Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17

Psalm 90:1-6, 13-17 (NRSV)

¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place

in all generations.

² Before the mountains were brought forth,

or ever you had formed the earth and the world,

from everlasting to everlasting you are God. 

³ You turn us back to dust,

and say, “Turn back, you mortals.”

⁴ For a thousand years in your sight

are like yesterday when it is past,

or like a watch in the night. 

⁵ You sweep them away; they are like a dream,

like grass that is renewed in the morning;

⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;

in the evening it fades and withers. 

¹³ Turn, O Lord! How long?

Have compassion on your servants!

¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us,

and as many years as we have seen evil.

¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants,

and your glorious power to their children.

¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

and prosper for us the work of our hands—

O prosper the work of our hands!

Psalm 90 is a communal lament. The date may be in the 800's.  A profound depth here speaks to the human heart.  In the maturity of old age, the author looks back and sees the eternal being of God contrasted with the transient nature of present reality.  It appears to be a meditation on the brevity of life occasioned by an unspecified crisis.[1]  The author perceives the transience of life.  This is one of the most sober, if not downright depressing psalms in the Bible. This psalm takes an honest look at the limits of life. Although short of prescriptions of what to do about the brevity of life, perhaps an honest look at finitude is prescription enough. Shakespeare captured the feeling of this Psalm so well.

'this but an hour since it was nine, 

            And after one hour more 'twill be eleven, 

            And so from hour to hour we ripe and ripe, 

            And from hour to hour we rot and rot, 

            And thereby hangs a tale. 

(Shakespeare, As You Like It )

 

The Buddha advised having a little bird upon our shoulder that periodically whispered in our ear, "Is this the day? Is this the last day of your days?"[2]

            The Psalm begins with a confident opening hymn.  ¹ Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. It begins affirming divine constancy. ² Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, using myth to give an image of creation in Genesis 2-3, from everlasting to everlasting you are God (El, well-known from the Ugaritic texts to be the head of the Canaanite pantheon, was naturally taken by the Israelites to be simply an earlier form of the god who appeared to Moses as Yahweh in Exodus 6:3).[3]

            In Psalm 90: 3-6 contain a lament on human mortality. They describe the contrast between the eternal being of the Lord and the transient nature of people. The eternal nature of the spirituality, knowledge, and will of God stands in contrast to everything on earth. The Spirit of God opposes the frailty of all things earthly, for the Spirit is the source of all life is unrestricted life. The existence of God is the constant. God is unchangeably God. Distance in time is of no significance to God.[4] As human beings, ³ You turn us back to dust, the stuff out of which the Lord created human beings in Genesis 2, and say, “Turn back, you mortals.” ⁴ For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. The passage of time, so significant for us, is of no significance to the Lord. Those who reflect upon the human experience of time tend to think of the present as duration. Yet, the reference in this psalm to yesterday refers to the time that is complete before us, while still present and not lost in the past. Time stands before the Lord as a whole.[5] The reference to a thousand years led even in early Jewish exegesis to calculations that combined the divine reckoning of a thousand years a day with seven days of creation, and thus concluded that the world would last for seven thousand years. Today, that seems to be trifling and even frivolous. The thousand years of the psalm are not meant to be a literal span of time or to be a starting point for calculations. Any great span of time is of little matter to the Lord, even the billions of years of which modern science speaks. The imagery of a thousand years being like yesterday shows the difficulty of expressing unlimited duration for temporal creatures who experience an unlimited present that fades while remaining present, while the remote future is already here. ⁵ You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; ⁶ in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. The moment flourishes in the morning but fades in the evening. Such a statement is hardly pessimism. In the presence of the eternity of the Lord, such a meditation is realism. 

We are finite creatures who are born, grown up, grow old, and die. Knowing that we are terminal can make a difference in the way we live each day. Because the time of our lives does not go on forever, we can learn to treasure the time being, to live today in gratitude for the time that God has allotted us. This is the beginning of wisdom. By facing that which our culture urges us to deny, namely our finitude, our God-ordained human limits, we get wise, and we have the possibility of walking through a door into a place called wisdom. The French novelist, Proust, notes the inadequacy of remembrance: "What memory is able to retrieve of the past, is hardly ever the past." Something about us would love to freeze each good moment, to preserve it all, just as it is today, but we cannot.

