Original Meaning
The Title (90:0)
A PRAYER OF MOSES THE MAN OF GOD. The simplicity of the title belies its profundity. This prayer is the only psalm associated with Moses, and that association will automatically trigger certain thoughts in the mind of the audience. It seems reasonable to assume that Book 4 was gathered together and added to Psalms 1–89 at some point during the exilic or early postexilic period. Book 3, as we have seen, is dominated by the crisis of exile, and Book 4 provides a poetic response to that historical and theological turmoil. In choosing a prayer associated with Moses as the first psalm of this collection, the editors draw their readers’ attention to a time way back before the exile, before the monarchy, before even the entry into the land—a time when Yahweh in his power brought his people out from exile and defeated a superpower in doing so. If Book 4 was gathered during the exile (when the people were held in exile by the superpower of their day), it is very easy to see why this psalm was chosen to initiate this collection.
The fact that this is “a prayer of Moses” (emphasis added) would also be significant for the original readers of this collection because Moses’s prayers were deemed to be efficacious. For example, the Lord heard Moses’s plea for the people following their idolatry during the golden calf incident and appears to have turned from his original intent to destroy Israel as a result of their unfaithfulness (see Exod 32–34, esp. 33:11). Of course, there are many imponderables when it comes to the will of God and the course of human history, but in Israel’s religious understanding Moses became known as a pray-er—as one whose prayers were heard and answered by God (see Ps 99:6). This reminder of God’s responding to the prayers of his people would also be a significant encouragement to the exilic community because it no doubt appeared to them that their prayers recorded in Book 3 are going unanswered. The reminder that Yahweh showed mercy—even to an unfaithful people—by hearing and answering their prayers would give the community confidence that perhaps even their own prayers might be answered by God.
There is a third important reminder in this superscription, namely, that Moses was “a man of God.” This description would be poignant for the exilic community for a couple of reasons. First, it would remind them of what their own, much-lamented kings were not. And second, it would remind the people of what they must be. Book 3 of the Psalms decries the unfairness of the exile from the perspective of the psalmists, but Book 4 begins with a reminder of the priorities that should characterize the community of faith. Their first and most important call, following Moses’s example, is to be “men and women of God.” It is not a complicated calling, but it is one to which they must aspire.
Psalm 90:0 is a brief and simple title, but it is profound nonetheless. It reminds the people of Yahweh’s absolute rule regardless of the question of monarchy. It encourages them to think about answered prayers. And it reminds them of their calling to walk in the ways of their God.
Bridging Contexts
THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE. There is a conundrum that is voiced repeatedly throughout the Old Testament: How can a holy God dwell with a rebellious people? Psalm 90 gives us a clear presentation of the problem and the solution, as seen in the component parts of the poem: (1) God is infinite, whereas human beings are finite (vv. 1–6); (2) God is angered by the sins of his people, and that anger should inspire us to change our behavior (vv. 7–11); (3) it is only by the unwarranted favor of the covenantal God that we can experience fellowship with him and live lives that leave a godly mark on the world we live in (vv. 12–17). The solution to this problem is to be found only in God himself. Without his grace and favor there is no hope of living rightly before him and no way of making a lasting impact on the world around us.
Of course, the essential solution to the holiness and presence conundrum finds its ultimate resolution in the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. How, ultimately, could a holy God dwell with an unholy people? By becoming one of them and literally dwelling in their midst (John 1:14). Not only does Jesus deal with the problem of human sin definitively (Heb 9:26), but he also provides the solution to any sense of brevity and futility with regard to human life (John 10:10). In the work of Christ, our sins are taken away, thus enabling rich relationship with God. What is more, Jesus brings significance to the lives we live and to the work we seek to accomplish. Though it is probably not original to the text of Mark’s Gospel, there is a lovely image at the end of Mark 16, where it is said that “the Lord worked with them” (Mark 16:20).
There is a profound sense in which the key issues of Psalm 90 are resolved in Christ, yet this resolution is not wholly accomplished. It is true that we find the forgiveness of sins, a holiness that is not our own, and eternal life through Jesus and his sacrifice, so why is it that Christians still struggle with feelings of unworthiness, finitude, and lack of purpose? The conundrum we face as Christians is similar to the one faced by the community of faith in the exilic and postexilic periods. The root of Israel’s problem was that they had lost sight of their Refuge—they had forgotten that God was their “dwelling place” (Ps 90:1). The same can be true for every Christian. If we forget the work that Christ has accomplished for us, then we soon fall into the trap of worrying about life, health, purpose, and the sins we have committed. In Psalm 90 the poet encourages the people to turn again to God in his mercy because only then is relationship restored. The same is true for believers today. It is by maintaining relationship through the grace of God the Father, worked out in his Son and sealed by his Spirit, that we find a solution to the problems of our own sin and the significance of our lives. Created in the image of God and adopted as children of the King, it is by walking close to God and receiving his grace that we find significance in life regardless of its brevity and difficulty. The challenge for Israel was to allow God to be their “dwelling place” in their own hearts, and that challenge remains the same for believers today. It is only a healthy sense of dependence that brings wholeness to human life.
Prayer and the God who relents. The Hebrew word shub is of some significance in Psalm 90. This word, in its most literal sense, means “to turn” or “to return” (as is seen in v. 3, for example), but in the Old Testament it often functions in a metaphorical sense. We have already discussed the use of this word to signify human repentance (see the discussion of Ps 85 above), but we also see another important metaphorical use of shub in this composition. This same verb shub is used in verse 13 in the poet’s intercession that God would “relent” from his punishment of the people and allow them to experience joy once again. In the poet’s intercession, this choice of verb—along with many other features of this psalm—resonates with the book of Exodus, and in particular the whole issue of God’s response to the golden calf incident (Exod 32–34). In Exodus we read that God is prepared to destroy the whole nation of Israel and begin a new line of his choice through Moses and his sons (Exod 32:9–10), but Moses intercedes for the people and God relents from his anger (vv. 11–14). In verse 12 of that passage Moses uses the same language that is used in Psalm 90:13 when he calls on Yahweh to “turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” And, quite remarkably, we read in Exodus 32:14 that Yahweh heard Moses’s prayer, relented (using a different word but with the same sense), and did not bring catastrophe on the people. In the same way, the psalmist has the courage to ask God to relent from his punishment and have mercy on his people.
It is a mind-blowing concept to think that the almighty God might, at the behest of one of his servants, relent from a course of action he has decided to undertake. Yet this divine response is what happened for Moses, and the author/speaker of Psalm 90 clearly also believes that it could happen again in response to the prayers of the people. Of course, we can talk about the permissive and prescriptive will of God, or we can debate the causality of an all-knowing God’s undertaking to do something while knowing full well that someone would pray and he would respond to that prayer. But such philosophical discussion of predestination and the will of God somewhat misses the point. With regard to Psalm 90, the debate should not be a philosophical one, for the lesson here is clear and simple: the psalmist believes that prayer changes the very heart of God!
