Psa 90:7-12 | Clarke | e4.org | Verse 7. We are consumed by thine anger ] Death had not entered into the world, if men had not fallen from God. By thy wrath are we troubled ] Pain, disease, and sickness are so many proofs of our defection from original rectitude. The anger and wrath of God are moved against all sinners . Even in protracted life we consume away , and only seem to live in order to die. "Our wasting lives grow shorter still, As days and months increase; And every beating pulse we tell Leaves but the number less."

‏ Psalms 90:7-12

Verse 7. We are consumed by thine anger] Death had not entered into the world, if men had not fallen from God.

By thy wrath are we troubled] Pain, disease, and sickness are so many proofs of our defection from original rectitude. The anger and wrath of God are moved against all sinners. Even in protracted life we consume away, and only seem to live in order to die.

"Our wasting lives grow shorter still,

As days and months increase;

And every beating pulse we tell

Leaves but the number less."

Verse 8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee] Every one of our transgressions is set before thee; noted and minuted down in thy awful register!

Our secret sins] Those committed in darkness and privacy are easily discovered by thee, being shown by the splendours of thy face shining upon them. Thus we light a candle, and bring it into a dark place to discover its contents. O, what can be hidden from the all-seeing eye of God? Darkness is no darkness to him; wherever he comes there is a profusion of light-for God is light!

Verse 9. We spend our years as a tale] The Vulgate has: Anni nostri sicut aranea meditabuntur; "Our years pass away like those of the spider." Our plans and operations are like the spider's web; life is as frail, and the thread of it as brittle, as one of those that constitute the well-wrought and curious, but fragile, habitation of that insect. All the Versions have the word spider; but it neither appears in the Hebrew, nor in any of its MSS. which have been collated.

My old Psalter has a curious paraphrase here: "Als the iran (spider) makes vayne webe for to take flese (flies) with gile, swa our yeres ere ockupide in ydel and swikel castes about erthly thynges; and passes with outen frute of gude werks, and waste in ydel thynkyns." This is too true a picture of most lives.

But the Hebrew is different from all the Versions. "We consume our years ( kemo hegeh) like a groan." We live a dying, whining, complaining life, and at last a groan is its termination! How amazingly expressive!

Verse 10. Threescore years and ten] See the note on the title of this Psalm. See Clarke on Ps 90:1. This Psalm could not have been written by Moses, because the term of human life was much more extended when he flourished than eighty years at the most. Even in David's time many lived one hundred years, and the author of Ecclesiasticus, who lived after the captivity, fixed this term at one hundred years at the most (Eccles 18:9;) but this was merely a general average, for even in our country we have many who exceed a hundred years.

Yet is their strength labour and sorrow] This refers to the infirmities of old age, which, to those well advanced in life, produce labour and sorrow.

It is soon cut of] It-the body, is soon cut off.

And we fly away.] The immortal spirit wings its way into the eternal world.

Verse 11. Who knoweth the power of thine anger?] The afflictions of this life are not to be compared to the miseries which await them who live and die without being reconciled to God, and saved from their sins.

Verse 12. So teach us to number our days] Let us deeply consider our own frailty, and the shortness and uncertainty of life, that we may live for eternity, acquaint ourselves with thee, and be at peace; that we may die in thy favour and live and reign with thee eternally.