The psalm is talking about us. Although these thoughts seem depressing, they are also honest and relevant. For beneath the infatuation of this culture with youth, we might find a subtext that frightens us - time and its passage. Life is rushing on. Teach us that our days are numbered. We are finite, terminal. None of this goes on forever. Life is fragile. Get used to it. In fact, the very fragility of life, the transitory nature of the moment, makes moments more precious. 

Wisdom is dearer, a result of honestly looking at a life, particularly its limits, taking stock, and living creatively considering that reality. You learn to savor the moment. The moment might be a cool fall evening, the changing of the leaves, and the onset of winter. The moment might be a beautiful sunrise or sunset at the beach, the calmness of the waves, or the beauty of the palm tree. The moment might be a soaring element in a service of worship when it was as if everything came together and you understood a passage from one of the ancient psalms that, upon hearing, made you different forever. 

In Psalm 90: 13-17, we find a petition for the help and grace of the Lord to restore divine favor and prosperity. Darkness ends and daybreak comes; sorrow is mitigated by joy. ¹³ Turn, (repent or relent, stop bringing punishment and stop being angry) O Lord! The notion of turning connects the petition with the lament in verse 3. The image is of the Lord having turned away from Israel, creating a void in the compassion to which Israel is naturally accustomed when in divine favor. How long? Have compassion on your servants! We find an appeal to the grace and mercy of the Lord, asking the Lord to forgive sins. Rather than suffering a just penalty, the poet asks for the steadfast love that brings gladness. Remembering that we are dust (Psalm 103:13-14), the Lord shows compassion. The language here is like Exodus 32:12, another reason for the superscription to ascribe it to Moses. ¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning, the time of renewal and when the Lord answers prayers, with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. He wants satisfaction to occur in the moments of his life, such as the morning, with meditation upon the constant love of the Lord. A person needs the grace of God as much as food.  Each day should begin by acknowledging the need of that grace.  The concern is for God's grace not the blessings. ¹⁵ Make us glad as many days as you have afflicted us, and as many years as we have seen evil. The year is spent living under God's judgment will be transformed by the grace of God.  God casts down, and God raises up. The point is that poet prays for parity between days of joy and days of affliction. ¹⁶ Let your work be manifest to your servants, and your glorious power to their children. ¹⁷ Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands—O prosper the work of our hands! The only immortality the poet recognizes is the achievements of his generation and those of his children., and thus, they can rejoice and flourish within the favor of the Lord. The reference seems deliberately unclear. The author may refer to the attempt to rebuild the fallen temple in Jerusalem or to restore the holy commonwealth after nearing the end of exile. 

In the present context, prospering the work of our hands refers appropriately to the life of the assembled faithful extended through time, as used in synagogue and church for generations. Such grace and help will give the moments of life their purpose and durability. Thus, the psalm ends with words addressed to God because it is finally up to God to gather all our efforts and moments and make them mean what we ourselves can never make them mean by ourselves. Most of us, most of the time, do not think much about it, and that is just as well. So, since every day is such a valuable commodity, we should be careful how we spend these days.

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[1] Dahood

[2] William Willimon, "The Times of our Lives" (2002).

[3] An alternate reading of the consonants at the end of verse 2 is preserved in the Septuagint: "Do not turn humans back to dust." This reading changes the sense of the psalm significantly. From being a statement of the human condition as decreed by God at the dawn of creation, the half-verse becomes a plea that the original sentence leveled against the first disobedient parents (Genesis 3:19) be averted in the case of Israel. This reading comports well with the psalm's concluding verses, but introducing this sentiment at this point in the psalm may be premature. The intimate and inextricable connection between human beings and the dust from which they/we are taken is a conscious echo of the creation of human beings in Genesis 2-3, including their punishment in Genesis 3:19.

[4] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 374. 

[5] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 1, 401.