Now, I am aware that the words “God” and “change” in the same sentence will set alarm bells ringing in the hearts of many a theologian, but again, let us not run the risk of missing the point in Psalm 90. The psalmist’s prayer does not affect God’s ontology, but it does affect the reality of the poet’s experience! This prayer is bold, but it is clearly one that the psalmist believes will be answered. Just as Moses the lawgiver interceded for the people and God heard, so the “Moses” of Psalm 90—the man of prayer and the man of God—fully believes that God will change the course of action he seems to have ordained at this time. The whole point is that we pray in our suffering because we pray to a God who relents and changes the course of human history. The psalmist’s bold prayer in verses 12–17 provides the reader with a model to follow: we pray boldly because we pray to a God who, because of his grace and mercy, changes our experience.
Psalm 90 in the New Testament. There are no specific citations of Psalm 90 in the New Testament, but the philosophical themes are dealt with throughout its books. The seriousness of sin and the wrath of God are seen clearly in the suffering of Jesus in the passion narratives of the Gospels. As the apostle Peter puts it:
Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Pet 1:17–19)
The problem of sin and relationship with God was dealt with conclusively in Christ Jesus, as is the issue of insignificant lives (“redeemed from the empty way of life”). Psalm 90 may not be quoted directly, but its topics of discussion certainly find their equivalents in the New Testament.
Contemporary Significance
BRIEF LIVES. Late on a Sunday evening BBC Radio 5 Live used to run a fascinating weekly broadcast entitled “Brief Lives.” Basically, it was an obituary program looking at the lives of famous or significant people who had died during the preceding week. The title of the show was a deliberate play on words. The show itself lasted only for half an hour, so each obituary was only six or seven minutes long, but in presenting these potted summaries of people’s lives there was always the sense that, regardless of how long the featured individuals had lived, their lives had been all too brief.
One of the messages of Psalm 90 is to be aware of the brevity of life (vv. 7–12). Verse 10 reads:
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.
When we are young, the span of seventy or eighty years seems like an eternity, but as time passes we soon realize that it is not. Having entered my late forties at the time of writing these thoughts, I have become deeply aware of the things I have not yet done in my lifetime, and a sense of pressing urgency begins to creep in as I consider my life ahead. Seventy does not seem so very far away, yet there is still so much to be accomplished in life! Such thoughts would never have crossed my mind at the age of eighteen, but now, as my kids gradually leave behind their teenage years, I myself have become all too aware of the reality of “brief lives.” This realization comes on us all at some point in life, and Ps 90 gives us guidance as we are confronted by the brevity of human life.
First, it is important to come to the realization arrived at by the psalmist in the second stanza of the poem. Our lives are brief and frail, and without that realization we will never adopt the right attitude of dependence on God that should characterize our every day! As human beings we are weak and sinful (vv. 7–9). It is only God who can deal with our sins (vv. 13–15), and it is he who decides exactly how long each life is going to last (v. 3). The truth of the matter is that none of us can demand our next breath, and each and every breath is a gift from God. The sooner we realize this fact, the fuller our lives will be. We often rebel against our status of “creature,” yet as creatures we only find the fullness of meaning in relation to the Creator. So, a healthy awareness of our own dependence on God is the only way to view our lives properly.
Second, Psalm 90 gives us some good advice as to how we can live these brief lives well. Verses 12 and 17 are particularly significant for this purpose. Verse 12 is the first request of the psalmist’s supplication: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” A right sense of awareness is important: “teach us to number our days.” There are not so many of these days, so it is vital that we value each one of them and attribute a right sense of perspective to the daily lives we live. When we do consider the brevity of seventy years, perhaps watching that show or movie on TV is not really as important as we might think. Not that I am advocating rampant activism and drivenness, but “numbering our days” will mean that we have a sense of the important and of that which has eternal value. “Numbering our days” means that we will have a clear sense of priorities in the way we live. But the aim of “numbering our days” is to “gain a heart of wisdom.” A heart of wisdom is one that is attuned to God and his will and purpose, one that seeks to live life according to the rhythms of his created order. Wisdom theology is a creational theology.17
It is all about “how to negotiate life successfully in God’s good but fallen world.”18
A heart of wisdom seeks God’s pattern for life: worship, work, rest, family, good food, stunning views—all these things should play their part in a life well lived. The aim is to seek God’s will and purpose for our lives day by day and to live each day in this vibrant relationship with him as our “dwelling place” (v. 1).
Third, the psalmist’s closing supplication in verse 17 helps us deal with the brevity of life as well: “Establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” We all seek a sense of meaning, purpose, and significance in what we do. Whether we are homemakers or world-stage statesmen, teachers or Wall Street traders, farmers or civil servants, we all want there to be some lasting significance from our labor. Ultimately this desire is a spiritual reality. We tend to think of the aim of work as paying the bills, but God has made us for something more than that. The psalmist’s closing prayer is born out of the realization that any work whose value is going to be lasting must be a work of the eternal God, who sees beyond our present generation. So our life and labor should be prayerful, for only then can we have a permanent impact on the world around us. Only by God himself, through the indwelling of his Son (John 15:5) and the work of his Spirit (1 Cor 12:11), are we able to build a spiritual legacy that goes beyond anything the world around us values. The psalmist’s prayer echoes the advice of Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Only this sense of prayerful devotion to God and his purposes will lead us through lives that are brief but resonant with meaning.
Original Meaning
Sovereign throughout History (90:1–6)
LORD, YOU HAVE BEEN OUR DWELLING PLACE THROUGHOUT ALL GENERATIONS. The tone for Book 4 is set with a metaphor that has provided comfort for God’s people throughout the ages (Ps 90:1). The Creator God is presented as having been a place of rest and comfort for his people regardless of their circumstances throughout all generations. Jerome Creach comments, “This statement of confidence reminds that Yahweh was a source of security and protection before Israel had a human king.”1
The juxtaposition of Psalm 90 as a response to the crisis of kingship lamented in Psalm 89 points to a deeper historical understanding that goes far beyond the most recent experience of God’s people. Kingship may have been the visible sign of Yahweh’s governance over the whole earth (see the discussion of Ps 89), but that is all it was—a visible sign. The loss of the human king did not change the reality of Yahweh’s kingship in any way, shape, or form. Yahweh reigned over the whole earth before there was a David or a Davidic king, and he continues to reign following the demise of David’s line. He is still—and is always—the “dwelling place” of his people. McCann points out that he is, “really, the only dwelling place that counts.”2
Jerusalem may have been seen as an impenetrable and secure place for the people—hence its loss hit them very hard (Ps 74)—but the ultimate expression of secure dwelling for Israel was never in a city but always, spiritually, in their God. Terrien writes that this idea of a dwelling place “transcends the idea of temple, sanctuary or refuge” and is “the symbol of spirituality for God’s people (Pss 71:3; 91:3).”3
The neighboring composition further elucidates the concept of Yahweh as a “dwelling place” or “refuge” in Psalm 91:9b, where the same word (ma‘on) is used. Clearly, what is being encouraged in this verse is that the Israelites should consciously find spiritual refuge and strength in Yahweh because this practice has implications for living life in real terms.4
And therein lies the very point of Psalm 90:1: Yahweh has always been a refuge for his people—before there was a king in Jerusalem, and now after the king has gone.
