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Psalm Ninety
Psalm 90
Chapter Contents
The eternity of God
the frailty of man. (1-6) Submission
to Divine chastisements. (7-11) Prayer for mercy and grace. (12-17)
Commentary on Psalm 90:1-6
(Read Psalm 90:1-6)
It is supposed that this psalm refers to the sentence
passed on Israel in the wilderness
Numbers 14. The favour and protection of God are
the only sure rest and comfort of the soul in this evil world. Christ Jesus is
the refuge and dwelling-place to which we may repair. We are dying creatures
all our comforts in the world are dying comforts
but God is an ever-living
God
and believers find him so. When God
by sickness
or other afflictions
turns men to destruction
he thereby calls men to return unto him to repent of
their sins
and live a new life. A thousand years are nothing to God's
eternity: between a minute and a million of years there is some proportion;
between time and eternity there is none. All the events of a thousand years
whether past or to come
are more present to the Eternal Mind
than what was
done in the last hour is to us. And in the resurrection
the body and soul
shall both return and be united again. Time passes unobserved by us
as with
men asleep; and when it is past
it is as nothing. It is a short and
quickly-passing life
as the waters of a flood. Man does but flourish as the
grass
which
when the winter of old age comes
will wither; but he may be mown
down by disease or disaster.
Commentary on Psalm 90:7-11
(Read Psalm 90:7-11)
The afflictions of the saints often come from God's love;
but the rebukes of sinners
and of believers for their sins
must be seen
coming from the displeasure of God. Secret sins are known to God
and shall be
reckoned for. See the folly of those who go about to cover their sins
for they
cannot do so. Our years
when gone
can no more be recalled than the words that
we have spoken. Our whole life is toilsome and troublesome; and perhaps
in the
midst of the years we count upon
it is cut off. We are taught by all this to
stand in awe. The angels that sinned know the power of God's anger; sinners in
hell know it; but which of us can fully describe it? Few seriously consider it
as they ought. Those who make a mock at sin
and make light of Christ
surely
do not know the power of God's anger. Who among us can dwell with that
devouring fire?
Commentary on Psalm 90:12-17
(Read Psalm 90:12-17)
Those who would learn true wisdom
must pray for Divine
instruction
must beg to be taught by the Holy Spirit; and for comfort and joy
in the returns of God's favour. They pray for the mercy of God
for they
pretend not to plead any merit of their own. His favour would be a full
fountain of future joys. It would be a sufficient balance to former griefs. Let
the grace of God in us produce the light of good works. And let Divine
consolations put gladness into our hearts
and a lustre upon our countenances.
The work of our hands
establish thou it; and
in order to that
establish us
in it. Instead of wasting our precious
fleeting days in pursuing fancies
which leave the possessors for ever poor
let us seek the forgiveness of sins
and an inheritance in heaven. Let us pray that the work of the Holy Spirit may
appear in converting our hearts
and that the beauty of holiness may be seen in
our conduct.
── Matthew Henry《Concise Commentary on Psalms》
Psalm 90
Verse 2
[2]
Before the mountains were brought forth
or ever thou hadst formed the earth
and the world
even from everlasting to everlasting
thou art God.
Thou —
Thou hadst thy power
and all thy perfections
from all eternity.
Verse 3
[3] Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest
Return
ye children of men.
Turnedst —
But as for man
his case is far otherwise
though he was made by thee happy.
and immortal
yet for his sin thou didst make him mortal and miserable.
Saidst —
Didst pronounce that sad sentence
return
O men
to the dust out of which ye
were taken
Genesis 3:19.
Verse 4
[4] For
a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past
and as a
watch in the night.
Past —
Indeed time seems long when it is to come
but when it is past
very short and
contemptible.
A watch —
Which lasted but three or four hours.
Verse 5
[5] Thou
carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they
are like grass which groweth up.
Them —
Mankind.
Away —
Universally
without exception or distinction.
A sleep —
Short and vain
as sleep is
and not minded 'till it be past.
Verse 7
[7] For we are consumed by thine anger
and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Are consumed —
Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might by the course of nature.
Verse 8
[8] Thou
hast set our iniquities before thee
our secret sins in the light of thy
countenance.
Hast set —
Thou dost observe them
as a righteous judge
and art calling us to an account
for them.
Secret sins —
Which though hid from the eyes of men
thou hast brought to light by thy
judgments.
Verse 10
[10] The
days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength
they be fourscore years
yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon
cut off
and we fly away.
Our years — Of
the generality of mankind
in that and all following ages
some few persons
excepted.
Flee — We
do not now go to death
as we do from our very birth
but flee swiftly away
like a bird
as this word signifies.
Verse 11
[11] Who
knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear
so is thy wrath.
Thy fear —
According to the fear of thee; according to that fear which sinful men have of
a just God.
So — It bears full
proportion to it
nay indeed doth far exceed it.
Verse 12
[12] So
teach us to number our days
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Teach us — To
consider the shortness of life
and the certainty and speediness of death.
That —
That we may heartily devote ourselves to true wisdom.
Verse 13
[13]
Return
O LORD
how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
Return — To
us in mercy.
How long —
Will it be before thou return to us? Repent thee - Of thy severe proceedings
against us.
Verse 14
[14] O
satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Early —
Speedily.
Verse 17
[17] And
let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of
our hands upon us; yea
the work of our hands establish thou it.
The beauty —
His gracious influence
and glorious presence.
In us — Do
not only work for us
but in us
── John Wesley《Explanatory Notes on Psalms》
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and
Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village
Preacher
Other Works
TITLE. A Prayer of
Moses the man of God. Many attempts have been made to prove that Moses did not
write this Psalm
but we remain unmoved in the conviction that he did so. The
condition of Israel in the wilderness is so preeminently illustrative of each
verse
and the turns
expressions
and words are so similar to many in the
Pentateuch
that the difficulties suggested are
to our mind
light as air in
comparison with the internal evidence in favour of its Mosaic origin. Moses was
mighty in word as well as deed
and this Psalm we believe to be one of his
weighty utterances
worthy to stand side by side with his glorious oration
recorded in Deuteronomy. Moses was peculiarly a man of God and God's man;
chosen of God
inspired of God
honoured of God
and faithful to God in all his
house
he well deserved the name which is here given him. The Psalm is called a
prayer
for the closing petitions enter into its essence
and the preceding
verses are a meditation preparatory to the supplication. Men of God are sure to
be men of prayer. This was not the only prayer of Moses
indeed it is but a
specimen of the manner in which the seer of Horeb was leant to commune with
heaven
and intercede for the good of Israel. This is the oldest of the Psalms
and stands between two books of Psalms as a composition unique in its grandeur
and alone in its sublime antiquity. Many generations of mourners have listened
to this Psalm when standing around the open grave
and have been consoled
thereby
even when they have not perceived its special application to Israel in
the wilderness and have failed to remember the far higher ground upon which
believers now stand.
SUBJECT
AND DIVISION.—Moses sings of the frailty of man
and the shortness of life
contrasting therewith the eternity of God
and founding thereon earnest appeals
for compassion. The only division which will be useful separates the
contemplation Ps 90:1-11 from the Ps 90:12-17 there is indeed no need to make
even this break
for the unity is well preserved throughout.
EXPOSITION
Verse
1. Lord
thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.
We must consider the whole Psalm as written for the tribes in the desert
and
then we shall see the primary meaning of each verse. Moses
in effect
says—wanderers though we be in the howling wilderness
yet we find a home in
thee
even as our forefathers did when they came out of Ur of the Chaldees and
dwelt in tents among the Canaanites. To the saints the Lord Jehovah
the self
existent God
stands instead of mansion and rooftree; he shelters
comforts
protects
preserves
and cherishes all his own. Foxes have holes and the birds
of the air have nests
but the saints dwell in their God
and have always done
so in all ages. Not in the tabernacle or the temple do we dwell
but in God
himself; and this we have always done since there was a church in the world. We
have not shifted our abode. Kings' palaces have vanished beneath the crumbling
hand of time—they have been burned with fire and buried beneath mountains of
ruins
but the imperial race of heaven has never lost its regal habitation. Go
to the Palatine and see how the Caesars are forgotten of the halls which echoed
to their despotic mandates
and resounded with the plaudits of the nations over
which they ruled
and then look upward and see in the ever living Jehovah the
divine home of the faithful
untouched by so much as the finger of decay. Where
dwelt our fathers a hundred generations since
there dwell we still. It is of
New Testament saints that the Holy Ghost has said
"He that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in God and God in him!" It was a divine mouth which said
"Abide in me"
and then added
"he that abideth in me and I in
him the same bringeth forth much fruit." It is most sweet to speak with
the Lord as Moses did
saying
"Lord
thou art our dwelling place"
and it is wise to draw from the Lord's eternal condescension reasons for
expecting present and future mercies
as the Psalmist did in the next Psalm
wherein he describes the safety of those who dwell in God.
Verse
2. Before the mountains were brought forth. Before those
elder giants had struggled forth from nature's womb
as her dread firstborn
the Lord was glorious and self sufficient. Mountains to him
though hoar with
the snows of ages
are but new born babes
young things whose birth was but
yesterday
mere novelties of an hour. Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and
the world. Here too the allusion is to a birth. Earth was born but the other
day
and her solid land was delivered from the flood but a short while ago.
Even from everlasting to everlasting
thou art God
or
"thou art
O
God." God was
when nothing else was. He was God when the earth was not a
world but a chaos
when mountains were not upheaved
and the generation of the
heavens and the earth had not commenced. In this Eternal One there is a safe
abode for the successive generations of men. If God himself were of yesterday
he would not be a suitable refuge for mortal men; if he could change and cease
to be God he would be but an uncertain dwelling place for his people. The
eternal existence of God is here mentioned to set forth
by contrast
the
brevity of human life.
Verse
3. Thou turnest man to destruction
or "to dust."
Man's body is resolved into its elements
and is as though it had been crushed
and ground to powder. And sayest
Return
ye children of men
i.e.
return even to the dust out of which ye were taken. The frailty of man is thus
forcibly set forth; God creates him out of the dust
and back to dust he goes
at the word of his Creator. God resolves and man dissolves. A word created and
a word destroys. Observe how the action of God is recognised; man is not said
to die because of the decree of faith
or the action of inevitable law
but the
Lord is made the agent of all
his hand turns and his voice speaks; without
these we should not die
no power on earth or hell could kill us.
"An
angel's arm cannot save me from the grave
Myriads of angels cannot confine me there."
Verse
4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it
is past. A thousand years! This is a long stretch of time. How much may be
crowded into it
—the rise and fall of empires
the glory and obliteration of
dynasties
the beginning and the end of elaborate systems of human philosophy
and countless events
all important to household and individual
which elude
the pens of historians. Yet this period
which might even be called the limit
of modern history
and is in human language almost identical with an indefinite
length of time
is to the Lord as nothing
even as time already gone. A moment
yet to come is longer than "yesterday when it is past"
for that no
longer exists at all
yet such is a chiliad to the eternal. In comparison with
eternity
the most lengthened reaches of time are mere points
there is in
fact
no possible comparison between them. And as a watch in the night
a time
which is no sooner come than gone. There is scarce time enough in a thousand
years for the angels to change watches; when their millennium of service is
almost over it seems as though the watch were newly set. We are dreaming
through the long night of time
but God is ever keeping watch
and a thousand
years are as nothing to him. A host of days and nights must be combined to make
up a thousand years to us
but to God
that space of time does not make up a
whole night
but only a brief portion of it. If a thousand years be to God as a
single night watch
what must be the life time of the Eternal!
Verse
5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood. As when a torrent
rushes down the river bed and bears all before it
so does the Lord bear away
by death the succeeding generations of men. As the hurricane sweeps the clouds
from the sky
so time removes the children of men. They are as a sleep. Before
God men must appear as unreal as the dreams of the night
the phantoms of
sleep. Not only are our plans and devices like a sleep
but we ourselves are
such. "We are such stuff as dreams are made of." In the morning they
are like grass which groweth up. As grass is green in the morning and hay at
night
so men are changed from health to corruption in a few hours. We are not
cedars
or oaks
but only poor grass
which is vigorous in the spring
but
lasts not a summer through. What is there upon earth more frail than we!
Verse
6. In the morning it flourisheth
and groweth up. Blooming
with abounding beauty till the meadows are all besprent with gems
the grass
has a golden hour
even as man in his youth has a heyday of flowery glory. In
the evening it is cut down
and withereth. The scythe ends the blossoming of
the field flowers
and the dews at flight weep their fall. Here is the history
of the grass—sown
grown
blown
mown
gone; and the history of man is not much
more. Natural decay would put an end both to us and the grass in due time; few
however
are left to experience the full result of age
for death comes with
his scythe
and removes our life in the midst of its verdure. How great a
change in how short a time! The morning saw the blooming
and the evening sees
the withering.
