the years he or she has seen enough patients in similar circumstances to give us an approximate timeframe so we can start making arrangements and plans for the time we have left.
Moses tells us to live each day as if we just got the news that we don’t have much time left, because we are dealing with eternity, so whatever amount of time we have left here really isn’t all that much.
Having realized God’s wrath and responded appropriately, we are called to pray for God’s mercy, which parallels the declaration of God’s authority over humanity. Only someone with authority can grant mercy.
Return, O Yahweh. How long? And have compassion on your servants. 14 Satisfy us in the morning with your loyal 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 calamity. 16 Let your work be visible to your servants, and your majesty to their children. — Ps 90:13–16
This prayer has three aspects to it. The first is for God to restore his favor. Even though his anger consumes in verse 7, verse 13 shows that he may relent (“return” to his original graceful countenance).
The second is for God to restore his people’s joy of their salvation. The rejoicing in verse 14 contrasts (parallels) with the trouble and disaster described in verse 10.
The third aspect is a prayer for continuous blessings instead of occasional demonstrations of his love. The phrases in verse 14 and 15 of all our days, many days, and many years balance against the phrase all our days, our years, and the length of our days found in verse 9 and 10, which shows us the contrast between a lifetime of sorrow under God’s rage and a life of rejoicing in his grace.
The psalm then closes with the statement shown earlier that parallels the opening, recognizing that God is indeed Lord and that all we do should display that to the world.
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish for us the work of our hands, yes, the work of our hands, establish it. — Ps 90:17
So, live each day as if it were your last, but pray as though you have thousands more to do what God has planned for you to do. And let all you do be for his glory.
Soli Deo Gloria.
Your Brother in Christ,
Fr. Austin