From everlasting to everlasting you are God. The essence of the people’s security is found in the eternal and unchangeable nature of God (v. 2). Before the world came into being God was ’el, the great and high Creator God and Sovereign over all he had made. This focus on the eternal nature of God contrasts strongly with the discussion of the brevity of human life in verses 3–6. The reminder is that the events of human history, although significant for each generation in turn, are but a moment from God’s perspective and are all under his control as Creator and the one who ordains life and death.
You turn people back to dust. God’s eternity gives him absolute authority over the days of humankind. The reference to returning men to dust (v. 3) appears to have a double meaning in this verse. A more literal translation of verse 3 would be, “You return men to dust, and you say, ‘Return, sons of men.’ ” The words “to dust” in the NIV’s translation of verse 3b are not actually in the original Hebrew, but they might be implied from the preceding line of the parallelism. This ambiguity means that the verse could, on the one hand, be a reference to a divine act of humbling and an ensuing call to repentance. That is, God causes humans to humble themselves—in the Old Testament, one of the frequently occurring connotations of “dust” (dakka’ here rather than the more common ‘aphar). After humbling the people by placing them in the dust, in verse 3b he calls his people “to return” (shub), which is a term often used metaphorically to symbolize repentance. So, effectively, one reading would be to see verse 3 as an act of divine subjugation followed by a call to repentance.5
The alternative is to assume (with the NIV) that verse 3 implies the continuation of the indirect object (“to dust”) from the first line of the verse into the second. This reading, therefore, adopts the second major connotation of “dust” in the Old Testament, namely, that all humanity is created out of dust (Gen 2:7) and that all human beings return to dust after their death (Gen 3:19). Both translations are feasible options, but given the content of the following verses that speak of the transitory nature of humanity, the latter translation seems the more likely.6
This tone of the brevity of human life is continued in verses 3–6, where human beings are compared to the Palestinian grass: fresh and green in the cool of the morning but dry, parched, and lifeless by the evening. The message of these verses is clear: human life is brief, and then it is gone.
These opening verses contrast the eternal power of God (vv. 1–2) with the brevity of life under the divine ordinance that all human beings shall “return to dust” (v. 3; cf. Gen 3:19). The point the psalmist seems to be making is that security can only be found in the lasting strength and stability of God, whereas all people (including kings?) are marked by the frailty and temporality of the human condition. God is in control because he is the eternal Creator God.
Bridging Contexts
THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE. There is a conundrum that is voiced repeatedly throughout the Old Testament: How can a holy God dwell with a rebellious people? Psalm 90 gives us a clear presentation of the problem and the solution, as seen in the component parts of the poem: (1) God is infinite, whereas human beings are finite (vv. 1–6); (2) God is angered by the sins of his people, and that anger should inspire us to change our behavior (vv. 7–11); (3) it is only by the unwarranted favor of the covenantal God that we can experience fellowship with him and live lives that leave a godly mark on the world we live in (vv. 12–17). The solution to this problem is to be found only in God himself. Without his grace and favor there is no hope of living rightly before him and no way of making a lasting impact on the world around us.
Of course, the essential solution to the holiness and presence conundrum finds its ultimate resolution in the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. How, ultimately, could a holy God dwell with an unholy people? By becoming one of them and literally dwelling in their midst (John 1:14). Not only does Jesus deal with the problem of human sin definitively (Heb 9:26), but he also provides the solution to any sense of brevity and futility with regard to human life (John 10:10). In the work of Christ, our sins are taken away, thus enabling rich relationship with God. What is more, Jesus brings significance to the lives we live and to the work we seek to accomplish. Though it is probably not original to the text of Mark’s Gospel, there is a lovely image at the end of Mark 16, where it is said that “the Lord worked with them” (Mark 16:20).
There is a profound sense in which the key issues of Psalm 90 are resolved in Christ, yet this resolution is not wholly accomplished. It is true that we find the forgiveness of sins, a holiness that is not our own, and eternal life through Jesus and his sacrifice, so why is it that Christians still struggle with feelings of unworthiness, finitude, and lack of purpose? The conundrum we face as Christians is similar to the one faced by the community of faith in the exilic and postexilic periods. The root of Israel’s problem was that they had lost sight of their Refuge—they had forgotten that God was their “dwelling place” (Ps 90:1). The same can be true for every Christian. If we forget the work that Christ has accomplished for us, then we soon fall into the trap of worrying about life, health, purpose, and the sins we have committed. In Psalm 90 the poet encourages the people to turn again to God in his mercy because only then is relationship restored. The same is true for believers today. It is by maintaining relationship through the grace of God the Father, worked out in his Son and sealed by his Spirit, that we find a solution to the problems of our own sin and the significance of our lives. Created in the image of God and adopted as children of the King, it is by walking close to God and receiving his grace that we find significance in life regardless of its brevity and difficulty. The challenge for Israel was to allow God to be their “dwelling place” in their own hearts, and that challenge remains the same for believers today. It is only a healthy sense of dependence that brings wholeness to human life.
Prayer and the God who relents. The Hebrew word shub is of some significance in Psalm 90. This word, in its most literal sense, means “to turn” or “to return” (as is seen in v. 3, for example), but in the Old Testament it often functions in a metaphorical sense. We have already discussed the use of this word to signify human repentance (see the discussion of Ps 85 above), but we also see another important metaphorical use of shub in this composition. This same verb shub is used in verse 13 in the poet’s intercession that God would “relent” from his punishment of the people and allow them to experience joy once again. In the poet’s intercession, this choice of verb—along with many other features of this psalm—resonates with the book of Exodus, and in particular the whole issue of God’s response to the golden calf incident (Exod 32–34). In Exodus we read that God is prepared to destroy the whole nation of Israel and begin a new line of his choice through Moses and his sons (Exod 32:9–10), but Moses intercedes for the people and God relents from his anger (vv. 11–14). In verse 12 of that passage Moses uses the same language that is used in Psalm 90:13 when he calls on Yahweh to “turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” And, quite remarkably, we read in Exodus 32:14 that Yahweh heard Moses’s prayer, relented (using a different word but with the same sense), and did not bring catastrophe on the people. In the same way, the psalmist has the courage to ask God to relent from his punishment and have mercy on his people.