Verse
7. This mortality is not accidental
neither was it inevitable in
the original of our nature
but sin has provoked the Lord to anger
and
therefore thus we die. For we are consumed by thine anger. This is the scythe
which mows and the scorching heat which withers. This was specially the case in
reference to the people in the wilderness
whose lives were cut short by
justice on account of their waywardness; they failed
not by a natural decline
but through the blast of the well deserved judgments of God. It must have been
a very mournful sight to Moses to see the whole nation melt away during the
forty years of their pilgrimage
till none remained of all that came out of
Egypt. As God's favour is life
so his anger is death; as well might grass grow
in an oven as men flourish when the Lord is wroth with them. "And by thy
wrath are we troubled"
or terror stricken. A sense of divine anger
confounded them
so that they lived as men who knew that they were doomed. This
is true of us in a measure
but not altogether
for now that immortality and
life are brought to light by the gospel
death has changed its aspect
and
to
believers in Jesus
it is no more a judicial execution. Anger and wrath are the
sting of death
and in these believers have no share; love and mercy now conduct
us to glory by the way of the tomb. It is not seemly to read these words at a
Christian's funeral without words of explanation
and a distinct endeavour to
shew how little they belong to believers in Jesus
and how far we are
privileged beyond those with whom he was not well pleased
"whose
carcasses fell in the wilderness." To apply an ode
written by the leader
of the legal dispensation under circumstances of peculiar judgment
in
reference to a people under penal censure
to those who fall asleep in Jesus
seems to be the height of blundering. We may learn much from it
but we ought
not to misapply it by taking to ourselves
as the beloved of the Lord
that
which was chiefly true of those to whom God had sworn in his wrath that they
should not enter into his rest. When
however
a soul is under conviction of
sin
the language of this Psalm is highly appropriate to his case
and will
naturally suggest itself to the distracted mind. No fire consumes like God's
anger
and no anguish so troubles the heart as his wrath. Blessed be that dear
substitute
"Who
bore that we might never
His Father's righteous ire."
Verse
8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee. Hence these
tears! Sin seen by God must work death; it is only by the covering blood of
atonement that life comes to any of us. When God was overthrowing the tribes in
the wilderness he had their iniquities before him
and therefore dealt with
them in severity. He could not have their iniquities before him and not smite
them. Our secret sins in the fight of thy countenance. There are no secrets
before God; he unearths man's hidden things
and exposes them to the light.
There can be no more powerful luminary than the face of God
yet
in that
strong light
the Lord set the hidden sins of Israel. Sunlight can never be
compared with the light of him who made the sun
of whom it is written
"God is light
and in him is no darkness at all." If by his
countenance is here meant his love and favour
it is not possible for the
heinousness of sin to be more clearly manifested than when it is seen to
involve ingratitude to one so infinitely good and kind. Rebellion in the light
of justice is black
but in the light of love it is devilish. How can we grieve
so good a God? The children of Israel had been brought out of Egypt with a high
hand
fed in the wilderness with a liberal hand
and guided with a tender hand
and their sins were peculiarly atrocious. We
too
having been redeemed by the
blood of Jesus
and saved by abounding grace
will be verily guilty if we forsake
the Lord. What manner of persons ought we to be? How ought we to pray for
cleansing from secret faults? It is to us a wellspring of delights to remember
that our sins
as believers are now cast behind the Lord's back
and shall
never be brought to light again: therefore we live
because
the guilt being
removed
the death penalty is removed also.
Verse
9. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath. Justice
shortened the days of rebellious Israel; each halting place became a graveyard;
they marked their march by the tombs they left behind them. Because of the
penal sentence their days were dried up
and their lives wasted away. We spend
our years as a tale that is told. Yea
not their days only
but their years
flew by them like a thought
swift as a meditation
rapid and idle as a
gossip's story. Sin had cast a shadow over all things
and made the lives of
the dying wanderers to be both vain and brief. The first sentence is not
intended for believers to quote
as though it applied to themselves
for our
days are all passed amid the lovingkindness of the Lord
even as David says in
the Ps 23:6 "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my
life." Neither is the life of the gracious man unsubstantial as a story
teller's tale; he lives in Jesus
he has the divine Spirit within him
and to
him "life is real
life is earnest"—the simile only holds good if we
consider that a holy life is rich in interest
full of wonders
chequered with
many changes
yet as easily ordered by providence as the improvisatore arranges
the details of the story with which he beguiles the hour. Our lives are
illustrations of heavenly goodness
parables of divine wisdom
poems of sacred
thought
and records of infinite love; happy are we whose lives are such tales.
Verse
10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten. Moses
himself lived longer than this
but his was the exception not the rule: in his
day life had come to be very much the same in duration as it is with us. This
is brevity itself compared with the men of the elder time; it is nothing when
contrasted with eternity. Yet is life long enough for virtue and piety
and all
too long for vice and blasphemy. Moses here in the original writes in a
disconnected manner
as if he would set forth the utter insignificance of man's
hurried existence. His words may be rendered
"The days of our years! In
them seventy years": as much as to say
"The days of our years? What
about them? Are they worth mentioning? The account is utterly insignificant
their full tale is but seventy." And if by reason of strength they be
fourscore years
yet is their strength labour and sorrow. The unusual
strength which overleaps the bound of threescore and ten only lands the aged
man in a region where life is a weariness and a woe. The strength of old age
its very prime and pride
are but labour and sorrow; what must its weakness be?
What panting for breath! What toiling to move! What a failing of the senses!
What a crushing sense of weakness! The evil days are come and the years wherein
a man cries
"I have no pleasure in them." The grasshopper has become
a burden and desire faileth. Such is old age. Yet mellowed by hallowed
experience
and solaced by immortal hopes
the latter days of aged Christians
are not so much to be pitied as envied. The sun is setting and the heat of the
day is over
but sweet is the calm and cool of the eventide: and the fair day
melts away
not into a dark and dreary night
but into a glorious
unclouded
eternal day. The mortal fades to make room for the immortal; the old man falls
asleep to wake up in the region of perennial youth. For it is soon cut off
and
we fly away. The cable is broken and the vessel sails upon the sea of eternity;
the chain is snapped and the eagle mounts to its native air above the clouds.
Moses mourned for men as he thus sung: and well he might
as all his comrades
fell at his side. His words are more nearly rendered
"He drives us fast
and we fly away; "as the quails were blown along by the strong west wind
so are men hurried before the tempests of death. To us
however
as believers
the winds are favourable; they bear us as the gales bear the swallows away from
the wintry realms
to lands
"Where
everlasting spring abides
And never withering flowers."
Who
wishes it to be otherwise? Wherefore should we linger here? What has this poor
world to offer us that we should tarry on its shores? Away
away! This is not
our rest. Heavenward
Ho! Let the Lord's winds drive fast if so he ordains
for
they waft us the more swiftly to himself
and our own dear country.
Verse
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Moses saw men dying
all around him: he lived among funerals
and was overwhelmed at the terrible
results of the divine displeasure. He felt that none could measure the might of
the Lord's wrath. Even according to thy fear
so is thy wrath. Good men dread
that wrath beyond conception
but they never ascribe too much terror to it: bad
men are dreadfully convulsed when they awake to a sense of it
but their horror
is not greater than it had need be
for it is a fearful thing to fall into the
hands of an angry God. Holy Scripture when it depicts God's wrath against sin
never uses an hyperbole; it would be impossible to exaggerate it. Whatever
feelings of pious awe and holy trembling may move the tender heart
it is never
too much moved; apart from other considerations the great truth of the divine
anger
when most powerfully felt
never impresses the mind with a solemnity in
excess of the legitimate result of such a contemplation. What the power of
God's anger is in hell
and what it would be on earth
were it not in mercy
restrained
no man living can rightly conceive. Modern thinkers rail at Milton
and Dante
Bunyan and Baxter
for their terrible imagery; but the truth is that
no vision of poet
or denunciation of holy seer
can ever reach to the dread
height of this great argument
much less go beyond it. The wrath to come has
its horrors rather diminished than enhanced in description by the dark lines of
human fancy; it baffles words
it leaves imagination far behind. Beware ye that
forget God lest he tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver. God is
terrible out of his holy places. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah! Remember Korah
and his company! Mark well the graves of lust in the wilderness! Nay
rather
bethink ye of the place where their worm dieth not
and their fire is not
quenched. Who is able to stand against this justly angry God? Who will dare to
rush upon the bosses of his buckler
or tempt the edge of his sword? Be it ours
to submit ourselves as dying sinners to this eternal God
who can
even at this
moment
command us to the dust
and thence to hell.
Verse
12. So teach us to number our days. Instruct us to set store
by time
mourning for that time past wherein we have wrought the will of the
flesh
using diligently the time present
which is the accepted hour and the
day of salvation
and reckoning the time which lieth in the future to be too
uncertain to allow us safely to delay any gracious work or prayer. Numeration
is a child's exercise in arithmetic
but in order to number their days aright
the best of men need the Lord's teaching. We are more anxious to count the
stars than our days
and yet the latter is by far more practical. That we may
apply our hearts unto wisdom. Men are led by reflections upon the brevity of
time to give their earnest attention to eternal things; they become humble as
they look into the grave which is so soon to be their bed
their passions cool
in the presence of mortality
and they yield themselves up to the dictates of
unerring wisdom; but this is only the case when the Lord himself is the
teacher; he alone can teach to real and lasting profit. Thus Moses prayed that
the dispensations of justice might be sanctified in mercy. "The law is our
school master to bring us to Christ"
when the Lord himself speaks by the
law. It is most meet that the heart which will so soon cease to beat should
while it moves be regulated by wisdom's hand. A short life should be wisely
spent. We have not enough time at our disposal to justify us in misspending a
single quarter of an hour. Neither are we sure of enough life to justify us in
procrastinating for a moment. If we were wise in heart we should see this
but
mere head wisdom will not guide us aright.
Verse
13. Return
O LORD
how long? Come in mercy
to us again. Do
not leave us to perish. Suffer not our lives to be both brief and bitter. Thou
hast said to us
"Return
ye children of men"
and now we humbly cry
to thee
"Return
thou preserver of men." Thy presence alone can
reconcile us to this transient existence; turn thou unto us. As sin drives God
from us
so repentance cries to the Lord to return to us. When men are under
chastisement they are allowed to expostulate
and ask "how long?" Our
faith in these times is not too great boldness with God
but too much
backwardness in pleading with him. And let it repent thee concerning thy
servants. Thus Moses acknowledges the Israelites to be God's servants still.
They had rebelled
but they had not utterly forsaken the Lord; they owned their
obligations to obey his will
and pleaded them as a reason for pity. Will not a
man spare his own servants? Though God smote Israel
yet they were his people
and he had never disowned them
therefore is he entreated to deal favourably
with them. If they might not see the promised land
yet he is begged to cheer
them on the road with his mercy
and to turn his frown into a smile. The prayer
is like others which came from the meek lawgiver when he boldly pleaded with
God for the nation; it is Moses like. He here speaks with the Lord as a man
speaketh with his friend.
Verse
14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy. Since they must die
and die so soon
the psalmist pleads for speedy mercy upon himself and his
brethren. Good men know how to turn the darkest trials into arguments at the
throne of grace. He who has but the heart to pray need never be without pleas
in prayer. The only satisfying food for the Lord's people is the favour of God;
this Moses earnestly seeks for
and as the manna fell in the morning he
beseeches the Lord to send at once his satisfying favour
that all through the
little day of life they might be filled therewith. Are we so soon to die? Then
Lord
do not starve us while we live. Satisfy us at once
we pray thee. Our day
is short and the night hastens on
O give us in the early morning of our days
to be satisfied with thy favour
that all through our little day we may be
happy. That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Being filled with divine
love
their brief life on earth would become a joyful festival
and would
continue so as long as it lasted. When the Lord refreshes us with his presence
our joy is such that no man can take it from us. Apprehensions of speedy death
are not able to distress those who enjoy the present favour of God; though they
know that the night cometh they see nothing to fear in it
but continue to live
while they live
triumphing in the present favour of God and leaving the future
in his loving hands. Since the whole generation which came out of Egypt had
been doomed to die in the wilderness
they would naturally feel despondent
and
therefore their great leader seeks for them that blessing which
beyond all
others
consoles the heart
namely
the presence and favour of the Lord.
Verse
15. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted
us
and the years wherein we have seen evil. None can gladden the heart as
thou canst
O Lord
therefore as thou hast made us sad be pleased to make us
glad. Fill the other scale. Proportion thy dispensations. Give us the lamb
since thou has sent us the bitter herbs. Make our days as long as our nights.
The prayer is original
childlike
and full of meaning; it is moreover based
upon a great principle in providential goodness
by which the Lord puts the
good over against the evil in due measure. Great trial enables us to bear great
joy
and may be regarded as the herald of extraordinary grace. God's dealings
are according to scale; small lives are small throughout; and great histories
are great both in sorrow and happiness. Where there are high hills there are
also deep valleys. As God provides the sea for leviathan
so does he find a
pool for the minnow; in the sea all things are in fit proportion for the mighty
monster
while in the little brook all things befit the tiny fish. If we have
fierce afflictions we may look for overflowing delights
and our faith may
boldly ask for them. God who is great in justice when he chastens will not be
little in mercy when he blesses
he will be great all through: let us appeal to
him with unstaggering faith.
Verse
16. Let thy work appear unto thy servants. See how he dwells
upon that word servants. It is as far as the law can go
and Moses goes to the
full length permitted him henceforth Jesus calls us not servants but friends
and if we are wise we shall make full use of our wider liberty. Moses asks for
displays of divine power and providence conspicuously wrought
that all the
people might be cheered thereby. They could find no solace in their own faulty
works
but in the work of God they would find comfort. And thy glory unto their
children. While their sons were growing up around them
they desired to see
some outshinings of the promised glory gleaming upon them. Their Sons were to
inherit the land which had been given them by covenant
and therefore they
sought on their behalf some tokens of the coming good
some morning dawnings of
the approaching noonday. How eagerly do good men plead for their children. They
can bear very much personal affliction if they may but be sure that their
children will know the glory of God
and thereby be led to serve him. We are
content with the work if our children may but see the glory which will result
from it: we sow joyfully if they may reap.
