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P S A L M S
PSALM XC.
The foregoing psalm is supposed to have been penned as late as the
captivity in Babylon; this, it is plain, was penned as early as the
deliverance out of Egypt, and yet they are put close together in this
collection of divine songs. This psalm was penned by Moses (as appears
by the title), the most ancient penman of sacred writ. We have upon
record a praising song of his
which is alluded to
and an instructing song of his,
But this is of a different nature from both, for it is called a prayer.
It is supposed that this psalm was penned upon occasion of the sentence
passed upon Israel in the wilderness for their unbelief, murmuring, and
rebellion, that their carcases should fall in the wilderness, that they
should be wasted away by a series of miseries for thirty-eight years
together, and that none of them that were then of age should enter
Canaan. This was calculated for their wanderings in the wilderness, as
that other song of Moses
was for their settlement in Canaan. We have the story to which this
psalm seems to refer,
Probably Moses penned this prayer to be daily used, either by the
people in their tents, or, at lest, by the priests in the
tabernacle-service, during their tedious fatigue in the wilderness. In
it,
I. Moses comforts himself and his people with the eternity of God and
their interest in him,
II. He humbles himself and his people with the consideration of the
frailty of man,
III. He submits himself and his people to the righteous sentence of God
passed upon them,
IV. He commits himself and his people to God by prayer for divine mercy
and grace, and the return of God’s favour,
Though it seems to have been penned upon this particular occasion, yet
it is very applicable to the frailty of human life in general, and, in
singing it, we may easily apply it to the years of our passage through
the wilderness of this world, and it furnishes us with meditations and
prayers very suitable to the solemnity of a funeral.
| God’s Care of His People; Frailty of Human Life. | |
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A Prayer of Moses the man of God.
1 Lord, thou hast been
our dwelling place in all generations.
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.
3 Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye
children of men.
4 For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when
it is past, and as a watch in the night.
5 Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a
sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
6 In the morning it flourisheth, and groweth up; in the evening
it is cut down, and withereth.
This psalm is entitled a prayer of Moses. Where, and in what
volume, it was preserved from Moses’s time till the collection of
psalms was begun to be made, is uncertain; but, being divinely
inspired, it was under a special protection: perhaps it was written in
the book of Jasher, or the book of the wars of the Lord. Moses taught
the people of Israel to pray, and put words into their mouths which
they might make use of in turning to the Lord. Moses is here called
the man of God, because he was a prophet, the father of
prophets, and an eminent type of the great prophet. In these verses we
are taught,
I. To give God the praise of his care concerning his people at all
times, and concerning us in our days
(v. 1):
Lord, thou hast been to us a habitation, or dwelling-place, a
refuge or help, in all generations. Now that they had fallen
under God’s displeasure, and he threatened to abandon them, they plead
his former kindnesses to their ancestors. Canaan was a land of
pilgrimage to their fathers the patriarchs, who dwelt there in
tabernacles; but then God was their habitation, and, wherever they
went, they were at home, at rest, in him. Egypt had been a land of
bondage to them for many years, but even then God was their refuge; and
in him that poor oppressed people lived and were kept in being. Note,
True believers are at home in God, and that is their comfort in
reference to all the toils and tribulations they meet with in this
world. In him we may repose and shelter ourselves as in our
dwelling-place.
II. To give God the glory of his eternity
(v. 2):
Before the mountains were brought forth, before he made the highest
part of the dust of the world (as it is expressed,
before the earth fell in travail, or, as we may read it,
before thou hadst formed the earth and the world (that is,
before the beginning of time) thou hadst a being; even from
everlasting to everlasting thou art God, an eternal God, whose
existence has neither its commencement nor its period with time, nor is
measured by the successions and revolutions of it, but who art the
same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, without beginning of days, or
end of life, or change of time. Note, Against all the grievances that
arise from our own mortality, and the mortality of our friends, we may
take comfort from God’s immortality. We are dying creatures, and all
our comforts in the world are dying comforts, but God is an everliving
God, and those shall find him so who have him for theirs.
III. To own God’s absolute sovereign dominion over man, and his
irresistible incontestable power to dispose of him as he pleases
(v. 3):
Thou turnest man to destruction, with a word’s speaking, when
thou pleasest, to the destruction of the body, of the earthly house;
and thou sayest, Return, you children of men.