It is a mind-blowing concept to think that the almighty God might, at the behest of one of his servants, relent from a course of action he has decided to undertake. Yet this divine response is what happened for Moses, and the author/speaker of Psalm 90 clearly also believes that it could happen again in response to the prayers of the people. Of course, we can talk about the permissive and prescriptive will of God, or we can debate the causality of an all-knowing God’s undertaking to do something while knowing full well that someone would pray and he would respond to that prayer. But such philosophical discussion of predestination and the will of God somewhat misses the point. With regard to Psalm 90, the debate should not be a philosophical one, for the lesson here is clear and simple: the psalmist believes that prayer changes the very heart of God!
Now, I am aware that the words “God” and “change” in the same sentence will set alarm bells ringing in the hearts of many a theologian, but again, let us not run the risk of missing the point in Psalm 90. The psalmist’s prayer does not affect God’s ontology, but it does affect the reality of the poet’s experience! This prayer is bold, but it is clearly one that the psalmist believes will be answered. Just as Moses the lawgiver interceded for the people and God heard, so the “Moses” of Psalm 90—the man of prayer and the man of God—fully believes that God will change the course of action he seems to have ordained at this time. The whole point is that we pray in our suffering because we pray to a God who relents and changes the course of human history. The psalmist’s bold prayer in verses 12–17 provides the reader with a model to follow: we pray boldly because we pray to a God who, because of his grace and mercy, changes our experience.
Psalm 90 in the New Testament. There are no specific citations of Psalm 90 in the New Testament, but the philosophical themes are dealt with throughout its books. The seriousness of sin and the wrath of God are seen clearly in the suffering of Jesus in the passion narratives of the Gospels. As the apostle Peter puts it:
Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Pet 1:17–19)
The problem of sin and relationship with God was dealt with conclusively in Christ Jesus, as is the issue of insignificant lives (“redeemed from the empty way of life”). Psalm 90 may not be quoted directly, but its topics of discussion certainly find their equivalents in the New Testament.
Contemporary Significance
BRIEF LIVES. Late on a Sunday evening BBC Radio 5 Live used to run a fascinating weekly broadcast entitled “Brief Lives.” Basically, it was an obituary program looking at the lives of famous or significant people who had died during the preceding week. The title of the show was a deliberate play on words. The show itself lasted only for half an hour, so each obituary was only six or seven minutes long, but in presenting these potted summaries of people’s lives there was always the sense that, regardless of how long the featured individuals had lived, their lives had been all too brief.
One of the messages of Psalm 90 is to be aware of the brevity of life (vv. 7–12). Verse 10 reads:
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.
When we are young, the span of seventy or eighty years seems like an eternity, but as time passes we soon realize that it is not. Having entered my late forties at the time of writing these thoughts, I have become deeply aware of the things I have not yet done in my lifetime, and a sense of pressing urgency begins to creep in as I consider my life ahead. Seventy does not seem so very far away, yet there is still so much to be accomplished in life! Such thoughts would never have crossed my mind at the age of eighteen, but now, as my kids gradually leave behind their teenage years, I myself have become all too aware of the reality of “brief lives.” This realization comes on us all at some point in life, and Ps 90 gives us guidance as we are confronted by the brevity of human life.
First, it is important to come to the realization arrived at by the psalmist in the second stanza of the poem. Our lives are brief and frail, and without that realization we will never adopt the right attitude of dependence on God that should characterize our every day! As human beings we are weak and sinful (vv. 7–9). It is only God who can deal with our sins (vv. 13–15), and it is he who decides exactly how long each life is going to last (v. 3). The truth of the matter is that none of us can demand our next breath, and each and every breath is a gift from God. The sooner we realize this fact, the fuller our lives will be. We often rebel against our status of “creature,” yet as creatures we only find the fullness of meaning in relation to the Creator. So, a healthy awareness of our own dependence on God is the only way to view our lives properly.
Second, Psalm 90 gives us some good advice as to how we can live these brief lives well. Verses 12 and 17 are particularly significant for this purpose. Verse 12 is the first request of the psalmist’s supplication: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” A right sense of awareness is important: “teach us to number our days.” There are not so many of these days, so it is vital that we value each one of them and attribute a right sense of perspective to the daily lives we live. When we do consider the brevity of seventy years, perhaps watching that show or movie on TV is not really as important as we might think. Not that I am advocating rampant activism and drivenness, but “numbering our days” will mean that we have a sense of the important and of that which has eternal value. “Numbering our days” means that we will have a clear sense of priorities in the way we live. But the aim of “numbering our days” is to “gain a heart of wisdom.” A heart of wisdom is one that is attuned to God and his will and purpose, one that seeks to live life according to the rhythms of his created order. Wisdom theology is a creational theology.17
It is all about “how to negotiate life successfully in God’s good but fallen world.”18
A heart of wisdom seeks God’s pattern for life: worship, work, rest, family, good food, stunning views—all these things should play their part in a life well lived. The aim is to seek God’s will and purpose for our lives day by day and to live each day in this vibrant relationship with him as our “dwelling place” (v. 1).
Third, the psalmist’s closing supplication in verse 17 helps us deal with the brevity of life as well: “Establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” We all seek a sense of meaning, purpose, and significance in what we do. Whether we are homemakers or world-stage statesmen, teachers or Wall Street traders, farmers or civil servants, we all want there to be some lasting significance from our labor. Ultimately this desire is a spiritual reality. We tend to think of the aim of work as paying the bills, but God has made us for something more than that. The psalmist’s closing prayer is born out of the realization that any work whose value is going to be lasting must be a work of the eternal God, who sees beyond our present generation. So our life and labor should be prayerful, for only then can we have a permanent impact on the world around us. Only by God himself, through the indwelling of his Son (John 15:5) and the work of his Spirit (1 Cor 12:11), are we able to build a spiritual legacy that goes beyond anything the world around us values. The psalmist’s prayer echoes the advice of Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Only this sense of prayerful devotion to God and his purposes will lead us through lives that are brief but resonant with meaning.