Verse
17. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Even
upon us who must not see thy glory in the land of Canaan; it shall suffice us
if in our characters the holiness of God is reflected
and if over all our camp
the lovely excellences of our God shall cast a sacred beauty. Sanctification
should be the daily object of our petitions. And establish thou the work of our
hands upon us; yea
the work of our hands establish thou it. Let what we
do be done in truth
and last when we are in the grave; may the work of the
present generation minister permanently to the building tip of the nation. Good
men are anxious not to work in vain. They know that without the Lord they can
do nothing
and therefore they cry to him for help in the work
for acceptance
of their efforts
and for the establishment of their designs. The church as a
whole earnestly desires that the hand of the Lord may so work with the hand of
his people
that a substantial
yea
an eternal edifice to the praise and glory
of God may be the result. We come and go
but the Lord's work abides. We are
content to die so long as Jesus lives and his kingdom grows. Since the Lord
abides for ever the same
we trust our work in his hands
and feel that since
it is far more his work than ours he will secure it immortality. When we have
withered like grass our holy service
like gold
silver
and precious stones
will survive the fire.
EXPLANATORY
NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS
TITLE. The
correctness of the title which ascribes the Psalm to Moses is confirmed by its
unique simplicity and grandeur; its appropriateness to his times and
circumstances; its resemblance to the Law in urging the connection between sin
and death; its similarity of diction to the poetical portions of the
Pentateuch
without the slightest trace of imitation or quotation; its marked
unlikeness to the Psalms of David
and still more to those of later date; and
finally
the proved impossibility of plausibly assigning it to any other age or
author.—J.A. Alexander.
Title. A prayer of
Moses. Moses may be considered as the first composer of sacred hymns.—Samuel
Burder.
Title. The Psalm is
described in the title as a prayer. This description shows
as Amyraldus
saw
that the kernel of the Psalm in the second part
and that the
design of the first is to prepare the way for the second
and lay down a basis
on which it may rest.—E.W. Hengstenberg.
Title. A prayer of
Moses. Moses was an old and much tried man
but age and experience had taught
him that
amidst the perpetual changes which are taking place in the universe
one thing at least remains immutable
even the faithfulness of him who is
"from everlasting to everlasting God." How far back into the past may
the patriarch have been looking when he spake these words? The burning bush
the fiery furnace of Egypt
the Red Sea
Pharaoh with his chariots of war
and
the weary march of Israel through the wilderness
were all before him; and in
all of them he had experienced that "God is the Rock
his work perfect
all his ways judgment" (De 32:4). But Moses was looking beyond these
scenes of his personal history when he said
"Remember the days of old
consider the years of many generations." (De 32:7)
and we may be sure
that he was also looking beyond them when he indited the song
Thou hast
been our dwelling place in all generations. Yes; he was casting in his mind
how God had been the refuge of Jacob and Isaac
of Abraham
Noah
and all the
patriarchs. Moses could take a retrospect of above a thousand years
which had
all confirmed the truth. I can do no more. At this point of time I can look
back to the days of Moses and Joshua and David
and descending thence to the
days of the Son of God upon earth
and of Paul and Peter
and all the saints of
the Church down to the present hour; and what a thousand years avouched to Moses
three thousand now avouch to me: the Lord is the dwelling place of those that
trust in him from generation to generation. Yes; and to him who was the refuge
of a Moses and an Abraham
I too in the day of trouble can lift my hands.
Delightful thought! That great Being who
during the lapse of three thousand
years
amidst the countless changes of the universe
has to this day remained
unchanged
is MY God.—Augustus F. Theluck
in "Hours of Christian
Devotion"
1870.
Whole
Psalm. Although some difficulties have been started
there seems no
reason to doubt that this Psalm is the composition of Moses. From the remotest
period his name has been attached to it
and almost every Biblical scholar
from Jerome down to Hengstenberg
has agreed to accept it as a prayer of that
"man of God" whose name it has always carried. If so
it is one of
the oldest poems in the world. Compared with it Homer and Pindar are (so to
speak) modern
and even King David is of recent date. That is to say
compared
with this ancient hymn the other Psalms are as much more modern as Tennyson and
Longfellow are more modern than Chaucer. In either case there are nearly five
centuries between.—James Hamilton.
Whole
Psalm. The 90th Psalm might be cited as perhaps the most sublime of
human compositions—the deepest in feeling—the loftiest in theologic
conception—the most magnificent in its imagery. True is it in its report of
human life—as troubled
transitory
and sinful. True in its conception of the
Eternal—the Sovereign and the Judge; and yet the refuge and hope of men
who
notwithstanding
the most severe trials of their faith
lose not their
confidence in him; but who
in the firmness of faith
pray for
as if they were
predicting
a near at hand season of refreshment. Wrapped
one might say
in
mystery
until the distant day of revelation should come
there is here
conveyed the doctrine of Immortality; for in the very complaint of the brevity
of the life of man
and of the sadness of these
his few years of trouble
and
their brevity
and their gloom
there is brought into contrast the Divine
immutability; and yet it is in terms of a submissive piety: the thought of a
life eternal is here in embryo. No taint is there in this Psalm of the pride
and petulance—the half uttered blasphemy—the malign disputing or arraignment of
the justice or goodness of God
which have so often shed a venomous colour upon
the language of those who have writhed in anguish
personal or relative. There
are few probably among those who have passed through times of bitter and
distracting woe
or who have stood—the helpless spectators of the miseries of
others
that have not fallen into moods of mind violently in contrast with the
devout and hopeful melancholy which breathes throughout this ode. Rightly
attributed to the Hebrew Lawgiver or not
it bespeaks its remote antiquity
not
merely by the majestic simplicity of its style
but negatively
by the entire
avoidance of those sophisticated turns of thought which belong to a late—a lost
age in a people's intellectual and moral history. This Psalm
undoubtedly
is
centuries older than the moralizing of that time when the Jewish mind had
listened to what it could never bring into a true assimilation with its own
mind—the abstractions of the Greek Philosophy.
With
this one Psalm only in view—if it were required of us to say
in brief
what we
mean by the phrase—"The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry"—we find our
answer well condensed in this sample. This magnificent composition gives
evidence
not merely as to the mental qualities of the writer
but as to the
tastes and habits of the writer's contemporaries
his hearers
and his readers;
on these several points—first
the free and customary command of a
poetic diction
and its facile imagery
so that whatever the poetic soul would utter
the poet's material is near at hand for his use. There is then that depth of
feeling—mournful
reflective
and yet hopeful and trustful
apart from which
poetry can win for itself no higher esteem than what we bestow upon other
decorative arts
which minister to the demands of luxurious sloth. There
is
moreover
as we might say
underlying this poem
from the first line to the
last
the substance of philosophic thought
apart from which
expressed or
understood
poetry is frivolous
and is not in harmony with the seriousness of
human life: this Psalm is of a sort which Plato would have written
or
Sophocles—if only the one or the other of these minds had possessed a heaven
descended Theology.—Isaac Taylor.
Verse
1. Lord. Observe the change of the divine names in this
Psalm. Moses begins with the declaration of the Majesty of the Lord (Adonai)
but when he arrives at Ps 90:13
he opens his prayer with the Name of grace and
covenanted mercy to Israel—JEHOVAH; and he sums up all in Ps 90:17
with a
supplication for the manifestation of the beauty Men of "the Lord
our God" (JEHOVAH
ELOHIM).—Christopher Wordsworth.
Verse
1. Lord
thou hast been our dwelling place. Many seem to beg
God's help in prayer
but are not protected by him: they seek it only in a storm
and when all other means and refuges fail them. But a Christian must maintain
constant communication with God; must dwell in God
not run to him now and
then.—Thomas Manton.
Verse
1. This exordium breathes life
and pertains to a certain hope of the
resurrection and of eternal life. Since he calls God
who is eternal
our
habitation
or to speak more clearly
our place of refuge
to whom fleeing we
may be in safety. For if God is our dwelling place
and God is life
and we
dwellers in him
it necessarily follows
that we are in life
and shall live
for ever... For who will call God the dwelling place of the dead? Who shall
regard him as a sepulchre? He is life; and therefore they also live to whom he
is a dwelling place. After this fashion Moses
in the very introduction
before
he lets loose his horrible thunderings and lightnings
fortifies the trembling
that they may firmly hold God to be the living dwelling place of the living
of
those that pray to him
and put their trust in him. It is a remarkable
expression
the like of which is nowhere in Sacred Scripture
that God is a dwelling
place. Scripture in other places says the very opposite
it calls men
temples of God
in whom God dwells; "the temple of God is holy"
says
Paul
"which temple ye are." Moses inverts this
and affirms
we are
inhabitants and masters in this house. For the Hebrew word Nwem properly
signifies a dwelling place
as when the Scripture says
"In Zion is his
dwelling place"
where this word (Maon) is used. But because a house is
for the purpose of safety
it results
that this word has the meaning of a
refuge or place of refuge. But Moses wishes to speak with such great care that
he may shew that all our hopes have been placed most securely in God
and that
they who are about to pray to this God may be assured that they are not
afflicted in this work in vain
nor die
since they have God as a place of
refuge
and the divine Majesty as a dwelling place
in which they may rest
secure for ever. Almost in the same strain Paul speaks
when he says to the
Colossians
"Your life is hid with Christ in God." For it is a much
clearer and more luminous expression to say
Believers dwell in God
than that
God dwells in them. He dwelt also visibly in Zion
but the place is changed.
But because he (the believer)
is in God
it is manifest
that he cannot be
moved nor transferred
for God is a habitation of a kind that cannot perish.
Moses therefore wished to exhibit the most certain life
when he said
God is
our dwelling place
not the earth
not heaven
not paradise
but simply God
himself. If after this manner you take this Psalm it will become sweet
and
seem in all respects most useful. When a monk
it often happened to me when I
read this Psalm
that I was compelled to lay the book out of my hand. But I
knew not that these terrors were not addressed to an awakened mind. I knew not
that Moses was speaking to a most obdurate and proud multitude
which neither
understood nor cared for the anger of God
nor were humbled by their
calamities
or even in prospect of death.—Martin Luther.
Verse
1. Lord
thou hast been our dwelling place
etc. In this
first part the prophet acknowledgeth that God in all times
and in all ages
hath had a special care of his saints and servants
to provide for them all
things necessary for this life; for under the name of "dwelling
place"
or mansion house
the prophet understandeth all helps
and comforts necessary for this life
both for maintenance and protection. For
the use of such houses was wont to be not only to defend men from the injury of
the weather
and to keep safely
within the walls and under the roof all other
things necessary for this life
and to be a place of abode
wherein men might
the more commodiously provide for all other things necessary
and walk in some
calling profitable to their neighbour and to the glory of God; but also to
protect them from the violence of brute beasts and rage of enemies. Now the
prophet herein seems to note a special and more immediate providence of God:
(for of all kind of people they seemed to be most forsaken and forlorn); that
whereas the rest of the world seemed to have their habitations and mansions
rooted in the earth
and so to dwell upon the earth; to live in cities and
walled towns in all wealth and state; God's people were as it were without
house and home. Abraham was called out of his own country
from his father's
house
where no doubt he had goodly buildings
and large revenues
and was
commanded by God to live as a foreigner in a strange country
amongst savage
people
that he knew not; and to abide in tents
booths
and cabins
having
little hope to live a settled and comfortable life in any place. In like manner
lived his posterity
Isaac
Jacob
and the twelve patriarchs
wandering from
place to place in the land of Canaan; from thence translated into the land of
Egypt
there living at courtesy
and as it were tenants at will
and in such
slavery and bondage
that it had been better for them to have been without
house and home. After this for forty years together (at which time this Psalm
was penned) they wandered up and down in a desolate wilderness
removing from
place to place
and wandering
as it were in a maze. So that of all the people
of the earth
God's own people had hitherto lived as pilgrims and banished
persons
without house or home; and therefore the prophet here professes that
God himself more immediately by his extraordinary providence
for many ages
together had protected them
and been as it were a mansion house unto them;
that is
the more they were deprived of these ordinary comforts of this life
the more was God present with them
supplying by his extraordinary and
immediate providence what they wanted in regard of ordinary means. The due
consideration of this point may minister matter of great joy and comfort to
such children of God as are thoroughly humbled with the consideration of man's
mortality in general
or of theirs whom they rely and depend upon in special.—William
Bradshaw
1621.
Verse
1. Our dwelling place. God created the earth for beasts to
inhabit
the sea for fishes
the air for fowls
and heaven for angels and
stars
so that man hath no place to dwell and abide in but God alone.—Giovanni
della Mirandola Pico
1463-1494.
Verses
1-2. The comfort of the believer against the miseries of this short
life is taken from the decree of their election
and the eternal covenant of
redemption settled in the purpose and counsel of the blessed Trinity for their
behoof
wherein it was agreed before the world was
that the Word to be incarnate
should be the Saviour of the elect: for here the asserting of the eternity of
God is with relation to his own chosen people; for Thou hast been our
dwelling place in all generations
and thou art God from everlasting to
everlasting
is in substance thus much:—Thou art from everlasting to
everlasting the same unchangeable God in purpose and affection toward us thy
people
and so thou art our God from everlasting
in regard of thy
eternal purpose of love
electing us
and in regard of thy appointing redemption
for us by the Redeemer.—David Dickson.
Verses
1-2. If man be ephemeral
God is eternal.—James Hamilton.
Verses
1-6.
O
Lord
thou art our home
to whom we fly
and so hast always been
from age to age;
Before the hills did intercept the eye
Or that the frame was up of earthly stage
One God thou wert
and art
and still shall be;
The line of time
it doth not measure thee.
Both
death and life obey thy holy lore
And visit in their turns as they are sent;
A thousand years with thee they are no more
Than yesterday
which
ere it is
is spent:
Or as a watch by night
that course doth keep
And goes and comes
unawares to them that sleep.
Thou
carriest man away as with a tide:
Then down swim all his thoughts that mounted high;
Much like a mocking dream
that will not bide
But flies before the sight of waking eye;
Or as the grass
that cannot term obtain
To see the summer come about again.