1. When God is, by sickness or other afflictions, turning men to
destruction, he does thereby call men to return unto him, that is, to
repent of their sins and live a new life. This God speaketh once,
yea, twice. “Return unto me, from whom you have revolted,”
2. When God is threatening to turn men to destruction, to bring
them to death, and they have received a sentence of death within
themselves, sometimes he wonderfully restores them, and says, as the
old translation reads it, Again thou sayest, Return to life and
health again. For God kills and makes alive again, brings down to the
grave and brings up.
3. When God turns men to destruction, it is according to the general
sentence passed upon all, which is this, “Return, you children of
men, one, as well as another, return to your first principles; let
the body return to the earth as it was (dust to dust,
Gen. iii. 19)
and let the soul return to God who gave it,”
4. Though God turns all men to destruction, yet he will again say,
Return, you children of men, at the general resurrection, when,
though a man dies, yet he shall live again; and “then shalt thou
call and I will answer
thou shalt bid me return, and I shall return.” The body, the soul,
shall both return and unite again.
IV. To acknowledge the infinite disproportion there is between God and
men,
v. 4.
Some of the patriarchs lived nearly a thousand years; Moses knew this
very well, and had recorded it: but what is their long life to God’s
eternal life? “A thousand years, to us, are a long period, which we
cannot expect to survive; or, if we could, it is what we could not
retain the remembrance of; but it is, in thy sight, as
yesterday, as one day, as that which is freshest in mind; nay, it
is but as a watch of the night,” which was but three hours.
1. A thousand years are nothing to God’s eternity; they are less than a
day, than an hour, to a thousand years. Betwixt a minute and a million
of years there is some proportion, but betwixt time and eternity there
is none. The long lives of the patriarchs were nothing to God, not so
much as the life of a child (that is born and dies the same day) is to
theirs.
2. All the events of a thousand years, whether past or to come, are as
present to the Eternal Mind as what was done yesterday, or the last
hour, is to us, and more so. God will say, at the great day, to those
whom he has turned to destruction, Return–Arise you dead. But
it might be objected against the doctrine of the resurrection that it
is a long time since it was expected and it has not yet come. Let that
be no difficulty, for a thousand years, in God’s sight, are but as one
day. Nullum tempus occurrit regi–To the king all periods are
alike. To this purport these words are quoted,
V. To see the frailty of man, and his vanity even at his best estate
(v. 5, 6):
look upon all the children of men, and we shall see,
1. That their life is a dying life: Thou carriest them away as with
a flood, that is, they are continually gliding down the stream of
time into the ocean of eternity. The flood is continually flowing, and
they are carried away with it; as soon as we are born we begin to die,
and every day of our life carries us so much nearer death; or we are
carried away violently and irresistibly, as with a flood of waters, as
with an inundation, which sweeps away all before it; or as the old
world was carried away with Noah’s flood. Though God promised not so to
drown the world again, yet death is a constant deluge.
2. That it is a dreaming life. Men are carried away as with a flood and
yet they are as a sleep; they consider not their own frailty,
nor are aware how near they approach to an awful eternity. Like men
asleep, they imagine great things to themselves, till death wakes them,
and puts an end to the pleasing dream. Time passes unobserved by us, as
it does with men asleep; and, when it is over, it is as nothing.
3. That it is a short and transient life, like that of the grass which
grows up and flourishes, in the morning looks green and pleasant, but
in the evening the mower cuts it down, and it immediately withers,
changes its colour, and loses all its beauty. Death will change us
shortly, perhaps suddenly; and it is a great change that death will
make with us in a little time. Man, in his prime, does but flourish as
the grass, which is weak, and low, and tender, and exposed, and which,
when the winter of old age comes, will wither of itself: but he may be
mown down by disease or disaster, as the grass is, in the midst of
summer. All flesh is as grass.
| Penitent Submission. | |
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7 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we
troubled.
8 Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins
in the light of thy countenance.
9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our
years as a tale that is told.
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.
11 Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy
fear, so is thy wrath.
Moses had, in the
lamented the frailty of human life in general; the children of men
are as a sleep and as the grass. But here he teaches the people
of Israel to confess before God that righteous sentence of death which
they were under in a special manner, and which by their sins they had
brought upon themselves. Their share in the common lot of mortality was
not enough, but they are, and must live and die, under peculiar tokens
of God’s displeasure. Here they speak of themselves: We
Israelites are consumed and troubled, and our days have
passed away.