Original Meaning
Divine Rebuke and the Human Experience (90:7–11)
WE ARE CONSUMED BY YOUR ANGER. Attention shifts from God’s eternity in the first stanza to God’s anger in the second. The combination of “anger” (’aph) and “indignation” (hemah) is reminiscent of the warnings in Deuteronomy about what will happen to the people if they fail to keep the covenant once they have entered the land. (Deut 29:21, 28 combine these two words.) This combination of synonyms for God’s wrath is particularly poignant because the pairing of these words is associated with the warning of exile as the ultimate punishment in response to the people’s continued unfaithfulness (see Deut 28–29). So, the description of God’s wrath as anger that terrifies and consumes is not to be seen as capricious. These words reflect God’s righteous response to the persistent rebellion of his people.7
You have set our iniquities before you. Psalm 90:8 gives the clear reason for the divine anger mentioned in the previous verse—human sin has provoked a response from God. The combination of the vocabulary of sin (“iniquities” and “secret sins”) with the language of presence (“before you” and “in the light of your presence”) exposes the real problem: How can an absolutely holy God cohabit with a sinful people? God’s anger is provoked by the continuous sins—both known and unknown—of his people. As Eaton points out, “The present distress of the worshippers is now laid before God. It seems to be a protracted period of hardship; they interpret it as sent by God in anger at their sins, which he is not covering or forgiving, but keeping exposed to his judgment.”8
Psalm 85:1–3 makes it clear that forgiveness is found in Yahweh, but Psalm 90:7–8 lays out the turmoil of God’s people when they do not experience that forgiveness. God’s holiness provokes an angry response to sin, and verse 8 shows the people’s complete dependence on the grace of God if they are to maintain relationship with him.
All our days pass away under your wrath. Experiencing God’s anger simply adds to the frustration of living a brief and troubled life (vv. 9–11). Knowing that the possibility of a life well lived (e.g., see comments on Ps 89:15) is removed by God’s angry response to human sin further embitters the psalmist in his view of life. A short life could be a good one if lived in happy communion with God, but a life under divine wrath is bitter and frustrating. It is both short and full of difficulty and grief (Ps 90:10), thus culminating in a groan of frustration upon death (v. 9).9
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due. The psalmist cuts to the quick at the culmination of his reflection on the frustrations of life in the light of divine wrath (v. 11). Although this pithy statement is quite awkward to translate, the basic meaning seems clear enough: God’s righteous anger should always provoke a response of faithfulness in his people. There are two ways to read verse 11b: “with good reason people are afraid of You because the manifestations of your anger are indeed awesome,”10
or alternatively, “whoever truly understands the burning intensity of God’s wrath will respond in faithful obedience to the measure of that anger.”11
“Fear of God” is a catchphrase borrowed from Israel’s wisdom literature that signifies a holistic response to God’s call to follow him (see discussion of Ps 85:9). The poet is saying that anyone who understands the full extent of God’s righteous anger will respond with a sincere desire to walk in his ways by rejecting sin and striving after his holiness. This use of wisdom language in Psalm 90:11 sparks the transition from meditation to supplication.
Bridging Contexts
THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE. There is a conundrum that is voiced repeatedly throughout the Old Testament: How can a holy God dwell with a rebellious people? Psalm 90 gives us a clear presentation of the problem and the solution, as seen in the component parts of the poem: (1) God is infinite, whereas human beings are finite (vv. 1–6); (2) God is angered by the sins of his people, and that anger should inspire us to change our behavior (vv. 7–11); (3) it is only by the unwarranted favor of the covenantal God that we can experience fellowship with him and live lives that leave a godly mark on the world we live in (vv. 12–17). The solution to this problem is to be found only in God himself. Without his grace and favor there is no hope of living rightly before him and no way of making a lasting impact on the world around us.
Of course, the essential solution to the holiness and presence conundrum finds its ultimate resolution in the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. How, ultimately, could a holy God dwell with an unholy people? By becoming one of them and literally dwelling in their midst (John 1:14). Not only does Jesus deal with the problem of human sin definitively (Heb 9:26), but he also provides the solution to any sense of brevity and futility with regard to human life (John 10:10). In the work of Christ, our sins are taken away, thus enabling rich relationship with God. What is more, Jesus brings significance to the lives we live and to the work we seek to accomplish. Though it is probably not original to the text of Mark’s Gospel, there is a lovely image at the end of Mark 16, where it is said that “the Lord worked with them” (Mark 16:20).
There is a profound sense in which the key issues of Psalm 90 are resolved in Christ, yet this resolution is not wholly accomplished. It is true that we find the forgiveness of sins, a holiness that is not our own, and eternal life through Jesus and his sacrifice, so why is it that Christians still struggle with feelings of unworthiness, finitude, and lack of purpose? The conundrum we face as Christians is similar to the one faced by the community of faith in the exilic and postexilic periods. The root of Israel’s problem was that they had lost sight of their Refuge—they had forgotten that God was their “dwelling place” (Ps 90:1). The same can be true for every Christian. If we forget the work that Christ has accomplished for us, then we soon fall into the trap of worrying about life, health, purpose, and the sins we have committed. In Psalm 90 the poet encourages the people to turn again to God in his mercy because only then is relationship restored. The same is true for believers today. It is by maintaining relationship through the grace of God the Father, worked out in his Son and sealed by his Spirit, that we find a solution to the problems of our own sin and the significance of our lives. Created in the image of God and adopted as children of the King, it is by walking close to God and receiving his grace that we find significance in life regardless of its brevity and difficulty. The challenge for Israel was to allow God to be their “dwelling place” in their own hearts, and that challenge remains the same for believers today. It is only a healthy sense of dependence that brings wholeness to human life.
Prayer and the God who relents. The Hebrew word shub is of some significance in Psalm 90. This word, in its most literal sense, means “to turn” or “to return” (as is seen in v. 3, for example), but in the Old Testament it often functions in a metaphorical sense. We have already discussed the use of this word to signify human repentance (see the discussion of Ps 85 above), but we also see another important metaphorical use of shub in this composition. This same verb shub is used in verse 13 in the poet’s intercession that God would “relent” from his punishment of the people and allow them to experience joy once again. In the poet’s intercession, this choice of verb—along with many other features of this psalm—resonates with the book of Exodus, and in particular the whole issue of God’s response to the golden calf incident (Exod 32–34). In Exodus we read that God is prepared to destroy the whole nation of Israel and begin a new line of his choice through Moses and his sons (Exod 32:9–10), but Moses intercedes for the people and God relents from his anger (vv. 11–14). In verse 12 of that passage Moses uses the same language that is used in Psalm 90:13 when he calls on Yahweh to “turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” And, quite remarkably, we read in Exodus 32:14 that Yahweh heard Moses’s prayer, relented (using a different word but with the same sense), and did not bring catastrophe on the people. In the same way, the psalmist has the courage to ask God to relent from his punishment and have mercy on his people.
It is a mind-blowing concept to think that the almighty God might, at the behest of one of his servants, relent from a course of action he has decided to undertake. Yet this divine response is what happened for Moses, and the author/speaker of Psalm 90 clearly also believes that it could happen again in response to the prayers of the people. Of course, we can talk about the permissive and prescriptive will of God, or we can debate the causality of an all-knowing God’s undertaking to do something while knowing full well that someone would pray and he would respond to that prayer. But such philosophical discussion of predestination and the will of God somewhat misses the point. With regard to Psalm 90, the debate should not be a philosophical one, for the lesson here is clear and simple: the psalmist believes that prayer changes the very heart of God!