At
morning
fair it musters on the ground;
At even it is cut down and laid along:
And though it shared were and favour found
The weather would perform the mower's wrong:
Thus hast thou hanged our life on brittle pins
To let us know it will not bear our sins.—Francis Bacon.
Verse
2. The earth and the world. The word earth here is
used to denote the world as distinguished either from heaven (Ge 1:1)
or from
the sea (Ge 1:10). The term "world" in the original is
commonly employed to denote the earth considered as inhabited
or as
capable of being inhabited
a dwelling place for living beings.—Albert
Barnes.
Verse
2. From everlasting to everlasting
thou art God. The
everlastingness of which Moses speaks is to be referred not only to the essence
of God
but also to his providence
by which he governs the world. He intends
not merely that he is
but that he is God.—John Calvin.
Verse
2. Such a God (he says) have we
such a God do we worship
to such a
God do we pray
at whose command all created things sprang into being. Why then
should we fear if this God favours us? Why should we tremble at the anger of
the whole world? If He is our dwelling place
shall we not be safe though the
heavens should go to wrack? For we have a Lord greater than all the world. We
have a Lord so mighty that at his word all things sprang into being. And yet we
are so fainthearted that if the anger of a single prince or king
nay
even of
a single neighbour
is to be borne
we tremble and droop in spirit. Yet in
comparison with this King
all things beside in the whole world are but as the
lightest dust which a slight breath moves from its place
and suffers not to be
still. In this way this description of God is consolatory
and trembling
spirits ought to look to this consolation in their temptations and dangers.—Martin
Luther.
Verse
3. Thou turnest man to destruction
etc. The prophet conceives
of God as of a potter
that having of dust tempered a mass
and framed it into
a vessel
and dried it
doth presently
within a minute or an hour after
dash
it again in pieces
and beat it to dust
in passion as it were speaking unto
it
"Get thee to dust again." The word here translated "destruction"
signifies a beating
or grinding
or pounding of a thing to powder. And the
prophet seems to allude to the third of Genesis
where God speaks of Adam
"Dust thou art
and to dust thou shalt return"
as if he should say
O Lord
thou that hast made and framed man of the dust of the earth
thou
beatest him to dust again; and as thou madest him by thy word alone
so with
thy word thou suddenly turnest
and beatest him against to dust; as a man that
makes a thing
and presently mars it again...He doth it with a word
against
which is no resistance
when that word is once come out of his mouth; it is not
all the diet
physic
and help
and prayers in the world that can save the
life. And this he can do suddenly
in the twinkling of an eye. And therefore we
should
as we love our lives
fear him
and take heed how we offend and
displease him that can with a word turn the strongest man into dust.—William
Bradshaw.
Verse
3. Thou turnest man to destruction
etc. The first word for "man"
signifies a man full of misery
full of sickness and infirmities
a miserable
man
vwna. And the other word here used in the end of the verse
signifies a
man made of clay
or of the very slime of the earth. From hence we learn
what is the nature of all men
of all the sons of Adam
viz.
a piece of
living clay
a little piece of red earth. And besides that man is
subject to breaking and crushing
every way a miserable man; so
is he of a brittle mould
a piece of red clay
that hath in it for a time a
living soul
which must return to God that gave it; and the body
this piece of
earth
return to the earth from whence it came: and if we had no Scripture at
all to prove this
daily experience before our eyes makes it clear how all men
even the wisest
the strongest
the greatest and the mightiest monarchs and
princes in the world
be but miserable men
made of red earth
and quickly turn
again to dust.—Samuel Smith
in "Moses his Prayer"
1656.
Verse
3. Thou turnest man to destruction. Augustine says
We walk
amid perils. If we were glass vases we might fear less dangers. What is there
more fragile than a vase of glass? And vet it is preserved
and lasts for
centuries: we therefore are more frail and infirm.—Le Blanc.
Verse
3. Return ye. One being asked what life was? made an answer
answerless
for he presently turned his back and went his way.—John Trapp.
Verse
4. A thousand years
etc. As to a very rich man a thousand
sovereigns are as one penny; so
to the eternal God
a thousand years are as
one day.—John Albert Bengel
1687-1752.
Verse
4. The Holy Ghost expresses himself according to the manner of men
to give us some notion of an infinite duration
by a resemblance suited to our
capacity. If a thousand years be but as a day to the life of God
then as a
year is to the life of man
so are three hundred and sixty-five thousand years
to the life of God; and as seventy years are to the life of man
so are
twenty-five millions five hundred and fifty thousand years to the life of God.
Yet still
since there is no proportion between time and eternity
we must dart
our thoughts beyond all these
for years and days measure only the duration of
created things
and of those only that are material and corporeal
subject to
the motion of the heavens
which makes days and years.—Stephen Charnock.
Verse
4. As yesterday when it is past
and as a watch in the night.
He corrects the previous clause with an extraordinary abbreviation. For he says
that the whole space of human life
although it may be very long
and reach a
thousand years
yet with God it is esteemed not only as one day
which has
already gone
but is scarcely equal to the fourth part of a night. For the
nights were divided into four watches
which lasted three hours each. And indeed
by the word night
it is meant that human affairs in this life are
involved in much darkness
many errors
dangers
terrors
and sorrows.—Mollerus.
Verse
4. As a watch in the night. The night is wont to appear
shorter than the day
and to pass more swiftly
because those who sleep
says
Euthymius
notice not the lapse of time. On account of the darkness also
it is
less observed; and to those at work the time seems longer
than to those who
have their work done.—Lorinus.
Verse
4. A watch in the night. Sir John Chardin observes in a note
on this verse
that as the people of the East have no clocks
the several parts
of the day and of the night
which are eight in all
are given notice of. In
the Indies
the parts of the night are made known as well by instruments of
music in great cities
as by the rounds of the watchmen
who with cries
and
small drums
give them notice that a fourth part of the night is passed. Now as
these cries awaked those who had slept
all that quarter part of the night
it
appeared to them but as a moment.—Harmer's Observations.
Verse
4.—The ages and the dispensations
the promise to Adam
the
engagement with Noah
the oath to Abraham
the covenant with Moses—these were
but watches
through which the children of men had to wait amid the darkness of
things created
until the morning should dawn of things uncreated. Now is
"the right far spent
and the day at hand."—Plain Commentary.
Verse
5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood. Mtmrz (zeram-tam)
thou hast inundated them
namely
the years of man
i.e.
thou hast
hurried them away with a flood
thou hast made them to glide away as water
they
will be sleep.—Bythner's "Lyre of David."
Verse
5. Thou carriest them away as with a flood. Let us meditate
seriously upon the swift passage of our days
how our life runs away like a
stream of waters
and carrieth us with it. Our condition in the eyes of God in
regard of our life in this world is as if a man that knows not how to swim
should be cast into a great stream of water
and be carried down with it
so
that he may sometimes lift up his head or his hands
and cry for help
or catch
hold of this thing and that
for a time
but his end will be drowning
and it
is but a small time that he can hold out
for the flood which carries him away
will soon swallow him up. And surely our life here if it be rightly considered
is but like the life of a person thus violently carried down a stream. All the
actions and motions of our life are but like unto the strivings and struggles
of a man in that case: our eating
our drinking
our physic
our sports
and
all other actions are but like the motions of the sinking man. When we have
done all that we can
die we must
and be drowned in this deluge.—William
Bradshaw.
Verse
5. Away as with a flood. "A man is a bubble"
said
the Greek proverb
which Lucian represents to this purpose
saying
"All
the world is a storm
and men rise up in their several generations like
bubbles. Some of these instantly sink into the deluge of their first parent
and are hidden in a sheet of water
having no other business in the world but
to be born
that they might be able to die; others float up and down two or
three turns
and suddenly disappear
and give their place to others: and they
that live longest upon the face of the waters are in perpetual motion
restless
and uneasy
and being crushed in by a great drop from a cloud
sink into
flatness and a froth; the change not being great; it being hardly possible that
a bubble should be more a nothing than it was before."—Jeremy Taylor.
Verse
5. (first clause). The most ancient mode of measuring small
portions of time was by water flowing out of a vessel the clepsydra of the
Greeks and Romans; and Ovid has compared the lapse of time to the flowing of a
river (Metam. 15
180.)—Stephen Street.
Verse
5. They are as a sleep. For as in the visions of sleep
we
seeing
see not
hearing we hear not
tasting or touching we neither taste nor
touch
speaking we speak not
walking we walk not; but when we seem to employ
movements and gestures
in no respect do we employ them
since the mind vainly
forms without any real objects images of things that exist not
as if they
existed. In this very way
the imaginations of those who are awake closely
resemble dreams; they come
they go
they confront us and flee from us; before
they are seized
they fly away.—Philo
in Le Blanc.
Verse
5. They are as a sleep. Our life may be compared to sleep in
four respects.
1.
In regard of the shortness of it.
2. In regard of the easiness of being put out of it.
3. In regard of the many means to disquiet and break it off.
4. With regard to the many errors in it.
For
the first three. Sleep is but short
and the sweeter it is
the shorter it
seems to be. And as it is but short of itself
though it should last the full
swing of nature; so the soundest sleep is easily broken; the least knock
the
lowest call puts men out of it; and a number of means and occasions there be to
interrupt and break it off. And is it not so with the life of man? Is not the
longest life short? Is it not the shorter
the sweeter and fuller of contents
it is? And is it not easily taken away? Are there not many means to bring us
unto our end? even as many as there are to waken us out of sleep. For the
fourth. How many errors are we subject to in sleep? In sleep the prisoner many
times dreams that he is at liberty; he that is at liberty
that he is in
prison; he that is hungry
that he is feeding daintily; he that is in want
that he is in great abundance; he that abounds
that he is in great want. How
many in their sleep have thought they have gotten that which they shall be
better for for ever
and when they are even in the hope of present possessing
some such goodly matter
or beginning to enjoy it
or in the midst of their
joy
they are suddenly awaked
and then all is gone with them
and their golden
fancies vanish away in an instant. So for evil and sorrow as well. And is it
not just so in the life of man?—William Bradshaw.
Verse
5. They are like grass. In this last similitude
the prophet
compares men to grass
that as grass hath a time of growing and a time of
withering
even so has man. In the morning it flourisheth
and groweth up.
In which words Moses compares the former part of man's life
which is the space
of thirty-three years
to the time of growing of grass
and that is accounted
the time of the perfection of man's strength and age; at which age
according
to the course of nature
man flourisheth as grass doth; that is the time of a
man's prime and flourishing estate. But in the evening; that is
when
the grass is ripe
and ready to be cut down
it withereth. Even so man
being once at his strength
and ripest age
doth not stand at a stay
nor
continueth long so; but presently begins to decay
and to wither away
till old
age comes
and he is cut down by the scythe of death. Now
in that Moses useth
so many similitudes
and all to show how frail this life of man is
we are
taught
that the frailty
vanity
and shortness of man's life is such
that
examples will scarcely shew it. Death comes as a flood
violently and
suddenly; we are as a sleep; we are as grass; our life is like a
dream; we spend our days as a tale that is told
Ps 90:9. All these
similitudes Moses hath in this Psalm
as if he wanted words and examples
how
to express the vanity
frailty
and shortness thereof.—Samuel Smith.
Verse
6. In the morning. This can hardly mean "in early
youth"
as some of the Rabbis explain. The words
strictly speaking
are a
part of the comparison ("they are as grass which springeth afresh in the
morning")
and are only thus placed first to give emphasis to the figure.
In the East
one night's rain works a change as if by magic. The field at
evening was brown
parched
arid as a desert; in the morning it is green with
the blades of grass. The scorching hot wind (Jas 1:11) blows upon it
and again
before evening it is withered.—J.J.S. Perowne.
Verse
6. Cut down.
Stout
and strong today
Tomorrow turned to clay.
This day in his bloom
The next
in the tomb.
It
is true that to some Death sends his grey harbingers before
and gives them
timely warning of his approach. But in how many cases does he arrive
unannounced
and
lifting up his scythe
mows down the lofty! On shipboard
there is but a plank between us and death; on horseback
but a fall. As we walk
along the streets
death stretches a threatening finger from every tile upon
the roofs! "He comes up into our windows
and enters into our palaces; he
cuts off the children from without
and the young men from the streets."
Jer 9:21. Our life is less than an handbreadth. How soon and how insensibly we
slip into the grave!—Augustus F. Tholuck.
Verse
7. For we are consumed by thine anger. This is a point
disputed by philosophers. They seek for the cause of death
since indeed proofs
of immortality that cannot be despised exist in nature. The prophet replies
that the chief cause must not be sought in the material
either in a defect of
the fluids
or in a failure of the natural heat; but that God being offended at
the sins of men
hath subjected this nature to death and other infinite
calamities. Therefore
our sins are the causes which have brought down this
destruction. Henee he says
In thine anger we vanish away.—Mollerus.
Verse
7. For we are consumed by thine anger
etc. Whence we may first
of all observe
how they compare their present estate in the wilderness
with
the estate of other nations and people
and shew that their estate was far
worse than theirs: for others died now one
and then one
and so they were
diminished; but for them
they were hastily consumed and suddenly swept away by
the plague and pestilence which raged amongst them. Hence we may observe
first
of all—That it is a ground of humiliation to God's people when their estate is
worse than God's enemies'.Moses gathers this as an argument to humble them
and
to move them to repentance and to seek unto God; viz.
that because of their
sins they were in a far worse case and condition than the very enemies of God
were. For though their lives were short
yet they confess that theirs was far
worse than the very heathen themselves
for they were suddenly consumed by
his anger. When God is worse to his own church and people than he is to his
enemies; when the Lord sends wars in a nation called by his name
and peace in
other kingdoms that are anti Christian; sends famine in his church
and plenty
to the wicked; sends the plague and pestilence in his church
and health and
prosperity to the wicked; oh
here is matter of mourning and humiliation; and
it is that which hath touched God's people to the quick
and wounded them to
the heart
to see the enemies of the church in better condition than the church
itself.—Samuel Smith.
