Book FourGod’s Eternity and Man’s Transitoriness.A Prayer of Moses the man of God.Lord, You have been our dwelling place [our refuge, our sanctuary, our stability] in all generations. Before the mountains were bornOr before You had given birth to the earth and the world,Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are [the eternal] God. You turn man back to dust,And say, “Return [to the earth], O children of [mortal] men!” For a thousand years in Your sightAre like yesterday when it is past,Or as a watch in the night. You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep [forgotten as soon as they are gone];In the morning they are like grass which grows anew— In the morning it flourishes and springs up;In the evening it wilts and withers away. For we have been consumed by Your angerAnd by Your wrath we have been terrified. You have placed our wickedness before you,Our secret sins [which we tried to conceal, You have placed] in the [revealing] light of Your presence. For all our days pass away in Your wrath;We have finished our years like a whispered sigh. The days of our life are seventy years—Or even, if because of strength, eighty years;Yet their pride [in additional years] is only labor and sorrow,For it is soon gone and we fly away. Who understands the power of Your anger? [Who connects this brevity of life among us with Your judgment of sin?]And Your wrath, [who connects it] with the [reverent] fear that is due You? So teach us to number our days,That we may cultivate and bring to You a heart of wisdom. Turn, O Lord [from Your fierce anger]; how long will it be?Be compassionate toward Your servants—revoke Your sentence. O satisfy us with Your lovingkindness in the morning [now, before we grow older],That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad in proportion to the days You have afflicted us,And the years we have suffered evil. Let Your work [the signs of Your power] be revealed to Your servantsAnd Your [glorious] majesty to their children. And let the [gracious] favor of the Lord our God be on us;Confirm for us the work of our hands—Yes, confirm the work of our hands.

Psalm 90

In his play, “Our Town,” Thornton Wilder tells of a letter received in the village of Grover’s Corner, New Hampshire, by a little girl named Jane Croft from her minister. He addressed the envelope: “Jane Croft, Sutton County, New Hampshire, United States of America, Continent of North America, Western Hemisphere, the earth, the solar system, the universe, the mind of God.

Jane discovered she had a larger address than she had ever imagined.

Psalm 90 is a reminder that we also have a larger address, that moments of disillusionment, frustration, despair, and defeat are not the last word. So often at gravesides the words of this psalm have been read alongside the triumphant hope given in 1 Corinthians 15.

The four divisions of the psalm compare God’s eternity(verses 1,2) to our mortality (verses 3-6), and set in contrast our recognition of God’s wrath(verses 7-12) with our plea for grace(verses 13-17).

George Wood

Psalm 90 reveals a view far beyond the most powerful telescope, for it sees what lies beyond time and space: the everlasting God, the same Lord to whom we belong.

We can take note that in verse 1, the psalmist carefully chooses the pronoun “our.” Had he said “my” we would have been excluded. Had he said “they” he would have excluded himself. Those who can say, “Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations,” identify themselves as members of the household of faith. They are in the same company as Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Jacob, Deborah and Ruth, Moses and David, Peter and Paul, Mary and Martha.

The very same One in whom they lived and moved is also the very same One in whom we too abide. We can know that since He sustained them, He will also sustain us. There is no retirement plan for Him for He is from everlasting to everlasting and He can be counted upon to do now what He has done in the past.

When we’re teenagers life seems to go on forever but time moves us on and before we can blink our eyes we find ourselves aging. Psalm 90 forces us to face a stark reality: if Jesus doesn’t return soon, casket and grave are waiting.

This psalm is attributed to Moses and in it he turns from his contemplation of God’s eternity to his own mortality. He uses four words: “dust,” “day,” “watch,” and “dew” that compress his key thoughts.

We, because of the Fall, are turned back to dust by God(Genesis 3:19). We, as complex lifeforms, have a hard time accepting that one day our bodies will again be mere specks of inanimate matter. We have been described as liquified dirt.

Psalm 90 says our lives are so short that a thousand human years are but a day with God. George Wood calculates this as: 70 of our years equal 9.5 seconds on God’s clock. But the psalmist makes it worse for he says on further reflection we are less than a day- only a “watch”-a four-hour span in the evening which equals 1.5 seconds on God’s clock. Finally we are compared to grass that is fresh in the morning but withered by the evening.

The average humans reaction to mortality is horror. The judicial sentence of death has been imposed upon us because of our sins(verses 7-12). God has the tapes, the videos, and the transcripts of our lives. He has noted every deceptive intention, acts and words and we have no place to hide,

Psalm 90 only gives a partial solution that addresses our dilemma with the certainty of death. It suggests that we number our days so that we may live well, gain a heart of wisdom, and live rightly each day, one day at a time. However, there’s little consolation when we consider that our last words probably won’t be articulate or witty but a “moan”(verse 9).

Beginning with verse 13, Psalm 90 moves from despair to hope. It says that if death awaits then the least we can do is to ask God for a joyful(verses 14-16) and a meaningful(verse 17) life. As Christians, however, we anticipate much more than just the good of this life.

We believe and know that “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”(2 Corinthians 5:8), that Christ will bring with Him all those who have fallen asleep and they will be raised first and then those who remain will be caught up to meet them in the air(1 Thessalonians 4: 13-18). Beyond this life, we look forward to having immortal and imperishable bodies(1 Corinthians 15: 35-58) given by the One who said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.”(John 11:25-26)

In the letter to Jane Croft, the last address listed was “the mind of God.” It would be more biblical to place Christ’s name last since “all things were made by him”(John 1:3) and “in him all things hold together”(Colossians 1:17). If we were to put our name in the place of Jane Croft, would the last line on our greater address read “in Christ?” Do we truly live and move and have our being in Him?(Acts 17:28)

One day all the other lines on our address will be gone. Our residence will no longer be a street, town, state, nation, or even a planet. It will just be us- in Christ Jesus- no forwarding necessary for He is our greater and final address.

Dr. John Thompson