Now, I am aware that the words “God” and “change” in the same sentence will set alarm bells ringing in the hearts of many a theologian, but again, let us not run the risk of missing the point in Psalm 90. The psalmist’s prayer does not affect God’s ontology, but it does affect the reality of the poet’s experience! This prayer is bold, but it is clearly one that the psalmist believes will be answered. Just as Moses the lawgiver interceded for the people and God heard, so the “Moses” of Psalm 90—the man of prayer and the man of God—fully believes that God will change the course of action he seems to have ordained at this time. The whole point is that we pray in our suffering because we pray to a God who relents and changes the course of human history. The psalmist’s bold prayer in verses 12–17 provides the reader with a model to follow: we pray boldly because we pray to a God who, because of his grace and mercy, changes our experience.
Psalm 90 in the New Testament. There are no specific citations of Psalm 90 in the New Testament, but the philosophical themes are dealt with throughout its books. The seriousness of sin and the wrath of God are seen clearly in the suffering of Jesus in the passion narratives of the Gospels. As the apostle Peter puts it:
Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Pet 1:17–19)
The problem of sin and relationship with God was dealt with conclusively in Christ Jesus, as is the issue of insignificant lives (“redeemed from the empty way of life”). Psalm 90 may not be quoted directly, but its topics of discussion certainly find their equivalents in the New Testament.
Contemporary Significance
BRIEF LIVES. Late on a Sunday evening BBC Radio 5 Live used to run a fascinating weekly broadcast entitled “Brief Lives.” Basically, it was an obituary program looking at the lives of famous or significant people who had died during the preceding week. The title of the show was a deliberate play on words. The show itself lasted only for half an hour, so each obituary was only six or seven minutes long, but in presenting these potted summaries of people’s lives there was always the sense that, regardless of how long the featured individuals had lived, their lives had been all too brief.
One of the messages of Psalm 90 is to be aware of the brevity of life (vv. 7–12). Verse 10 reads:
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.
When we are young, the span of seventy or eighty years seems like an eternity, but as time passes we soon realize that it is not. Having entered my late forties at the time of writing these thoughts, I have become deeply aware of the things I have not yet done in my lifetime, and a sense of pressing urgency begins to creep in as I consider my life ahead. Seventy does not seem so very far away, yet there is still so much to be accomplished in life! Such thoughts would never have crossed my mind at the age of eighteen, but now, as my kids gradually leave behind their teenage years, I myself have become all too aware of the reality of “brief lives.” This realization comes on us all at some point in life, and Ps 90 gives us guidance as we are confronted by the brevity of human life.
First, it is important to come to the realization arrived at by the psalmist in the second stanza of the poem. Our lives are brief and frail, and without that realization we will never adopt the right attitude of dependence on God that should characterize our every day! As human beings we are weak and sinful (vv. 7–9). It is only God who can deal with our sins (vv. 13–15), and it is he who decides exactly how long each life is going to last (v. 3). The truth of the matter is that none of us can demand our next breath, and each and every breath is a gift from God. The sooner we realize this fact, the fuller our lives will be. We often rebel against our status of “creature,” yet as creatures we only find the fullness of meaning in relation to the Creator. So, a healthy awareness of our own dependence on God is the only way to view our lives properly.
Second, Psalm 90 gives us some good advice as to how we can live these brief lives well. Verses 12 and 17 are particularly significant for this purpose. Verse 12 is the first request of the psalmist’s supplication: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” A right sense of awareness is important: “teach us to number our days.” There are not so many of these days, so it is vital that we value each one of them and attribute a right sense of perspective to the daily lives we live. When we do consider the brevity of seventy years, perhaps watching that show or movie on TV is not really as important as we might think. Not that I am advocating rampant activism and drivenness, but “numbering our days” will mean that we have a sense of the important and of that which has eternal value. “Numbering our days” means that we will have a clear sense of priorities in the way we live. But the aim of “numbering our days” is to “gain a heart of wisdom.” A heart of wisdom is one that is attuned to God and his will and purpose, one that seeks to live life according to the rhythms of his created order. Wisdom theology is a creational theology.17
It is all about “how to negotiate life successfully in God’s good but fallen world.”18
A heart of wisdom seeks God’s pattern for life: worship, work, rest, family, good food, stunning views—all these things should play their part in a life well lived. The aim is to seek God’s will and purpose for our lives day by day and to live each day in this vibrant relationship with him as our “dwelling place” (v. 1).
Third, the psalmist’s closing supplication in verse 17 helps us deal with the brevity of life as well: “Establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” We all seek a sense of meaning, purpose, and significance in what we do. Whether we are homemakers or world-stage statesmen, teachers or Wall Street traders, farmers or civil servants, we all want there to be some lasting significance from our labor. Ultimately this desire is a spiritual reality. We tend to think of the aim of work as paying the bills, but God has made us for something more than that. The psalmist’s closing prayer is born out of the realization that any work whose value is going to be lasting must be a work of the eternal God, who sees beyond our present generation. So our life and labor should be prayerful, for only then can we have a permanent impact on the world around us. Only by God himself, through the indwelling of his Son (John 15:5) and the work of his Spirit (1 Cor 12:11), are we able to build a spiritual legacy that goes beyond anything the world around us values. The psalmist’s prayer echoes the advice of Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Only this sense of prayerful devotion to God and his purposes will lead us through lives that are brief but resonant with meaning.
Original Meaning
The Prayer of the Finite (90:12–17)
AS IS SO OFTEN THE CASE WITH THE PSALMS, there is a degree of uncertainty about the structure of Psalm 90.12
But from verse 12 to the end of the psalm, each verse contains a direct plea of one sort or another (e.g., “teach,” “relent,” “have compassion,” “satisfy”), thus making it more likely that verses 12–17 are meant to be read as a unit reflecting the poet’s concluding prayer based on his preceding meditation.13
Teach us to number our days. Psalm 90:11 resonates with the language of the Old Testament wisdom literature in its call to respond to God’s wrath by exercising the fear of the Lord. This wisdom overtone continues in verse 12 with the prayer that God would “teach” his people. And the focus of the prayer for instruction really reflects the totality of Psalm 90.14
“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” reflects the central theme of this psalm, namely, awareness of our human finitude and weakness and the importance of responding properly to that realization. The first object of the poet’s supplication is that the people of God should return to right relationship with him—the sort of relationship indicated in verse 1, where God is the sure dwelling place of his people. Verse 12b employs language of the harvest—the psalmist prays that God would teach the people awareness of their limits in order that they might “gain” (nabi’) a heart of wisdom.15
Simply put, we reap a heart of godly wisdom when we approach life with prayerful awareness of our weakness and complete dependence on God.