Verse
7. By thy wrath are we troubled. The word used by Moses is
much stronger than merely "troubled." It implies being cut off
destroyed—in forms moreover of overwhelming terror.—Henry Cowles
in
"The Psalms; with Notes." New York
1872.
Verse
8. God needs no other light to discern our sins by but the light of
his own face. It pierceth through the darkest places; the brightness thereof
enlightens all things
discovers all things. So that the sins that are
committed in deepest darkness are all one to him as if they were done in the
face of the sun. For they are done in his face
that shines more
and from which
proceeds more light than from the face of the sun. So that this ought to make
us the more fearful to offend; he sees us when we see not him
and the light of
his countenance shines about us when we think ourselves hidden in darkness. Our
sins are not only then in his sight when they are a committing and whilst the
deed is doing; but ever after
when the act is past and gone and forgotten
yet
then is it before the face of God
even as if it were in committing: and how
should this make us afraid to sin! When our sins are not only in his sight
while they are a committing
but so continue still for ever after they are past
and done. God sets our sins before him; this shows he is so affected
with them
he takes them so to heart
that he doth in a special manner continue
the remembrance of them. As those that having had great wrong will store it up
or register it
or keep some remembrance of it or other
lest they should
forget
when time shall serve
to be quit with those that have wronged them: so
doth God
and his so doing is a sign that he takes our sins deeply to heart;
which should teach us to fear the more how we offend him. When God in any
judgment of death
or sickness
or loss of friends
shows his wrath
we should
think and meditate of this; especially when he comes nearest us: Now the Lord
looks upon my sins
they are now before him; and we should never rest till we
have by repentance moved him to blot them out. Yea
to this end we should
ourselves call them to remembrance. For the more we remember them
the more God
forgets them; the more we forget them
the more God remembers them; the more we
look upon them ourselves
the more he turneth his eyes from them.—William
Bradshaw.
Verse
8. It is a well known fact that the appearance of objects
and the ideas
which we form of them
are very much affected by the situation in which they
are placed in respect to us
and by the light in which they are seen. Objects
seen at a distance
for example
appear much smaller than they really are. The
same object
viewed through different mediums
will often exhibit different
appearances. A lighted candle
or a star
appears bright during the absence of
the sun; but when that luminary returns
their brightness is eclipsed. Since
the appearance of objects
and the ideas which we form of them
are thus
affected by extraneous circumstances
it follows
that no two persons will form
precisely the same ideas of any object
unless they view it in the same light
or are placed with respect to it in the same situation.
Apply
these remarks to the case before us. The psalmist addressing God
says
Thou
hast set our iniquities before thee
our secret sins in the light of thy
countenance. That is
our iniquities or open transgressions
and our secret
sins
the sins of our hearts
are placed
as it were
full before God's face
immediately under his eye; and he sees them in the pure
clear
all disclosing
light of his own holiness and glory. Now if we would see our sins as they
appear to him
that is
as they really are
if we would see their number
blackness and criminality
and the malignity and desert of every sin
we must
place ourselves
as nearly as is possible
in his situation
and look at sin
as it were
through his eyes. We must place ourselves and our sins in the
centre of that circle which is irradiated by the light of his countenance where
all his infinite perfections are clearly displayed
where his awful majesty is
seen
where his concentrated glories blaze
and burn and dazzle
with
insufferable brightness. And in order to this
we must
in thought
leave our
dark and sinful world
where God is unseen and almost forgotten
and where
consequently
the evil of sinning against him cannot be fully perceived—and
mount up to heaven
the peculiar habitation of his holiness and glory
where he
does not
as here
conceal himself behind the veil of his works
and of second
causes
but shines forth the unveiled God
and is seen as he is.
My
hearers
if you are willing to see your sins in their true colours; if you
would rightly estimate their number
magnitude and criminality
bring them into
the hallowed place
where nothing is seen but the brightness of unsullied
purity
and the splendours of uncreated glory; where the sun itself would
appear only as a dark spot; and there
in the midst of this circle of seraphic
intelligences
with the infinite God pouring all the light of his countenance
round you
review your lives
contemplate your offences
and see how they
appear. Recollect that the God
in whose presence you are
is the Being who
forbids sin
the Being of whose eternal law sin is the transgression
and
against whom every sin is committed.—Edward Payson.
Verse
9. For all our days go back again (wnp) in thy wrath. Hitherto he
has spoken of the cause of that wrath of God which moveth him to smite the
world with such mortality. Now here he further sets forth the same by the
effects thereof in reference to that present argument he hath in hand. 1. That
our days do as it were go backward in his wrath: that whereas God gave us being
to live
our life and our being are nothing else but a going backward
as it
were
to death and to nothing. Even as if a stranger being suddenly rapt and
carried midway to his home
where are all his comforts
he should spend all the
time that is behind
not in going forward to his home
but in going backward to
the place from which he was suddenly brought. All the sons of Adam as soon as
they have being and live are brought suddenly a great part of their way: and
whereas they should go forward and live longer and longer
they from their
first beginning to live go backward again to death and to nothing. This is the
sum in effect of that which the Lord saith in the beginning of the Psalm
(Ps
90:3:) Thou bringest men to destruction; saying
Return again
ye sons of
Adam: as if he should say
Thou makest a man
and when he is made
he in
thy wrath doth haste to nothing else but destruction and to be marred again.
Thus do our days as it were go backward
and we in them return from whence we
came.—William Bradshaw.
Verse
9. When I was in Egypt
three or four years ago
I saw what Moses
himself might have seen
and what the Israelites
no doubt
very often
witnessed:—a crowd of people surrounding a professed story teller
who was
going through some tale
riveting the attention and exciting the feelings of
those who listened to him. This is one of the customs of the East. It naturally
springs up among any people who have few books
or none; where the masses are
unable to read
and where
therefore
they are dependent for excitement or
information on those who can address the ear
and who recite
in prose or
verse
traditionary tales and popular legends. I dare say this sort of thing
would be much in repute among the Israelites themselves during their detention
in the wilderness
and that it served to beguile for them many a tedious hour.
It is by this custom
then
that we venture to illustrate the statement of the
text. The hearing of a story is attended by a rapid and passing interest—it
leaves behind it a vague impression
beyond which comparatively but few
incidents may stand out distinctly in the after thought. In our own day even
when tales are put into printed books
and run through three or four volumes
we feel when we have finished one
how short it appears after all
or how short
the time it seemed to take for its perusal. If full of incident
it may seem
sometimes long to remember
but we generally come to the close with a sort of
feeling that says
"And so that's all." But this must have been much
more the case with the tales "that were told." These had to be
compressed into what could be repeated at one time
or of which three or four
might be given in an evening or an hour. The story ended; and then came the
sense of shortness
brevity
the rapid flight of the period employed by it
with something like a feeling of wonder and dissatisfaction at the discovery of
this. "For what is your life? It is even as a vapour
that appeareth for a
little time
and then vanisheth away."—Thomas Binney.
Verse
9. As a tale. The grace whereof is brevity.—John
Trapp.
Verse
9. As a tale that is told. The Chaldee has it
like the
breath of our mouth in winter.—Daniel Cresswell.
Verse
9. The thirty-eight years
which after this they were away in the
wilderness
were not the subject of the sacred history
for little or nothing
is recorded of that which happened to them from the second year to the
fortieth. After they came out of Egypt
their time was perfectly trifled away
and was not worthy to be the subject of a history
but only of a tale that
is told; for it was only to pass away time like telling stories
that they
spent those years in the wilderness; all that while they were in the consuming
and another generation was in the rising...The spending of our years is like the
telling of a tale. A year when it is past is like a tale when it is told. Some
of our years are as a pleasant story
others as a tragical one; most mixed
but
all short and transient; that which was long in the doing may be told in a
short time.—Matthew Henry.
Verse
9. We spend our year as a tale that is told
or
as a
meditation (so some translate) suddenly or swiftly: a discourse is quickly
over
whether it be a discourse from the mouth
or in the mind; and of the two
the latter is far the more swift and nimble of foot. A discourse in our
thoughts outruns the sun
as much as the sun outruns a snail; the thoughts of a
man will travel the world over in a moment; he that now sits in this place
may
be at the world's end in his thoughts
before I can speak another word.—Joseph
Caryl.
Verse
9. We spend our years as a tale that is told. This seems to
express both a necessary fact and a censure. The rapid consumption of our
years—their speedy passing away
is inevitable. But they may be spent also in a
trifling manner to little valuable purpose
which would complete the
disconsolate reflection on them
by the addition of guilt and censure.—John
Foster
1768-1843.
Verse
9. As a tale that is told. In the Hebrew it is hgx-wmk
sicut
meditatio
(as a meditation) and so we read it in the margin
as if
all our years were little else than a continual meditation upon the things of
this world. Indeed
much of man's time is spent in this kind of vain
meditation
as how to deceive and play fast and loose for advantage; such a
meditation had they
Isa 59:13
or meditating with the heart lying words; the
same word in the Hebrew as in my text; or how to heap up riches
such a
meditation had that covetous man in the gospel
Lu 12:17; or how to violate the
sacred bonds of religion and laws of God
such a meditation had they
Ps 2:1-3;
and in such vain meditations as these do men spend their years "as a tale
that is told." . . . To close this point with Gregory Nazianzen. What are
we but a vain dream that hath no existence or being
a mere phantasm or
apparition that cannot be held
a ship sailing in the sea which leaves no
impression or trace behind it
a dust
a vapour
a morning dew
a flower
flourishing one day and fading another
yea
the same day behold it springing
and withered
but my text adds another metaphor from the flying of a bird
and
we fly away
not go and run but fly
the quickest motion that any corporeal
creature hath. Our life is like the fight of a bird
it is here now and it is
gone out of sight suddenly. The Prophet therefore speaking of the speedy
departure of Ephraim's glory expresses it thus
"It shall flee away like a
bird"
Ho 9:11; and Solomon saith the like of riches
"they make
themselves wings and flee away like an eagle toward heaven": Pr 23:5. David
wished for the wings of a dove that he might flee away and be at rest and good
cause he had for it
for this life is not more short than miserable. . . . Be
it our care then not to come creeping and coughing to God with a load of
diseases and infirmities about us
when we are at death's door and not before
but to consecrate the first fruits of our life to his service. It is in the
spending our time (as one compares it) as in the distilling of waters
the
thinnest and purest part runs out first and only the lees at last: what an
unworthy thing will it be to offer the prime of our time to the world
the
flesh
and the devil
and the dregs of it to God. He that forbade the lame and
the blind in beasts to be sacrificed
will not surely allow it in men; if they
come not to present their bodies a living sacrifice
while they are living and
lively too
ere they be lame or blind or deformed with extremity of age
it is
even a miracle if it prove then a holy
acceptable
or reasonable service.—Thomas
Washbourne
1655.
Verse
9. (second clause). The Hebrew is different from all the
Versions. We consume our years (hgx-wmk kemo hegeh) like a
groan. We live a dying
whining
complaining life
and at last a groan
is its termination!—Adam Clarke.
Verse
9. The Vulgate translation has
Our years pass away like those of
a spider. It implies that our life is as frail as the thread of a spider's
web. Constituted most curiously the spider's web is; but what more fragile? In
what is there more wisdom than in the complicated frame of the human body; and
what more easily destroyed? Glass is granite compared with flesh; and vapours
are rocks compared with life.—C.H.S.
Verse
10. It is soon cut off
and we fly away. At the Witan or
council assembled at Edwin of Northumbria at Godmundingham (modern name
Godmanham)
to debate on the mission of Paulinus
the King was thus addressed
by a heathen Thane
one of his chief men:—"The present life of man
O
King
may be likened to what often happens when thou art sitting at supper with
thy thanes and nobles in winter time. A fire blazes on the hearth
and warms
the chamber; outside rages a storm of wind and snow; a sparrow flies in at one
door of thy hall
and quickly passes out at the other. For a moment and while
it is within
it is unharmed by the wintry blast
but this brief season of
happiness over
it returns to that wintry blast whence it came
and vanishes
from thy sight. Such is the brief life of man; we know not what went before it
and we are utterly ignorant as to what shall follow it. If
therefore
this new
doctrine contain anything more certain
it justly deserves to be
followed."—Bede's Chronicle.
Verse
10. The time of our life is threescore years and ten (saith
Moses)
or set it upon the tenters
and rack it to fourscore
though not
one in every fourscore arrives to that account
yet can we not be said to live
so long; for take out
first
ten years for infancy and childhood
which
Solomon calls the time of wantonness and vanity (Ec 11:1-10.)
wherein we
scarce remember what we did
or whether we lived or no; and how short it is
then? Take out of the remainder a third part for sleep
wherein like blocks we
lie senseless
and how short is it then? Take out yet besides the time of our
carking and worldly care
wherein we seem both dead and buried in the affairs
of the world
and how short is it then? And take out yet besides
our times of
wilful sinning and rebellion
for while we sin
we live not
but we are
"dead in sin"
and what remaineth of life? Yea
how short is it then?
So short is that life which nature allows
and yet we sleep away part
and play
away part
and the cares of the world have a great part
so that the true
spiritual and Christian life hath little or nothing in the end.—From a
Sermon by Robert Wilkinson
entitled "A Meditation of Mortalitie
preached
to the late Price Henry
some few daies before his death"
1612.
