Psalms 90:7 - Meaning and Application

Moses had already described the weakness of human life in general. He said that people are like sleep and like grass. Here, though, he teaches Israel to confess before God the righteous sentence of death that rested on them in a special way, because of their sins. Their share in the common fate of all people was not all they had to bear. They also lived and died under clear signs of God’s displeasure.

They speak for themselves: “We Israelites are consumed and troubled, and our days have passed away.” They are taught to admit that God’s anger was the cause of all their troubles: “We are consumed and troubled by your anger” (Psalm 90:7), and “our days have passed away in your wrath” (Psalm 90:9). The sufferings of God’s people often come from his love, as with Job. But the punishments of sinners, and of good people when God corrects them for sin, must be seen as coming from God’s anger. He notices the sins of Israel and is deeply displeased with them.

We are too ready to think of death as only a debt owed to nature. But it is not that simple. If human nature had stayed pure and right, there would have been no such debt. Death is a debt to God’s justice and to his law. Sin came into the world, and death came through sin. If we are worn down by aging, weakness, or a long illness, we must trace that back to God’s anger. If we are struck suddenly or in a way that shocks us, that too is the fruit of God’s wrath, which is shown from heaven against the sin and wrong of people.

They are also taught to confess the sins that stirred up God’s anger against them: “You have set our iniquities before you, even our secret sins” (Psalm 90:8). God was not angry without cause. He had warned them, “Do not provoke me, and I will do you no harm.” But they had provoked him, and they must own that he was right to give this severe sentence. He punished them justly for their open contempt and bold insults against him. This included their unbelief, their complaining, their distrust of his power, and their despising of the pleasant land. These sins stood before him when he gave judgment, and they kindled his wrath and kept good things from them.

He also punished them for their more hidden sins. “You have set our secret sins in the light of your countenance,” means that God uncovered them, brought them into account, and made them see what they had ignored. Secret sins are known to God and will be judged. Those who turn back toward Egypt in their hearts, or set up idols there, will be treated as rebels or idolaters. This shows the folly of trying to hide sin, because it cannot be hidden from God.

They are taught to see themselves as dying and passing away, not as people with a long and happy life ahead of them. The sentence against them could not be reversed: “All our days are likely to pass away in your wrath” (Psalm 90:9). Even if they were not cut off at once, they would spend the rest of their years like a story that is told. The thirty-eight years they later spent in the wilderness were not even recorded in much detail. Very little is written about what happened from the second year after leaving Egypt until the fortieth. Their time after Egypt was mostly wasted, and hardly worth calling a history. It was only time passing, like someone telling stories. While they were being worn down, another generation was growing up.

When they came out of Egypt, there was not one weak person among their tribes (Psalm 105:37). Now they were weak. Their bright hope of a prosperous and glorious life in Canaan had become the sad prospect of a long and shameful death in the wilderness. Their whole life now seemed as little worth speaking of as a winter tale. This fits the life of each of us in the wilderness of this world. We spend our years, bring them to an end, and at last all of them are gone like a story that is told. Some have said it is like winter breath that quickly disappears, or like a thought, which is gone almost as soon as it comes, or like a word that is spoken and then vanishes. The idea is the same: our time passes quickly and cannot be called back.

The wasting of our time, which is our fault and our foolishness, should grieve us. We ought to spend our years with care, diligence, and purpose, as if we were carrying out important work. Instead, we often spend them carelessly, idly, and to little good use, like someone just telling a tale. Every year goes by like a story once told. And what was the length of those years? They were not only vain, but few, “seventy or eighty” at most (Psalm 90:10). This may be understood in two ways.

It may refer to the lives of the Israelites in the wilderness. All those numbered when they came out of Egypt, who were over twenty years old, were to die within thirty-eight years. The census counted those able to go to war, most of whom were likely between twenty and forty. So they would all have died before eighty, many before sixty, and some much earlier. That was far shorter than the lives of their fathers. Even those who lived to seventy or eighty did so under a sentence of wasting away, with no hope of entering the promised land. Their strength and life were filled with labor and sorrow, which would otherwise have been turned into joy by Canaan. See what sin did.

Or these words may describe the lives of people in general since Moses’ time. Before Moses, it was common for people to live around one hundred years, or even close to one hundred fifty. Since then, seventy or eighty has become the usual limit, and few go beyond it while many do not even reach it. We count a person as having lived a full human life if he reaches seventy, and how short that is compared with eternity! Moses was the first to write down divine revelation, which had previously been passed on by spoken tradition. By then, the world and the church were also more fully populated, so there was no longer the same reason for people to live as long as they once had.

If some people, because they are naturally strong, live to eighty years, their strength at that age gives them little real joy. It only stretches out their misery and makes death seem longer and harder to face. Even their strength then brings work and sorrow, and their weakness adds even more. This is true because “the years have come which they have no pleasure in.”

This may also be understood another way: our years are seventy, and some, because of their strength, reach eighty. But the full span of our life, from infancy to old age, is still full of trouble and sorrow. Life is hard work from beginning to end. In the sweat of our face we must eat bread, and the whole life is tiring and painful. Then, even if we count on many years, life may be cut short in the middle, and we fly away before our time.

All this is meant to teach us to fear the wrath of God (Psalm 90:11). “Who knows the power of your anger?” No one can fully understand it. The psalmist speaks like someone who is afraid of God’s anger and amazed at how great its power is. Who can truly know how far God’s anger can reach, or how deeply it can wound? The angels who sinned learned it by experience, and lost sinners in hell know it fully. But who among us can completely grasp it or describe it?

Few people think seriously about it as they should. Who really knows it well enough to let that knowledge shape their life? Those who mock sin and treat Christ lightly surely do not know the power of God’s anger. “According to your fear, so is your wrath” means that God’s wrath is as great as the most serious and thoughtful people imagine it to be. Even when people fear it greatly, they are not fearing more than they have reason to fear. God has not described his wrath in Scripture as worse than it really is. In fact, what will be felt in the next world is far worse than what is feared in this world. Who among us can live with that devouring fire?