Relent, LORD! How long will it be? The ensuing petitions follow the typical pattern of laments in the psalms, but the language used is quite different from the laments of Book 3. Those are replete with the language of complaint and a sense of the injustice. In Psalm 90:12–17, however, the poet’s prayer seeks the mercy of God. His intercession is not based on what the people felt to be their right as a result of the promise of God; rather, he seeks the grace and mercy of God, as clearly seen in the language of the poet’s requests (“relent,” “have compassion,” “may the favor of the Lord our God rest on us”). Combined with the language of sin, repentance, and divine wrath in the previous stanza (vv. 7–11), this change of tone in the lament of Psalm 90 is quite profound. Whereas the laments of Book 3 were focused on the profound injustice and divine abandonment felt by the people, the lament of Psalm 90 centers on the mercy of God in response to the sin of the people. The supplication of verses 12–17 is not grounded in demands based on the covenantal promises; it seeks a gracious response from God despite the people’s sin. There is an implied awareness in Psalm 90 that the events of the exile took place as a result of Judah’s sin and rejection of God. The appeal against injustice is replaced by an appeal for grace in the face of their iniquity.
Interestingly, in verse 13 we encounter the first use of the divine name, Yahweh, in Psalm 90. Until this point in the psalm, God is referred to as “Lord” or “Master” (’adonay) and as “God” (’el and ’elohim), but here the psalmist prays to God using his covenantal name, “Yahweh,” which takes the reader back into the narrative of Exodus 32–34 and the prayer of Moses (see comments on Ps 90:0 above). It is in this passage, describing the great sin of Israel in rejecting God and worshiping an idol, that Yahweh reveals his true nature in Exodus 34:6–7:
And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation.”
So, when the poet turns from meditation to prayer he adopts the divine name, Yahweh, in remembrance of this act of self-revelation at the time of Israel’s rebellion during the exodus. The resonance with Exodus 34:6–7 is twofold in its effect. It reminds the psalmist’s hearers that Yahweh is, by nature, a God of grace, love, and forgiveness even when confronted by the sins of his people. But it also reminds the people that God, by nature, will punish sin. These two aspects of the divine nature must be held in tension, and the “Mosaic” nature of Psalm 90 reminds those who recite this poem that both characteristics are real in their present experience. Judah has sinned, and their present experience is the natural consequence of that behavior; but Yahweh is also a God of grace, so they can hope for and seek forgiveness despite their rebellion.
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us. The focal point of the prayer in the final stanza of Psalm 90 is the return to joy. The underlying realization played out by the poet in Psalm 90 is that joy is only to be found in renewed relationship with God. The prayer for the renewal of joy is a prayer for the renewal of right relationship with Yahweh, Israel’s God.
May the favor of the Lord our God rest on us. The psalm is permeated by an awareness of human frailty and rebellion, on the one hand, and divine wrath on the other. The concluding prayer of verse 17 presents the inescapable resolution to this tension: it is only by the undeserving grace of God that any relationship with the holy God can be maintained. The final supplication requests God’s “favor” (no‘am, his mercy or compassion) to be upon his people, for without that favor there is no hope of restoration to right relationship, and without right relationship there is no hope at all.
Establish the work of our hands. The prayer for grace in verse 17 is echoed in the repeated prayer that God would establish the work of the people’s hands. God’s grace is always evidenced in the concrete historical experiences of his people, and it is this expression of grace that the psalmist seeks. Israel frequently “punched above her weight” because of the intervention of Yahweh in her historical reality to protect and prosper his people. So, the prayer for favor is extrapolated in the prayer that God will establish the work of his people. “This is how the reality of human life appears when seen from the other side, that is, the Godward side: it is God’s grace alone which gives purpose to life and durability to the work of man.”16
Bridging Contexts
THE PROBLEM OF SIN AND HUMAN SIGNIFICANCE. There is a conundrum that is voiced repeatedly throughout the Old Testament: How can a holy God dwell with a rebellious people? Psalm 90 gives us a clear presentation of the problem and the solution, as seen in the component parts of the poem: (1) God is infinite, whereas human beings are finite (vv. 1–6); (2) God is angered by the sins of his people, and that anger should inspire us to change our behavior (vv. 7–11); (3) it is only by the unwarranted favor of the covenantal God that we can experience fellowship with him and live lives that leave a godly mark on the world we live in (vv. 12–17). The solution to this problem is to be found only in God himself. Without his grace and favor there is no hope of living rightly before him and no way of making a lasting impact on the world around us.
Of course, the essential solution to the holiness and presence conundrum finds its ultimate resolution in the person and work of Jesus the Messiah. How, ultimately, could a holy God dwell with an unholy people? By becoming one of them and literally dwelling in their midst (John 1:14). Not only does Jesus deal with the problem of human sin definitively (Heb 9:26), but he also provides the solution to any sense of brevity and futility with regard to human life (John 10:10). In the work of Christ, our sins are taken away, thus enabling rich relationship with God. What is more, Jesus brings significance to the lives we live and to the work we seek to accomplish. Though it is probably not original to the text of Mark’s Gospel, there is a lovely image at the end of Mark 16, where it is said that “the Lord worked with them” (Mark 16:20).
There is a profound sense in which the key issues of Psalm 90 are resolved in Christ, yet this resolution is not wholly accomplished. It is true that we find the forgiveness of sins, a holiness that is not our own, and eternal life through Jesus and his sacrifice, so why is it that Christians still struggle with feelings of unworthiness, finitude, and lack of purpose? The conundrum we face as Christians is similar to the one faced by the community of faith in the exilic and postexilic periods. The root of Israel’s problem was that they had lost sight of their Refuge—they had forgotten that God was their “dwelling place” (Ps 90:1). The same can be true for every Christian. If we forget the work that Christ has accomplished for us, then we soon fall into the trap of worrying about life, health, purpose, and the sins we have committed. In Psalm 90 the poet encourages the people to turn again to God in his mercy because only then is relationship restored. The same is true for believers today. It is by maintaining relationship through the grace of God the Father, worked out in his Son and sealed by his Spirit, that we find a solution to the problems of our own sin and the significance of our lives. Created in the image of God and adopted as children of the King, it is by walking close to God and receiving his grace that we find significance in life regardless of its brevity and difficulty. The challenge for Israel was to allow God to be their “dwelling place” in their own hearts, and that challenge remains the same for believers today. It is only a healthy sense of dependence that brings wholeness to human life.