Verse
10. Threescore years and ten. It may at first seem surprising
that Moses should describe the days of man as "Threescore years and
ten." But when it is remembered
that
in the second year of the
pilgrimage in the wilderness
as related in Nu 14:28-39
God declared that all
those who had been recently numbered at Sinai should die in the wilderness
before the expiration of forty years
the lamentation of Moses on the brevity
of human life becomes very intelligible and appropriate; and the Psalm itself
acquires a solemn and affecting interest
as a penitential confession of the
sins which had entailed such melancholy consequences on the Hebrew nation; and
as a humble deprecation of God's wrath; and as a funeral dirge upon those whose
death had been preannounced by the awful voice of God.—Christopher
Wordsworth.
Verse
10. There have been several gradual abbreviations of man's
life. Death hath been coming nearer and nearer to us
as you may see in the
several ages and periods of the world. Adam
the first of human kind
lived
nine hundred and thirty years. And seven or eight hundred years was a usual
period of man's life before the Flood. But the Sacred History (which hath the
advantage and preeminence of all other histories whatsoever
by reason of its
antiquity) acquaints us that immediately after the Flood the years of man's
life were shortened by no less than half...After the Flood man's life
was apparently shorter than it was before
for they fell from nine hundred
eight hundred
and seven hundred years to four hundred and three hundred
as we
see in the age of Arphaxad
Salah
Heber: yea
they fell to two hundred and odd
years
as we read of Peleg
Reu
Serug
and Tharah; yea
they came down to less
than two hundred years. In the space of a few years man's life was again cut
shorter by almost half
if not a full half. We read that Abraham lived but one
hundred and seventy-five years
so that man's age ran very low then. See the
account given in Scripture of Nahor
Sarah
Ishmael
Isaac
Jacob
Joseph (who
died at a hundred) which confirms the same. And again the third time
man's life was shortened by almost another half
viz.
about the year of
the World 2
500
in Moses' time. For he sets the bounds of man's life thus:
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of
strength they be fourscore years
yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for
it is soon cut off
and we fly away." Ps 90:10. Eighty years is the utmost
limit he sets man's life at
i.e.
in the most ordinary and common
account of man's life. Though some are of the opinion that these words do not
give an account of the duration of man's life in general
but refer to the
short lives of the Israelites in the wilderness
yet I do not see but it may
take in both; and Moses who composed the Psalm
lived a hundred and twenty
years himself
yet he might speak of the common term of man's life
and what
usually happened to the generality of men.—John Edwards.
Verse
10. Their strength is labour and sorrow. Most commonly old age
is a feeble estate; the very grasshopper is a burden to it. Ec 12:5. Even the
old man himself is a burden
to his wife
to his children
to himself. As
Barzillai said to David
"I am this day fourscore years old: and can I
discern between good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I
drink? can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women?"
2Sa 19:35. Old age
we say
is a good guest
and should be made welcome
but
that he brings such a troop with him; blindness
aches
coughs
& c.; these
are troublesome
how should they be welcome? Their strength is labour and
sorrow. If their very strength
which is their best
be labour and grief
what is their worst?—Thomas Adams.
Verse
10. Their strength is labour and sorrow.
Unnumbered
maladies his joints invade
Lay siege to life
and press the dire blockade.
—Samuel Johnson
1709-1784.
Verse
10. Their strength. Properly
the pride of the days of
our life is labour and sorrow—i.e.
our days at their best.—Barth's
"Bible Manual".
Verse
10. We fly away.
Bird
of my breast
away!
The long wished hour is come.
On to the realms of cloudless day
On to thy glorious home!
Long
has been thine to mourn
In banishment and pain.
Return
thou wandering dove
return
And find thy ark again!
Away
on joyous wing
Immensity to range;
Around the throne to soar and sing
And faith for sight exchange.
Flee
then
from sin and woe
To joys immortal flee;
Quit thy dark prison house below
And be for ever free!
I
come
ye blessed throng
Your tasks and joys to share;
O
fill my lips with holy song
My drooping wing upbear.
—Henry Francis Lyte
1793-1847.
Verse
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? We may take some
scantling
some measure of the wrath of man
and know how far it can go
and
what it can do
but we can take no measure of the wrath of God
for it is
unmeasurable.—Joseph Caryl.
Verse
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? None at all; and
unless the power of that can be known
it must abide as unspeakable as the love
of Christ which passeth knowledge.—John Bunyan.
Verse
11. Moses
I think
here means
that it is a holy awe of God
an that
alone
which makes us truly and deeply feel his anger. We see that the
reprobate
although they are severely punished
only chafe upon the bit
or
kick against God
or become exasperated
or are stupefied
as if they were
hardened against all calamities; so far are they from being subdued. And though
they are full of trouble
and cry aloud
yet the Divine anger does not so
penetrate their hearts as to abate their pride and fierceness. The minds of the
godly alone are wounded with the wrath of God; nor do they wait for his thunder
bolts
to which the reprobate hold out their hard and iron necks
but they
tremble the very moment when God moves only his little finger. This I consider
to be the true meaning of the prophet.—John Calvin.
Verse
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? etc. The meaning is
What man doth truly know and acknowledge the power of thine anger
according to
that measure of fear wherewith thou oughtest to be feared? Note hence
how
Moses and the people of God
though they feared God
yet notwithstanding
confess that they failed in respect of that measure of the feat of God which
they ought to have had; for we must not think
but Moses and some of his people
did truly fear God. But yet in regard of the power of God's anger
which was
now very great and grievous
their fear of God was not answerable and
proportionable; then it is apparent that Moses and his people failed in respect
of the measure of the fear of God which they ought to have had
in regard of
the greatness and grievousness of the judgments of God upon them. See
that the
best of God's servants in this life fall short in their fear of God
and so in
all graces of the Spirit; in that love of God
in faith in repentance
and in
obedience
we come short all of us of that which the Lord requires at our
hands. For though we do know God
and that he is a just God
and righteous
and
cannot wink at sin; yet what man is there that so fears before him as he ought
to be feared? what man so quakes at his anger as he should; and is so afraid of
sin as he ought to be? We have no grace here in perfection
but the best faith
is mixed with infidelity; our hope with fear; our joy with sorrow. It is well
we can discern our wants and imperfections
and cry out with the man in the
gospel
"I believe; Lord
help my unbelief!"—Samuel Smith.
Verse
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? No man knows the
power of God's anger
because that power has never yet put itself forth to its
full stretch. Is there
then
no measure of God's wrath—no standard by which we
may estimate its intenseness? There is no fixed measure or standard
but there
is a variable one. The wicked man's fear of God is a measure of the wrath of
God. If we take the man as he may be sometime taken
when the angel of death is
upon him
when the sins of his youth and of his maturer years throng him like
an armed troop
and affright and afflict him—when with all his senses keenly
alive to the rapid strides of bodily decay
he feels that he must die
and yet
that he is not prepared—why
it may come to pass
it does occasionally
though
not always come to pass
that his anticipations of the future are literally
tremendous. There is such a fear and such a dread of that God into whose
immediate presence he feels himself about to be ushered
that even they who
love him best
and charm him most
shrink from the wildness of his gaze and the
fearfulness of his speech. And we cannot tell the man
though he may be just
delirious with apprehension
that his fear of God invests the wrath of God with
a darker than its actual colouring. On the contrary
we know that according to
the fear
so is the wrath. We know that if man's fear of God be wrought up to
the highest pitch
and the mind throb so vehemently that its framework threaten
to give way and crumble
we know that the wrath of the Almighty keeps pace with
this gigantic fear. . . .
If
it has happened to you—and there is not perhaps a man on the face of the earth
to whom it does not sometimes happen—if it has ever happened to you to be
crushed with the thought
that a life of ungodliness must issue in an eternity
of woe
and if amid the solitude of midnight and amid the dejections of
sickness there pass across the spirit the fitful figures of all avenging
ministry
then we have to tell you
it is not the roar of battle which is
powerful enough
nor the wail of orphans which is thrilling enough
to serve as
the vehicle of such a communication; we have to tell you
that you fly to a
refuge of lies
if you dare flatter yourselves that either the stillness of the
hour or the feebleness of disease has caused you to invest vengeance with too
much of the terrible. We have to tell you
that the picture was not overdrawn
which you drew in your agony. "According to thy fear
so is thy
wrath." Fear is but a mirror
which you may lengthen indefinitely
and
widen indefinitely
and wrath lengthens with the lengthening and widens with
the widening
still crowding the mirror with new and fierce forms of wasting
and woe. We caution you
then
against ever cherishing the flattering notion
that fear can exaggerate God's wrath. We tell you
that when fear has done its
worst
it can in no degree come up to the wrath which it images...
Now
it is easy to pass from this view of the text to another
which is in a certain
sense similar. You will always find
that men's apprehensions of God's wrath
are nicely proportioned to the fear and reverence which are excited in them by
the name and the attributes of God. He will have but light thoughts of future
vengeance
who has but low thoughts of the character and properties of his Creator:
and from this it comes to pass
that the great body of men betray a kind of
stupid insensibility to the wrath of Jehovah...Look at the crowd of the worldly
and the indifferent. There is no fear of God in that crowd; they are "of
the earth earthy." The soul is sepulchred in the body
and has never
wakened to a sense of its position with reference to a holy and avenging
Creator. Now
then
you may understand the absence of all knowledge of the
power of God's wrath. "Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even
according to thy fear
so is thy wrath."—Henry Melvill.
Verse
11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? etc. This he utters
1. By way of lamentation. He sighing forth a most doleful complaint against the
security and stupor he observed in that generation of men in his time
both in
those that had already died in their sins
as well as of that new generation
that had come up in their room
who still lived in their sins; oh
says he
`Who of them knoweth the power of thine anger?' namely
of that wrath which
followeth after death
and seizes upon men's souls for ever; that is
who
considers it
or regards it
till it take hold upon them? He utters it
2. In a
way of astonishment
out of the apprehension he had of the greatness of that
wrath. "Who knoweth the power of thine anger?" that is
who
hath or can take it in according to the greatness of it? which he endeavours to
set forth
as applying himself to our own apprehension
in this wise
Even
according to thy fear
so is thy wrath. Where those words
"thy
fear" are taken objective
and so signify the fear of thee;
and so the meaning is
that according to whatever proportion our souls can take
in
in fears of thee and of thine anger
so great is thy wrath itself. You have
souls that are able to comprehend vast fears and terrors; they are as extensive
in their fears as in their desires
which are stretched beyond what this World
or the creatures can afford them
to an infinity. The soul of man is a dark
cell
which when it begets fears once
strange and fearful apparitions rise up
in it
which far exceed the ordinary proportion of worldly evils (which yet
also our fears usually make greater than they prove to be); but here
as to
that punishment which is the effect of God's own immediate wrath
let the soul
enlarge itself
says he
and widen its apprehension to the utmost; fear what
you can imagine
yet still God's wrath
and the punishment it inflicts
are not
only proportionable
but infinitely exceedingly all you can fear or imagine. "Who
knoweth the power of thine anger?" It passeth knowledge.—Thomas
Goodwin.
Verse
12. So teach us to number our days
that we may apply our hearts
unto wisdom. Moses who was learned in all the sciences of the Egyptians
(among which arithmetic was one) desireth to learn this point of arithmetic
only of thee
O Lord; and why? Is it because
as Job speaketh
thou hast
determined the number of his days? Would Moses have thee reveal to every man
the moment of his end? Such speculations may well beseem an Egyptian
an Israelite
they do not beseem. Thy children
O Lord
know that it is not for them so to
know times and seasons which thou keepest in thine own power
and are a secret
sealed up with thee: we should not pry into that counting house
nor curiously
inquire into that sum. It is not then a mathematical numbering of days that
Moses would be schooled in
but a moral; he would have God not simply to teach
him to number
but to number "so"; and "so"
points out a special manner
a manner that may be useful for the children of
God. And indeed our petitions must bear this mark of profitable desires
and we
should not ask aught of thee but that by which (if we speed) we may become the
better; he that so studies his mortality learns it as he should
and it is only
thou
O Lord
that takest him out such a lesson. But what is the use
O Moses
that thou wouldst have man make of such a knowledge? "Even to apply his
heart unto wisdom." O happy knowledge
by which a man becomes wise;
for wisdom is the beauty of a reasonable soul. God created him therewith
but
sin hath divorced the soul and wisdom; so that a sinful man is indeed no better
than a fool
so the Scripture calleth him; and well it may call him so
seeing
all his carriage is vain
and the upshot of his endeavours but vexation of
spirit. But though sin have divorced wisdom and the soul
yet are they not so
severed but they may be reunited; and nothing is more powerful in furthering
this union than this feeling meditation—that we are mortal.—Arthur Lake.
Verse
12. So teach us
etc. Moses sends you to God for teaching.
"Teach Thou us; not as the world teacheth—teach Thou us." No meaner
Master; no inferior school; not Moses himself except as he speaks God's word
and becomes the schoolmaster to bring us to Christ; not the prophets
not
apostles themselves
neither "holy men of old"
except as they
"spake and were moved by the Holy Ghost." This knowledge comes not
from flesh and blood
but from God. "So teach Thou us." And so David
says
"Teach me Thy way
O Lord
and I will walk in Thy truth." And
hence our Lord's promise to his disciples
"The Holy Ghost
He shall teach
you all things."—Charles Richard Summer
1850.
Verse
12. Teach us to number our days. Mark what it is which Moses
here prays for
only to be taught to number his days. But did he not do this
already? Was it not his daily work this
his constant and continual employment?
Yes
doubtless it was; yea
and he did it carefully and conscientiously too.
But yet he thought he did it not well enough
and therefore prays here in the
text to be taught to do better. See a good man
how little he pleaseth himself
in any action of his life
in any performance of duty that he does. He can
never think that he does well enough whatever he does
but still desires to do
otherwise
and would fain do better. There is an affection of modesty and
humility which still accompanies real piety
and every pious man is an humble
modest man
and never reckons himself a perfect proficient
or to be advanced
above a teaching
but is content and covetous to be a continual learner; to
know more than he knows and to do better than he does; yea
and thinks it no
disparagement to his graces at all to take advice
and to seek instruction
where it is to be had.—Edm. Barker's Funeral Sermon for Lady Capell
1661.