I. They are here taught to acknowledge the wrath of God to be the cause
of all their miseries. We are consumed, we are troubled, and it
is by thy anger, by thy wrath
(v. 7);
our days have passed away in thy wrath,
v. 9.
The afflictions of the saints often come purely from God’s love, as
Job’s; but the rebukes of sinners, and of good men for their sins, must
be seen coming from the anger of God, who takes notice of, and is much
displeased with, the sins of Israel. We are too apt to look upon death
as no more than a debt owing to nature; whereas it is not so; if the
nature of man had continued in its primitive purity and rectitude,
there would have been no such debt owing to it. It is a debt to the
justice of God, a debt to the law. Sin entered into the world, and
death by sin. Are we consumed by decays of nature, the infirmities
of age, or any chronic disease? We must ascribe it to God’s anger. Are
we troubled by any sudden or surprising stroke? That also is the fruit
of God’s wrath, which is thus revealed from heaven against the
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
II. They are taught to confess their sins, which had provoked the wrath
of God against them
(v. 8):
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, even our secret sins.
It was not without cause that God was angry with them. He had said,
Provoke me not, and I will do you no hurt; but they had provoked
him, and will own that, in passing this severe sentence upon them, he
justly punished them,
1. For their open contempts of him and the daring affronts they had
given him: Thou hast set our iniquities before thee. God had
herein an eye to their unbelief and murmuring, their distrusting his
power and their despising the pleasant land: these he set before them
when he passed that sentence on them; these kindled the fire of God’s
wrath against them and kept good things from them.
2. For their more secret departures from him: “Thou hast set our
secret sins (those which go no further than the heart, and which
are at the bottom of all the overt acts) in the light of thy
countenance; that is, thou hast discovered these, and brought these
also to the account, and made us to see them, who before overlooked
them.” Secret sins are known to God and shall be reckoned for. Those
who in heart return into Egypt, who set up idols in their heart, shall
be dealt with as revolters or idolaters. See the folly of those who go
about to cover their sins, for they cannot cover them.
III. They are taught to look upon themselves as dying and passing away,
and not to think either of a long life or of a pleasant one; for the
decree gone forth against them was irreversible
(v. 9):
All our days are likely to be passed away in thy wrath,
under the tokens of thy displeasure; and, though we are not quite
deprived of the residue of our years, yet we are likely to spend
them as a tale that is told. The thirty-eight years which, after
this, they wore 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 raising. When they came
out of Egypt there was not one feeble person among their tribes
(Ps. cv. 37);
but now they were feeble. Their joyful prospect of a prosperous
glorious life in Canaan was turned into the melancholy prospect of a
tedious inglorious death in the wilderness; so that their whole life
was now as impertinent a thing as ever any winter-tale was. That is
applicable to the state of every one of us in the wilderness of this
world: We spend our years, we bring them to an end, each year,
and all at last, as a tale that is told–as the breath of our mouth
in winter (so some), which soon disappears–as a thought (so
some), than which nothing more quick–as a word, which is soon
spoken, and then vanishes into air–or as a tale that is told.
The spending of our years is like the telling of a tale. A year, when
it past, is like a tale when it is told. Some of our years are 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. Our years, when they are gone, can no more be recalled than the
word that we have spoken can. The loss and waste of our time, which are
our fault and folly, may be thus complained of: we should spend our
years like the despatch of business, with care and industry; but, alas!
