Psalm 90

Psalm Category: Song of Lament

Central Thought: Ponder your short life, that the Lord might give you a wise heart.

I’m counting the days,” we say when we look forward to some great event in our near future—maybe a wedding or the birth of a child. But saying “my days are numbered” is a horse of a different color. Now we are talking about ends, not beginnings.

Such talk makes most people uncomfortable. They tend to laugh it off and change the subject. The psalmist—Moses in his old age—brings both beginnings and ends together when he says, “So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Ps. 90:12).

The psalm as a whole is about the shortness of our life and the wisdom of making our days count for both time and eternity. Solomon counsels us, “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). One day in April 1973, my father left home for his work as usual, but before the day was done he had died of a heart attack. He was only 56.

Today is one day nearer eternity for all of us. Should this not affect how you live each day? The psalmist poses three leading questions to open up this theme.

Where do you need to be in this short life of yours? (vv. 1-6). Putting it another way: Where do you want to be in an earthquake? Answer—on solid ground! Moses therefore begins with the solid ground for short-lived humans!

1. “O Lord, You…” (vv. 1-2). The Lord is where you need to be. He is “our dwelling place”—the Hebrew maon is a solid house, not a tent. He is faithful “in all generations”—the eternal God, whose grace precedes creation and is from everlasting to everlasting. He is the ground and guarantor of living faith. There is none greater and no other God. He must be our dwelling place. In gospel fullness, this is where those who know Jesus Christ are, for He has “raised us up together, and made us to sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus” (Eph. 2:6; see 1:3). God is the true home of believers in Christ!

2. Why must the Lord be our dwelling place? (vv. 3-6). The simple answer is, “You turn man to destruction.” This is the universal consequence of Adam’s sin. We return to dust according to God’s decree (Gen. 3:19; Heb. 9:27). It is God’s grace that He calls us to “return” to Him (v. 3b) and asks us to think about the realities of our short life in relation to eternity (vv. 4-6). “All flesh is like grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass” (1 Pet.1:24).

Why must life be so short anyway? (vv 7-12). Moses doesn’t mince words.

1. God knows the truth about us and is not pleased (vv. 7-8). Do you have iniquities and secret sins? You can fool others, but God knows you inside out. Which of us has a leg to stand on (Ps. 130:3)?

2. Look at how so many lives are lived (vv. 9-10). What does our waywardness get us? The key words are “wrath…sigh…labor and sorrow.” Even if you live a full lifespan—70 or 80 years—“it is soon cast off, and we fly away” (v. 10d).

3. How will you avoid offending the Holy God (vv. 11-12)? First realize that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord (Prov. 1:7). The more you reverence God, the more you will grasp why He is angry with sinners (v. 11). Then you will know why numbering your days is so important (v. 12). Meditate on your days and your ways. Think and pray, and bring everything to the Lord, for “of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God” (1 Cor. 1:30). Counting your days means making them count—for God, in Christ.

What is the answer to your short life? (vv. 13-17). It is to seek the blessing of God.

“Return, O Lord…have compassion” (v. 13). As surely as God calls us to return to Him, let us call Him to return to us. Plead His love and mercy.

“Make us glad” in matching proportion to the “years in which we have seen evil” (vv. 14-15). “Let your work” and “glory” come upon us, so that, in turn, “the beauty of the Lord” will be seen in the establishment of “the work of our hands” (vv. 16-17).

This is exactly the promised blessing of receiving Christ and following Him. This is the great reversal Jesus effects in believers: “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that [we] may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified” (Isa. 61:3).

Counting our days is not a morbid exercise in waiting for death, but a lively assessment, anticipation and application of God’s love for every day in time and eternity. So learn to number your days, that you may gain a heart of wisdom.