Verse
12. Teach us to number our days.
"Improve
Time in time
while the Time doth last.
For all Time is no time
when the Time is past."
—From
Richard Pigot's "Life of Man
symbolised by the Months of the Year"
1866.
Verse
12. Teach us to number our days. The proverbial oracles of our
parsimonious ancestors have informed us that the fatal waste of fortune is by
small expenses
by the profusion of sums too little singly to alarm our
caution
and which we never suffer ourselves to consider together. Of the same
kind is prodigality of life: he that hopes to look back hereafter with
satisfaction upon past years
must learn to know the present value of single
minutes
and endeavour to let no particle of time fall useless to the ground.
An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto that time was his estate; an
estate
indeed
that will produce nothing without cultivation
but will always
abundantly repay the labours of industry
and satisfy the most extensive
desires
if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negligence
to be overrun
by noxious plants
or laid out for show rather than for use.—Samuel Johnson.
Verse
12. To number our days
is not simply to take the reckoning
and admeasurement of human life. This has been done already in Holy Scripture
where
it is said
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if
by reason of strength they be fourscore years
yet is their strength labour and
sorrow; for it is soon cut off
and we fly away." Nor yet is it
in
the world's phrase
to calculate the chances of survivorship
which any man may
do in the instance of the aggregate
but which no man can do in the case of the
individual. But it is to take the measure of our days as compared with the work
to be performed
with the provision to be laid up for eternity
with the
preparation to be made for death
with the precaution to be taken against
judgment. It is to estimate human life by the purposes to which it should be
applied
by the eternity to which it must conduct
and in which it shall at last
be absorbed. Under this aspect it is
that David contemplates man when he says
"Thou hast made our days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing
before thee"
Ps 39:5; and then proceeds to include in this
comprehensive estimate even those whose days have been the longest upon earth:
"Verily
every man at his best estate is altogether vanity."—Thomas
Dale
1847.
Verse
12. To number our days. Number we our days by our daily
prayers—number we them by our daily obedience and daily acts of love—number we
them by the memories that they bring of holy men who have entered into their
Saviour's peace
and by the hopes which are woven with them of glory and of
grace won for us!—Plain Commentary.
Verse
12. Apply our hearts unto wisdom. Sir Thomas Smith
secretary
to Queen Elizabeth
some months before his death said
That it was a great pity
men know not to what end they were born into this world
until they were ready
to go out of it.—Charles Bradbury.
Verse
12. Apply our hearts unto wisdom. St. Austin says
"We
can never do that
except we number every day as our last day." Many put
far the evil day. They refuse to leave the earth
when the earth is about to
take its leave of them.—William Secker.
Verse
12. Apply our hearts unto wisdom. Moses speaketh of wisdom
as if it were physic
which doth no good before it be applied; and the part to
apply it to is the heart
where all man's affections are to love it and
to cherish it
like a kind of hostess. When the heart seeketh it findeth
as
though it were brought unto her
like Abraham's ram. Therefore God saith
"They shall seek me and find me
because they shall seek me with their
hearts"
Jer 29:13; as though they should not find him with all their
seeking unless they did seek him with their heart. Therefore the way to get
wisdom is to apply your hearts unto it
as if it were your calling and living
to which you were bound aprentices. A man may apply his ears and his eyes as
many truants do to their books
and yet never prove scholars; but from that day
when a man begins to apply his heart unto wisdom
he learns more in a month
after than he did in a year before
nay
than ever he did in his life. Even as
you see the wicked
because they apply their hearts to wickedness
how fast
they proceed
how easily and how quickly they become perfect swearers
expert
drunkards
cunning deceivers
so if ye could apply your hearts as thoroughly to
knowledge and goodness
you might become like the apostle which teacheth you.
Therefore
when Solomon sheweth men the way how to come by wisdom
he speaks
often of the heart
as
"Give thine heart to wisdom"
"let
wisdom enter into thine heart"
"get wisdom"
"keep
wisdom"
"embrace wisdom"
Pr 2:10 4:5 8:8
as though a man went
a wooing for wisdom. Wisdom is like God's daughter
that he gives to the man
that loves her
and sueth for her
and means to set her at his heart. Thus we
have learned how to apply knowledge that it may do us good; not to our ears
like them which hear sermons only
nor to our tongues
like them which make table
talk of religion
but to our hearts
that we may say with the virgin
"My
heart doth magnify the Lord"
Lu 1:46
and the heart will apply it to the
ear and to the tongue
as Christ saith
"Out of the abundance of the heart
the mouth speaketh
" Mt 12:34.—Henry Smith.
Verse
12. Of all arithmetical rules this is the hardest—to number our
days. Men can number their herds and droves of oxen and of sheep
they can
estimate the revenues of their manors and farms
they can with a little pains
number and tell their coins
and yet they are persuaded that their days are
infinite and innumerable and therefore do never begin to number them. Who saith
not upon the view of another
surely yonder man looketh by his countenance as
if he would not live long
or yonder woman is old
her days cannot be many:
thus we can number other men's days and years
and utterly forget our own
therefore this is the true wisdom of mortal men
to number their own days.—Thomas
Tymme.
Verse
12. Observe here
after that Moses had given us a description of the
wrath of God
presently his thoughts are taken up with the meditation of death.
The wrath of God thought on makes us think of death...Let us often think of the
wrath of God
and let the thought of it so far work upon us
as to keep us in a
constant awe and fear of God; and let this fear drive us to God by prayer
that
fearing as we ought
we may pray as we are commanded
and praying
we may
prevent the wrath of God. If our present sorrows do not move us
God will send
greater; and when our sorrows are grown too great for us
we shall have little
heart or comfort to pray. Let our fears then quicken our prayers; and let our
prayers be such as are able to overcome our fears; so both ways shall we be
happy
in that our fears have taught us to pray
and our prayers have made us
to fear no more.—Christopher Shute
in "Ars pie moriendi: or
The true
Accomptant. A Sermon"
etc.
1658.
Verse
12. It is evident
that the great thing wanted to make men provide
for eternity
is the practical persuasion that they have but a short time to
live. They will not apply their hearts unto wisdom until they are brought to
the numbering of their days. And how are you to be brought
my brethren? The
most surprising thing in the text is
that it should be in the form of a
prayer. It is necessary that God should interfere to make men number their
days. We call this surprising. What! is there not enough to make us feel our
frailty
without an actual
supernatural impression? What! are there not
lessons enough of that frailty without any new teaching from above? Go into our
churchyards—all ages speak to all ranks. Can we need more to prove to us the
uncertainty of life? Go into mourning families
and where are they not to be
found?—in this it is the old
in that it is the young
whom death has
removed—and is there not eloquence in tears to persuade us that we are mortal?
Can it be that in treading every day on the dust of our fathers
and meeting
every day with funerals of our brethren
we shall not yet be practically taught
to number our days
unless God print the truth on our hearts
through some
special operation of his Spirit? It is not thus in other things. In other
things the frequency of the occurrence makes us expect it. The husbandman does
not pray to be made believe that the seed must be buried and die before it will
germinate. This has been the course of the grain of every one else
and where
there is so much experience what room is there for prayer. The mariner does not
pray to be taught that the needle of his compass points towards the north. The
needle of every compass has so pointed since the secret was discovered
and he
has not to ask when he is already so sure. The benighted man does not pray to
be made to feel that the sun will rise in a few hours. Morning has succeeded to
night since the world was made
and why should he ask what he knows too welt to
doubt? But in none of these things is there greater room for assurance than we
have each one for himself
in regard to its being appointed to him once to die.
Nevertheless
we must pray to be! made to know—to be made to feel—that we are
to die
in the face of an experience which is certainly not less than that of
the parties to whom we have referred. This is a petition that we may believe
believe as they do: for they act on their belief in the fact which this
experience incontestably attests. And we may say of this
that it is amongst
the strangest of the strange things that may be affirmed of human nature
that
whilst
in regard to inferior concerns
we can carefully avail ourselves of
experience
taking care to register its decisions and to deduce from them rules
for our guidance—in the mightiest concern of all we can act as though
experience had furnished no evidence
and we were left without matter from which
to draw inferences. And
nevertheless
in regard to nothing else is the
experience so uniform. The grain does not always germinate—but every man dies.
The needle does not always point due north—but every man dies. The sun does not
cross the horizon in every place in every twenty-four hours—but every man dies.
Yet we must pray—pray as for the revelation of a mystery hidden from our
gaze—we must pray to be made to know—to be made to believe—that every man dies!
For I call it not belief
and our text calls it not belief
in the shortness of
life and the certainty of death
which allows men to live without thought of
eternity
without anxiety as to the soul
or without an effort to secure to
themselves salvation. I call it not belief—no
no
anything rather than belief.
Men are rational beings
beings of forethought
disposed to make provision for
what they feel to be inevitable; and if there were not a practical infidelity
as to their own mortality
they could not be practically reckless as to their
own safety.—Henry Melvill.
Verse
12. So teach us to number our days
etc. Five things I note in
these words: first
that death is the haven of every man; whether he sit on the
throne
or keep in a cottage
at last he must knock at death's door
as all his
fathers have done before him. Secondly
that man's time is set
and his bounds
appointed
which he cannot pass
no more than the Egyptians could pass the sea;
and therefore Moses saith
"Teach us to number our days"
as
though there were a number of our days. Thirdly
that our days are few
as
though we were sent into this world but to see it; and therefore Moses
speaking of our life
speaks of days
not of years
nor of months
nor of
weeks; but "Teach us to number our days"
shewing that it is
an easy thing even for a man to number his days
they be so few. Fourthly
the
aptness of man to forget death rather than anything else; and therefore Moses
prayeth the Lord to teach him to number his days
as though they were still
slipping out of his mind. Lastly
that to remember how short a time we have to
live
will make us apply our hearts to that which is good.—Henry Smith.
Verse
12. Our hearts. In both the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testament
the term "heart" is applied alike to the mind that
thinks
to the spirit that feels
and the will that acts. And it here stands
for the whole mental and moral nature of man
and implies that the whole soul
and spirit
with all their might
are to be applied in the service of wisdom.—William
Brown Keer
1863.
Verse
12. Wisdom. I consider this "wisdom"
identical with the hypostatic wisdom described by Solomon
Pr 8:15-31
and Pr 9:1
5
even Immanuel
the wisdom
righteousness
sanctification
and redemption of his people. The chief pursuit of life should be the
attainment of an experimental knowledge of Christ
by whom "kings reign
and princes decree justice; whose delights are with the sons of men
and who
crieth
Whoso findeth me findeth life
and shall obtain favour of the Lord;
come
eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I have mingled." David
in the Psalms
and Solomon
his son
in the Proverbs
have predictively
manifested Messiah as the hypostatic wisdom
"whose goings forth
have been from of old
from everlasting."—J.N. Coleman.
Verse
13. Let it repent thee. According to the not infrequent and
well known phraseology of Scripture
God is said to repent
when putting away
men's sorrow
and affording new ground of gladness
he appears as it were to be
changed.—John Calvin.
Verse
14. O satisfy us with thy mercy. A poor hungry soul lying
under sense of wrath
will promise to itself happiness for ever
if it can but
once again find what it hath sometime felt; that is
one sweet fill of God's
sensible mercy towards it.—David Dickson.
Verse
14. O satisfy us. That is everywhere and evermore the cry of
humanity. And what a strange cry it is
when you think of it
brethren! Man is
the offspring of God; the bearer of his image; he stands at the head of the
terrestrial creation; on earth he is peerless; he possesses wondrous capacities
of thought
and feeling
and action. The world
and all that is in it
has been
formed in a complete and beautiful adaptation to his being. Nature seems to be
ever calling to him with a thousand voices
to be glad and rejoice; and yet he
is unsatisfied
discontented
miserable! This is a most strange thing—strange
that is
on any theory respecting man's character and condition
but that which
is supplied by the Bible; and it is not only a testimony to the ruin of his
nature
but also to the insufficiency of everything earthly to meet his
cravings.—Charles M. Merry
1864.
Verse
14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be
glad all our days. We pass now to this particular prayer
and those limbs
that make up the body of it. They are many; as many as words in it: satisfy
and satisfy us
and do that early
and do that with that which is thine
and
let that be mercy. So that first it is a prayer for fulness and satisfaction
—satisfy:
and then it is a prayer not only of appropriation to ourselves
satisfy me
but
of a charitable dilation and extension to others
satisfy us
all us
all thy servants
all thy church; and then thirdly it is a prayer of despatch
and expedition
"Satisfy us early; "and after that
it is a
prayer of evidence and manifestation
satisfy us with that which is
and which
we may discern to be thine; and then lastly it is a prayer of limitation
even upon God himself
that God will take no other way herein but the way of "mercy."
"Satisfy us early with thy mercy."...There is a spiritual fulness
in this life of which St. Hierome speaks
Ebrietas felix
satietas
salutaris
A happy excess and a wholesome surfeit; quoe quanto copiosius
sumitur
majorem donat sobrietatem
In which the more we eat
the more
temperate we are
and the more we drink
the more sober. In which (as St.