we do spend them like the telling of a tale, idle, and to little
purpose, carelessly, and without regard. Every year passed as a tale
that is told; but what was the number of them? As they were vain,
so they were few
(v. 10),
seventy or eighty at most, which may be understood either,
1. Of the lives of the Israelites in the wilderness; all those that
were numbered when they came out of Egypt, above twenty years old, were
to die within thirty-eight years; they numbered those only that were
able to go forth to war, most of whom, we may suppose, were between
twenty and forty, who therefore must have all died before eighty years
old, and many before sixty, and perhaps much sooner, which was far
short of the years of the lives of their fathers. And those that lived
to seventy or eighty, yet, being under a sentence of consumption and a
melancholy despair of ever seeing through this wilderness-state, their
strength, their life, was nothing but labour and sorrow, which
otherwise would have been made a new life by the joys of Canaan. See
what work sin made. Or,
2. Of the lives of men in general, ever since the days of Moses. Before
the time of Moses it was usual for men to live about 100 years, or
nearly 150; but, since, seventy or eighty is the common stint, which
few exceed and multitudes never come near. We reckon those to have
lived to the age of man, and to have had as large a share of life as
they had reason to expect, who live to be seventy years old; and how
short a time is that compared with eternity! Moses was the first that
committed divine revelation to writing, which, before, had been
transmitted by tradition; now also both the world and the church were
pretty well peopled, and therefore there were not now the same reasons
for men’s living long that there had been. If, by reason of a strong
constitution, some reach to eighty years, yet their strength then is
what they have little joy of; it does but serve to prolong their
misery, and make their death the more tedious; for even their
strength then is labour and sorrow, much more their weakness; for
the years have come which they have no pleasure in. Or it may be taken
thus: Our years are seventy, and the years of some, by reason of
strength, are eighty; but the breadth of our years (for so the
latter word signifies, rather than strength), the whole extent of
them, from infancy to old age, is but labour and sorrow. In the
sweat of our face we must eat bread; our whole life is toilsome and
troublesome; and perhaps, in the midst of the years we count upon,
it is soon cut off, and we fly away, and do not live out half
our days.
IV. They are taught by all this to stand in awe of the wrath of God
(v. 11):
Who knows the power of thy anger?
1. None can perfectly comprehend it. The psalmist speaks as one afraid
of God’s anger, and amazed at the greatness of the power of it; who
knows how far the power of God’s anger can reach and how deeply it can
wound? The angels that sinned knew experimentally the power of God’s
anger; damned sinners in hell know it; but which of us can fully
comprehend or describe it?
2. Few do seriously consider it as they ought. Who knows it, so
as to improve the knowledge of it? Those who make a mock at sin, and
make light of Christ, surely do not know the power of God’s anger. For,
according to thy fear, so is thy wrath; God’s wrath is equal to
the apprehensions which the most thoughtful serious people have of it;
let men have ever so great a dread upon them of the wrath of God, it is
not greater than there is cause for and than the nature of the thing
deserves. God has not in his word represented his wrath as more
terrible than really it is; nay, what is felt in the other world is
infinitely worse than what is feared in this world. Who among us
can dwell with that devouring fire?
| Prayers for Mercy. | |
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12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our
hearts unto wisdom.
13 Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning
thy servants.
14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and
be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast
afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.
16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto
their children.
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.
These are the petitions of this prayer, grounded upon the foregoing
meditations and acknowledgments. Is any afflicted? Let him learn
thus to pray. Four things they are here directed to pray
for:–
I. For a sanctified use of the sad dispensation they were now under.
Being condemned to have our days shortened, “Lord, teach us to
number our days
(v. 12);
Lord, give us grace duly to consider how few they are, and how little a
while we have to live in this world.” Note,
1. It is an excellent art rightly to number our days, so as not
to be out in our calculation, as he was who counted upon many years to
come when, that night, his soul was required of him. We must live under
a constant apprehension of the shortness and uncertainty of life and
the near approach of death and eternity. We must so number our days as
to compare our work with them, and mind it accordingly with a double
diligence, as those that have no time to trifle.
2. Those that would learn this arithmetic must pray for divine
instruction, must go to God, and beg of him to teach them by his
Spirit, to put them upon considering and to give them a good
understanding.
3. We then number our days to good purpose when thereby our hearts are
inclined and engaged to true wisdom, that is, to the practice of
serious godliness. To be religious is to be wise; this is a thing to
which it is necessary that we apply our hearts, and the matter requires
and deserves a close application, to which frequent thoughts of the
uncertainty of our continuance here, and the certainty of our removal
hence, will very much contribute.
II. For the turning away of God’s anger from them, that though the
decree had gone forth, and was past revocation, there was no remedy,
but they must die in the wilderness: “Yet return, O Lord! be
thou reconciled to us, and let it repent thee concerning thy
servants
(v. 13);
send us tidings of peace to comfort us again after these heavy tidings.