Prayer and the God who relents. The Hebrew word shub is of some significance in Psalm 90. This word, in its most literal sense, means “to turn” or “to return” (as is seen in v. 3, for example), but in the Old Testament it often functions in a metaphorical sense. We have already discussed the use of this word to signify human repentance (see the discussion of Ps 85 above), but we also see another important metaphorical use of shub in this composition. This same verb shub is used in verse 13 in the poet’s intercession that God would “relent” from his punishment of the people and allow them to experience joy once again. In the poet’s intercession, this choice of verb—along with many other features of this psalm—resonates with the book of Exodus, and in particular the whole issue of God’s response to the golden calf incident (Exod 32–34). In Exodus we read that God is prepared to destroy the whole nation of Israel and begin a new line of his choice through Moses and his sons (Exod 32:9–10), but Moses intercedes for the people and God relents from his anger (vv. 11–14). In verse 12 of that passage Moses uses the same language that is used in Psalm 90:13 when he calls on Yahweh to “turn from your fierce anger; relent and do not bring disaster on your people.” And, quite remarkably, we read in Exodus 32:14 that Yahweh heard Moses’s prayer, relented (using a different word but with the same sense), and did not bring catastrophe on the people. In the same way, the psalmist has the courage to ask God to relent from his punishment and have mercy on his people.
It is a mind-blowing concept to think that the almighty God might, at the behest of one of his servants, relent from a course of action he has decided to undertake. Yet this divine response is what happened for Moses, and the author/speaker of Psalm 90 clearly also believes that it could happen again in response to the prayers of the people. Of course, we can talk about the permissive and prescriptive will of God, or we can debate the causality of an all-knowing God’s undertaking to do something while knowing full well that someone would pray and he would respond to that prayer. But such philosophical discussion of predestination and the will of God somewhat misses the point. With regard to Psalm 90, the debate should not be a philosophical one, for the lesson here is clear and simple: the psalmist believes that prayer changes the very heart of God!
Now, I am aware that the words “God” and “change” in the same sentence will set alarm bells ringing in the hearts of many a theologian, but again, let us not run the risk of missing the point in Psalm 90. The psalmist’s prayer does not affect God’s ontology, but it does affect the reality of the poet’s experience! This prayer is bold, but it is clearly one that the psalmist believes will be answered. Just as Moses the lawgiver interceded for the people and God heard, so the “Moses” of Psalm 90—the man of prayer and the man of God—fully believes that God will change the course of action he seems to have ordained at this time. The whole point is that we pray in our suffering because we pray to a God who relents and changes the course of human history. The psalmist’s bold prayer in verses 12–17 provides the reader with a model to follow: we pray boldly because we pray to a God who, because of his grace and mercy, changes our experience.
Psalm 90 in the New Testament. There are no specific citations of Psalm 90 in the New Testament, but the philosophical themes are dealt with throughout its books. The seriousness of sin and the wrath of God are seen clearly in the suffering of Jesus in the passion narratives of the Gospels. As the apostle Peter puts it:
Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. (1 Pet 1:17–19)
The problem of sin and relationship with God was dealt with conclusively in Christ Jesus, as is the issue of insignificant lives (“redeemed from the empty way of life”). Psalm 90 may not be quoted directly, but its topics of discussion certainly find their equivalents in the New Testament.
Contemporary Significance
BRIEF LIVES. Late on a Sunday evening BBC Radio 5 Live used to run a fascinating weekly broadcast entitled “Brief Lives.” Basically, it was an obituary program looking at the lives of famous or significant people who had died during the preceding week. The title of the show was a deliberate play on words. The show itself lasted only for half an hour, so each obituary was only six or seven minutes long, but in presenting these potted summaries of people’s lives there was always the sense that, regardless of how long the featured individuals had lived, their lives had been all too brief.
One of the messages of Psalm 90 is to be aware of the brevity of life (vv. 7–12). Verse 10 reads:
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.
When we are young, the span of seventy or eighty years seems like an eternity, but as time passes we soon realize that it is not. Having entered my late forties at the time of writing these thoughts, I have become deeply aware of the things I have not yet done in my lifetime, and a sense of pressing urgency begins to creep in as I consider my life ahead. Seventy does not seem so very far away, yet there is still so much to be accomplished in life! Such thoughts would never have crossed my mind at the age of eighteen, but now, as my kids gradually leave behind their teenage years, I myself have become all too aware of the reality of “brief lives.” This realization comes on us all at some point in life, and Ps 90 gives us guidance as we are confronted by the brevity of human life.
First, it is important to come to the realization arrived at by the psalmist in the second stanza of the poem. Our lives are brief and frail, and without that realization we will never adopt the right attitude of dependence on God that should characterize our every day! As human beings we are weak and sinful (vv. 7–9). It is only God who can deal with our sins (vv. 13–15), and it is he who decides exactly how long each life is going to last (v. 3). The truth of the matter is that none of us can demand our next breath, and each and every breath is a gift from God. The sooner we realize this fact, the fuller our lives will be. We often rebel against our status of “creature,” yet as creatures we only find the fullness of meaning in relation to the Creator. So, a healthy awareness of our own dependence on God is the only way to view our lives properly.
Second, Psalm 90 gives us some good advice as to how we can live these brief lives well. Verses 12 and 17 are particularly significant for this purpose. Verse 12 is the first request of the psalmist’s supplication: “Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” A right sense of awareness is important: “teach us to number our days.” There are not so many of these days, so it is vital that we value each one of them and attribute a right sense of perspective to the daily lives we live. When we do consider the brevity of seventy years, perhaps watching that show or movie on TV is not really as important as we might think. Not that I am advocating rampant activism and drivenness, but “numbering our days” will mean that we have a sense of the important and of that which has eternal value. “Numbering our days” means that we will have a clear sense of priorities in the way we live. But the aim of “numbering our days” is to “gain a heart of wisdom.” A heart of wisdom is one that is attuned to God and his will and purpose, one that seeks to live life according to the rhythms of his created order. Wisdom theology is a creational theology.17
It is all about “how to negotiate life successfully in God’s good but fallen world.”18
A heart of wisdom seeks God’s pattern for life: worship, work, rest, family, good food, stunning views—all these things should play their part in a life well lived. The aim is to seek God’s will and purpose for our lives day by day and to live each day in this vibrant relationship with him as our “dwelling place” (v. 1).
Third, the psalmist’s closing supplication in verse 17 helps us deal with the brevity of life as well: “Establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands.” We all seek a sense of meaning, purpose, and significance in what we do. Whether we are homemakers or world-stage statesmen, teachers or Wall Street traders, farmers or civil servants, we all want there to be some lasting significance from our labor. Ultimately this desire is a spiritual reality. We tend to think of the aim of work as paying the bills, but God has made us for something more than that. The psalmist’s closing prayer is born out of the realization that any work whose value is going to be lasting must be a work of the eternal God, who sees beyond our present generation. So our life and labor should be prayerful, for only then can we have a permanent impact on the world around us. Only by God himself, through the indwelling of his Son (John 15:5) and the work of his Spirit (1 Cor 12:11), are we able to build a spiritual legacy that goes beyond anything the world around us values. The psalmist’s prayer echoes the advice of Proverbs 16:3: “Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and he will establish your plans.” Only this sense of prayerful devotion to God and his purposes will lead us through lives that are brief but resonant with meaning.