Bernard also expresses it in his mellifluence) Mutua interminabili
inexplicabili generatione
desiderium generat satietatem
et satietas parit
desiderium
By a mutual and reciprocal
by an undeterminable and
inexpressible generation of one another
the desire of spiritual graces begets
a satiety
and then this satiety begets a farther desire. This is a holy
ambition
a sacred covetousness. Naphtali's blessing
"O Naphtali
satisfied with favour
and full with the blessing of the Lord"
De
33:23; St. Stephen's blessing
"Full of faith and of the Holy
Ghost"
Ac 6:5; the blessed Virgin's blessing
"Full of
grace"; Dorcas' blessing
"Full of good works and of alms
deeds"
Ac 9:36; the blessing of him who is blessed above all
and who
blesseth all
even Christ Jesus
"Full of wisdom
full of the Holy
Ghost
full of grace and truth". Lu 2:40 4:1 Joh 1:14. ..."Satisfy
us early with" that which is thine
"thy mercy; "for
there are mercies (in a fair extent and accommodation of the word
that is
refreshing
eases
deliverances)
that are not his mercies
nor his
satisfactions...It is not his mercy
except we go by good ways to good ends;
except our safety be established by alliance with his friends
except our peace
may be had with the perfect continuance of our religion
there is no safety
there is no peace. But let me feel the effect of this prayer
as it is a prayer
of manifestation
let me discern that that which is done upon me is done by the
hand of God
and I care not what it be
I had rather have God's vinegar
than
man's oil
God's wormwood
than man's manna
God's justice
than any man's
mercy; for therefore did Gregory Nyssen call St. Basil in a holy sense
Ambidextrum
because he took everything that came by the right handle
and with
the right hand
because he saw it come from God. Even afflictions are welcome
when we see them to be his: though the way that he would choose
and the way
that this prayer entreats
be only mercy
"Satisfy us early with thy
mercy."—John Donne.
Verse
16. And thy glory unto their children. That is to say
that
our children may see the glorious fruit of this affliction in us
that so they
may not be discouraged thereby to serve thee
but rather the more heartened
when they shall see what a glorious work thou hast wrought in and upon us by
afflicting us.—William Bradshaw.
Verse
16-17. "Thy work." "The work of our hands." You will
observe a beautiful parallelism between two things which are sometimes
confounded and sometimes too jealously sundered: I mean God's agency and
man's instrumentality
between man's personal activity and that power of
God which actuates and animates
and gives it a vital efficacy. For forty years
it had been the business of Moses to bring Israel into a right state
politically
morally
religiously: that had been his work
And
yet
in so far as it was to have any success or enduringness
it must be God's
work. "The work of our hands" do thou establish; and this God does
when
in answer to prayer
he adopts the work of his servants
and makes it his
own "work"
his own "glory"
his own "beauty."—James
Hamilton.
Verse
16-17. There is a twofold Rabbinical tradition respecting this verse and
the preceding one; that they were the original prayer recited by Moses as a
blessing on the work of making the Tabernacle and its ornaments
and that
subsequently he employed them as the usual formula of benediction for any newly
undertaken task
whenever God's glorious Majesty was to be consulted for
an answer by Urim and Thummim.—Lyranus
R. Shelomo
and Genebrardus
quoted
by Neale.
Verses
16-17. They were content to live and to die as pilgrims
provided only
they could feel that in his sterner dealings with them
God was
however
slowly
preparing the way for that display of glorious blessedness which should
be the lot of their descendants. In a similar spirit they ask God to establish
the work of their hands
though they reckoned not that they should behold its
results. Their comfort in sowing was the belief that their children would
reap.—Joseph Francis Thrupp.
Verses
16-17. It is worthy of notice that this prayer was answered. Though the
first generation fell in the wilderness
yet the labours of Moses and his
companions were blessed to the second. These were the most devoted to God of
any generation that Israel ever saw. It was of them that the Lord said
"I
remember thee
the kindness of thy youth
the love of thine espousals
when
thou wentest after me in the wilderness
in a land that was not sown. Israel
was holiness unto the Lord
and the first fruits of his increase." It was
then that Balaam could not curse
but
though desirous of the wages of
unrighteousness
was compelled to forego them
and his curse was turned into a
blessing. We are taught by this case
amidst temporal calamities and judgments
in which our earthly hopes may be in a manner extinguished
to seek to have the
loss repaired by spiritual blessings. If God's work does but appear to us
and
our posterity after us
we need not be dismayed at the evils which afflict the
earth.—Andrew Fuller.
Verse
17. Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us
etc. Let us
try to look at our life's work in relation to the Lord's beauty. Our work and
Divine Beauty
at first sight
how different; yet
on deeper insight
how truly
one
how inseparably united. There is light so beauty giving
that nothing it
touches is positively ugly. In our sea girt island
with our fickle climate and
grey atmosphere
we can only rarely imagine what magic power the serene skies
the balmy air
the sunny atmosphere of the South have over even the least
interesting object in nature; but from certain hours
in certain places
I
think we may form an idea of the transforming faculty of light. There is also
spiritual light
so beauty inspiring
that the plainest face within which it is
born is illumined with singular loveliness
which wins its way into many a
heart. Who of us has not marvelled at an unexpected light
in what we had
always thought an uninteresting face? Who has not beheld a light divine
irradiate the human countenance
giving joy
and prophesying perfection
where
we had least thought to find beauty? May we not take these facts as emblems
albeit faint and imperfect
of what the "Beauty of the Lord"
does for us
and our work? You know what the natural light can do for material
objects; you know what mental and moral light can work for human faces; rise
from these
and know what spiritual light
Divine Light
can do for immortal
beings and immortal works.—Jessie Coombs
in "Thoughts for the Inner
Life"
1867.
Verse
17. The beauty of the Lord. In the word Men (beauty) there is
something like a deluge of grace. Thus far
he says
we have sought thy work
O
Lord. There we do nothing
but are only spectators and recipients of thy gifts
we are merely passive. There thou showest thyself to us
and makest us safe
by
thy work alone
which thou doest
when thou dost liberate us from that disease
which Satan inflicted on the whole human race in Adam
to wit
Sin and Eternal
death.—Martin Luther.
Verse
17. God is glorified and his work advances when his church is
beautiful. The beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness
—that beauty
which in the Lord Jesus himself shone with lustre so resplendent
and which
ought to be repeated or reflected by every disciple. And it is towards this
that all amongst us who love the Saviour
and who long for the extension of his
Kingdom
should very mainly direct their endeavours. Nothing can be sadder than
when preaching or personal effort is contradicted and neutralized by the low or
unlovely lives of those who pass for Christians; and nothing can go further to
insure success than when prayer is carried out and preaching is seconded by the
pure
holy
and benevolent lives of those who seek to follow the Lamb
whithersoever he goeth.—James Hamilton.
Verse
17. The work of our hands. Jarchi interprets this of the work
of the Tabernacle
in which the hands of the Israelites were employed in the
wilderness; so Arama of the Tabernacle of Bezaleel.—John Gill.
HINTS TO THE
VILLAGE PREACHER
Verse
1. The near and dear relation between God and his people
so that
they mutually dwell in each other.
Verse
1. The abode of the church the same in all ages; her relation to God
never changes.
Verse
1.
1.
The soul is at home in God. (a) Originally. Its birth place—its native air—home
of its thoughts
will
conscience
affections
desires. (b) Experimentally.
When it returns here it feels itself at home: "Return unto thy rest"
etc. (c) Eternally. The soul
once returned to this home
never leaves it:
"it shall go no more out for ever."
2.
The soul is not at home elsewhere. "Our dwelling place"
etc. (a) For
all men. (b) At all times. He is ever the same
and the wants of the soul
substantially are over the same.—G.R.
Verse
2. A Discourse upon the Eternity of God. S. Charnock. Works pg
344-373
Nichol's Edition.
Verse
2. (last clause).—The consideration of God's eternity may
serve
1.
For the support of our faith; in reference to our own condition for the future;
in reference to our posterity; and to the condition of God's church to the end
of the world.
2.
For the encouragement of our obedience. We serve the God who can give us an
everlasting reward.
3.
For the terror of wicked men.
—Tillotson's
Sermon on the Eternity of God.
Verse
3.
1.
The cause of death—"thou turnest."
2.
The nature of death—"return."
3.
The necessities of death—reconciliation with God
and preparation to return.
Verse
4.
1.
Contemplate the lengthened period with all its events.
2. Consider what He must be to whom all this is as nothing.
3. Consider how we stand towards Him.
Verse
5. Comparison of mortal life to sleep. See William Bradshaw's
remarks in our Notes on this verse.
Verses
5-6. The lesson of the Meadows.
1.
Grass growing the emblem of youth.
2. Grass flowering—or man in his prime.
3. The scythe.
4. Grass mown—or man at death.
Verse
7.
1.
Man's chief troubles are the effect of death. (a) His own death. (b) The death
of others.
2.
Death is the effect of Divine anger: "We are consumed by"
etc.
3.
Divine anger is the effect of sin. Death by sin.—G.R.
Verse
8.
1.
The notice which God takes of sin. (a) Individual. "Our
iniquities." (b) Universal notice—"iniquities"—not one only
but
all. (c) Minute
even the most secret sins. (d) Constant: "Set them
before" him—"in the light"
etc.
2.
The notice which we should take of them on that account. (a) In our thoughts.
Set them before us. (b) In our consciences. Condemn ourselves on account of
them. (c) In our wills. Turn from them by repentance—turn to a pardoning God by
faith.—G.R.
Verse
9.
1.
Every man has a history. His life is as a tale—a separate tale—to be told.
2.
Every man's history has some display of God in it. All our days
some may say
are passed away in thy wrath—all
others may say
in thy love—and others
some
of our days in anger and some in love.
3.
Every man's history will be told. In death
at judgment
through eternity.—G.R.
Verse
10.
1.
What life is to most. It seldom reaches its natural limits. One half die
in childhood; more than half of the other half die in manhood; few attain to
old age.
2.
What life is at most. "Threescore years"
etc.
3.
What it is to most beyond that limit. "If by reason"
etc.
4.
What it is to all. "It is soon cut off"
etc.—G.R.
Verse
11.
1.
The anger of God against sin is not fully known by its effects in this life.
"Who knoweth the power"
etc. Here we see the hiding of its power.
2.
The anger of God against sin hereafter is equal to our greatest fears.
"According to thy fear"
etc.; or
"the fear of thee"
etc.—G.R.
Verse
12.
1.
The Reckoning. (a) What their usual number. (b) How many of them are already
spent. (c) How uncertain the number that remains. (d) How much of them must be
occupied with the necessary duties of this life. (e) What afflictions and
helplessness may attend them.
2.
The use to be made of it. (a) To "seek wisdom"—not riches
worldly
honours
or pleasures—but wisdom; not the wisdom of the world
but of God. (b)
To "apply the heart" to it. Not mental merely
but moral wisdom; not
speculative merely
but experimental; not theoretical merely
but practical.
(c) To seek it at once—immediately. (d) To seek it constantly—"apply
our hearts"
etc.
3.
The help to be sought in it. "So teach us"
etc. (a) Our own ability
is insufficient through the perversion both of the mind and heart by sin. (b)
Divine help may be obtained. "If any man lack wisdom." etc.—G.R.
Verse
12.—The Sense of Mortality. Show the variety of blessings dispensed
to different classes by the right use of the sense of mortality.
1.
It may be an antidote for the sorrowful. Reflect
"there is an end."
2.
It should be a restorative to the labouring.
3.
It should be a remedy for the impatient.
4.
As a balm to the wounded in heart.
5.
As a corrective for the worldly.
6.
As a sedative to the frivolous.
—R.
Andrew Griffin
in "Stems and Twigs"
1872.
Verse
13. In what manner the Lord may be said to repent.
Verse
14. (first clause). See "Spurgeon's Sermons"
No.
513: "The Young Man's Prayer."
Verse
14.
1.
The deepest yearning of man is for satisfaction.
2.
Satisfaction can only be found in the realization of Divine Mercy.
—C.M.
Merry
1864.
Verse
14. O satisfy us early with thy mercy
etc. Learn
1.
That our souls can have no solid satisfaction in earthly things.
2.
That the mercy of God alone can satisfy our souls.
3.
That nothing but satisfaction in God can fill our days with joy and gladness.
—John
Cawood
1842.
Verse
14.
1.
The most cheerful days of earth are made more cheerful by thoughts of Divine
mercy.
2.
The most sorrowful days of earth are made glad by the consciousness of Divine
love.
—G.R.
Verse
15.
1.
The joy of faith is in proportion to the sorrow of repentance.
2.
The joy of consolation is in proportion to suffering in affliction.
3.
The joy of the returning smiles of God is in proportion to the terror of his
frowns.—G.R.
Verse
15. The Balance of life
or the manner in which our joys are set over
against our sorrows.
Verse
16.
1.
Our duty—"work"
and our desire about it.
2.
Our children's portion—"glory"
and our prayer in reference to it.
Verse
17. The Right Establishment
or the work which will endure—why it
will endure and should endure. Why we wish our work to be of such a nature
and
whether there are enduring elements in it.
WORKS UPON THE
NINETIETH PSALM
Enarratio
Psalmi 90. Per D. Doctorem Martinum Luth. In Schola Vuittembergensi
Anno
1534
publice absoluta
edita vers Anno MD.
41.
(In Vol. 4 of the Jena edition of Luther's Works
1712 and other years
folio.)
A
Meditation of Man's Mortalitie. Containing an Exposition of the Ninetieth
Psalme. By that Reverend and Religious Servant of God Mr. William Bradshaw
sometime Fellow of Sidney Colledge in Cambridge. Published since his decease by
Thomas Gataker B. of D. and Pastor of Rotherhith. London...1621.
Moses
his Prayer. Or
An Exposition of the Ninetieth Psalme. In which is set forth
the Frailty and Misery of Mankind: most needful for these Times.
Wherein:
1.
The Sum and Scope.
2. The Doctrines.
3. The Reasons.
4. The uses of most Texts are observed.
By Samuel
Smith
Minister of the Gospel
Author of David's Repentance and the Great
Assize
and yet Living...1656.
── C.H. Spurgeon《The Treasury of David》