How long must we look upon ourselves as under thy wrath, and when shall
we have some token given us of our restoration to thy favour? We are
thy servants, thy people
(Isa. lxiv. 9);
when wilt thou change thy way toward us?” In answer to this prayer, and
upon their profession of repentance
God, in the next chapter, proceeding with the laws concerning
sacrifices
&c.), which was a token that it repented him concerning his servants;
for, if the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would not have
shown them such things as these.
III. For comfort and joy in the returns of God’s favour to them,
They pray for the mercy of God; for they pretend not to plead any merit
of their own. Have mercy upon us, O God! is a prayer we are all
concerned to say Amen to. Let us pray for early mercy, the
seasonable communications of divine mercy, that God’s tender mercies
may speedily prevent us, early in the morning of our days, when we
are young and flourishing,
v. 6.
Let us pray for the true satisfaction and happiness which are to be had
only in the favour and mercy of God,
A gracious soul, if it may but be satisfied of God’s lovingkindness,
will be satisfied with it, abundantly satisfied, will take up with
that, and will take up with nothing short of it. Two things are pleaded
to enforce this petition for God’s mercy:–
1. That it would be a full fountain of future joys: “O satisfy us
with thy mercy, not only that we may be easy and at rest within
ourselves, which we can never be while we lie under thy wrath, but that
we may rejoice and be glad, not only for a time, upon the first
indications of thy favour, but all our days, though we are to
spend them in the wilderness.” With respect to those that make God
their chief joy, as their joy may be full
(1 John i. 4),
so it may be constant, even in this vale of tears; it is their own
fault if they are not glad all their days, for his mercy will furnish
them with joy in tribulation and nothing can separate them from it.
2. That it would be a sufficient balance to their former griefs:
“Make us glad according to the days wherein thou has afflicted
us; let the days of our joy in thy favour be as many as the days of
our pain for thy displeasure have been and as pleasant as those have
been gloomy. Lord, thou usest to set the one over-against the
other
do so in our case. Let it suffice that we have drunk so long of the cup
of trembling; now put into our hands the cup of salvation.” God’s
people reckon the returns of God’s lovingkindness a sufficient
recompence for all their troubles.
IV. For the progress of the work of God among them notwithstanding,
1. That he would manifest himself in carrying it on: “Let thy work
appear upon thy servants; let it appear that thou hast wrought upon
us, to bring us home to thyself and to fit us for thyself.” God’s
servants cannot work for him unless he work upon them, and work in them
both to will and to do; and then we may hope the operations of God’s
providence will be apparent for us when the operations of his grace are
apparent upon us. “Let thy work appear, and in it thy glory will appear
to us and those that shall come after us.” In praying for God’s grace
God’s glory must be our end; and we must therein have an eye to our
children as well as to ourselves, that they also may experience God’s
glory appearing upon them, so as to change them into the same image,
from glory to glory. Perhaps, in this prayer, they distinguish between
themselves and their children, for so God distinguished in his late
message to them
Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness, but your little ones I
will bring into Canaan): “Lord,” say they, “let thy work appear
upon us, to reform us, and bring us to a better temper, and then
let thy glory appear to our children, in performing the promise
to them which we have forfeited the benefit of.”
2. That he would countenance and strengthen them in carrying it on, in
doing their part towards it.
(1.) That he would smile upon them in it: Let the beauty of the Lord
our God be upon us; let it appear that God favours us. Let us have
God’s ordinances kept up among us and the tokens of God’s presence with
his ordinances; so some. We may apply this petition both to our
sanctification and to our consolation. Holiness is the beauty of
the Lord our God; let that be upon us in all we say and do; let the
grace of God in us, and the light of our good works, make our faces to
shine (that is the comeliness God puts upon us, and those are comely
indeed who are so beautified), and then let divine consolations put
gladness into our hearts, and a lustre upon our countenances, and that
also will be the beauty of the Lord upon us, as our God.
(2.) That he would prosper them in it: Establish thou the work of
our hands upon us. God’s working upon us
(v. 16)
does not discharge us from using our utmost endeavours in serving him
and working out our salvation. But, when we have done all, we must
wait upon God for the success, and beg of him to prosper our handy
works, to give us to compass what we aim at for his glory. We are
so unworthy of divine assistance, and yet so utterly insufficient to
bring any thing to pass without it, that we have need to be earnest for
it and to repeat the request: Yea, the work of our hands, establish
thou it, and, in order to that, establish us in it.
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