... in the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen. Through the prayers of our
holy Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen. Glory
to You, our God, Glory to You.
O Heavenly King,
the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, You are everywhere and fill all things,
Treasury of blessings, and Giver of life: come and abide in us, and cleanse us
from every impurity, and save our souls, O Good One.
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy
Immortal, have mercy on us (three times).
Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it is now, was in the
beginning, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
A Prayer of Moses the man of God.
Lord, You have been our dwelling place[2] in all
generations. Before the mountains were
brought forth, or ever You had formed the earth and the world, even from
everlasting to everlasting, You [are]
God. You turn man to destruction, and say,
“Return, children of men:” for a thousand years in Your sight [are] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night. You carry them away as with a flood. They are [as]
a sleep: in the morning like grass grows up.
In the morning it flourishes, and grows up. In the evening it is cut down, and withers: for
we are consumed by Your anger. We are
troubled by Your fury. You have set our
iniquities before You, our secrets in the light of Your countenance: for all
our days are passed away in Your fury.
We spend our years as a tale[3] [that is told]. The days of our years [are] seventy years; If by reason of strength [they be] eighty years, yet [is]
their strength labor and sorrow: for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knows the power of Your anger? Even according to Your fear, [so is] Your fury. So teach [us]
to number our days, so that we may apply [our]
hearts to wisdom.
Return, Lord, how long? Let it relent concerning Your servants. Satisfy us early with Your mercy: so that we
may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make
us glad according to the days You have afflicted us, the years we have seen
evil. Let Your work appear to Your
servants, Your Glory to their children. And
let the beauty of the Lord our God be on us. Establish the work of our hands on us. Yes, the work of our hands, establish it.[4]
[1] Many
things are disputed about this Psalm, first of which is that Moses is its
author. Moses’ name is introduced by the
usual means indicating authorship: namely, in Hebrew, the letter L, lamed. If Moses did not write this Psalm directly,
it certainly draws intensively upon his meditations and quotes them. In spite of such objections we take it that
Moses actually wrote this Psalm. The historical
setting appears to be found in Numbers 13 through 14, where, with the
exceptions of Joshua and Caleb and possibly their families, the Israelites
steadfastly refused to believe that Yahweh was able to lead them into the
promised land. We are reminded that
Israel is a nation now redeemed (saved) from the slavery of Egypt, established
under a gracious Law of love at Sinai, but not yet saved into the promised land,
into the heavenly kingdom of God’s eternal rest. That salvation may or may not be lost is also
frequently disputed. We would argue from
Numbers 13 through 14 and this Psalm that salvation cannot be easily lost, for
God is faithful. On the other hand we would
also argue that salvation can be cast away by persistent malice and
ungratefulness, as these passages prove: for God declares that “they shall not
enter into My rest (Numbers 14:20-38; Psalm 95:8-11; Hebrews 3:7-11).”
Most commentaries pass this Psalm off as being primarily about
the general brevity of life. While Moses
does have a great deal to say about the general brevity of life, this view
appears to miss the point. This
extensive nine verse paragraph, over half of the Psalm, is concerned exclusively
with God and His righteous judgment, specifically in death. So, this Psalm is not about the general
brevity of life, ending in death; it is about the judgment of God wherein death
is the punishment for sin. There are
multitudes who insist that death is merely the result of sin and not a
punishment for it, but we fail to see how this can possibly be true in light of
this Psalm, not to mention Numbers 14:20-38, Psalm 95:8-11, and Hebrews 3:7-11. Nor can this Psalm be concerned with mere human
mortality: for all die; but with the sort of mortality that fails to enter into
the eternal rest of God. We favor this
view for several reasons: One, the context appears to be the unbelief
previously cited. Two, this paragraph is
about judgment. Three, it would be
absurd for Moses to record sentiments about the general brevity of life, which
were treasured as great wisdom for many generations, but are obvious to all men
without being stated. Why bother to
record, and make a point to treasure, that which all men know: namely, that
life is short. Surely, Moses has
something more profound to say here than that life is short. Four, if Moses means to warn us that life is
short, he speaks inaccurately: for many fall outside of the span of seventy to
eighty years, at both ends of the spectrum of life. Our days are not simply “passed away;” they “are passed away in Your fury.”
Moses now directs his attention to a specific
prophecy. Is it that man will live to be
roughly seventy or eighty before death?
Not hardly. How can that be the
result of “are passed away in Your fury?” More likely they connect somehow to the sum
of the average age of the unbelieving generation plus the forty years of their
wandering until death. However, that unbelieving
generation was twenty years old and up into old age, which hardly adds up to
seventy or eighty: for example, Aaron, Miriam, and Moses are already in their
eighties and will live a good while longer, as will many others in the Israelite
camp. Even more reasonable is the idea
that the deaths of that unbelieving generation was a stern warning to their
children to guard their faith with awe and reverence; and a grim prophecy that
the kingdom granted by the Law of love at Sinai would also perish in a mere
seventy or eighty years. This is
certainly the case: for within fifty years or so Joshua will die, not long
afterward that believing generation will all be dead in seventy or eighty
years, many of them in their nineties and hundreds in age, and the kingdom of
the Law of love will lapse into the instability and uncertainty of Judges,
until David arises to restore the kingdom as the Redeemer-Shepherd King,
prefiguring Christ. The lesson is about
the frailty of faith. Within seventy or
eighty years the kingdom will be frittered away, just as the unbelieving
generation despised the gift of God’s grace.
The message given to, and treasured by ensuing generations is that faith
must be zealously guarded and earnestly defended, lest it lapse into
oblivion. It is this profound message
that introduces this portion of Psalms as Israel is carried into Babylon for
seventy years of punishment in exile. It
is this profound message that shakes us as we ourselves watch Christianity
lapse into a sea of nihilism.
Lest we forget, “God is not mocked (Galatians
6:7-10).” There is a terrible price
attached to the neglect of faith. We are
to number our days, not merely because they are brief, but because there is so
little time remaining to apply ourselves to God’s wisdom. Age at death is irrelevant, because judgment comes
swiftly, sweeping all away, regardless of age, as in the days of Noah, Lot,
Moses, the Judges, the destruction of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria, the
Babylonian Captivity, and the Last Judgment.
One or one-thousand, all die. We
must number our days because the judgment of God is upon us. Now is the time to seek mercy, cleansing,
pardon, visitation (the presence of God in our lives), healing, filling,
blessing, and life. We only have one
chance; this is it.
Based on these firm conclusions Moses prays
that faith will prevail. He sees that
affliction serves the purpose of drawing us to Christ: we must take life more
seriously than we otherwise would. We
need to see God’s Glory, the Shekinah, and love Him. This is the only lasting legacy we can find
in life (1 Corinthians 3:9-17). It is
not death that we need to fear as much as it is the loss of our legacy in the
loss of our faith. Faith and the kingdom
are frail. Guard them with all your dear
life.
[2] Refuge:
we find our principle residence in God’s house, in the Heavenly City, the City
of God.
[3] Sigh:
the play on words between spirit and breath calls to mind that we are more than
material beings, we are both body and spirit, stamped with the image of
God. Death is more than the loss of life
to the body, it is the separation of the human body and spirit from eternal
fellowship with God Himself. We will all
die. We will all not perish.
[4] If you have been blessed or helped by any of these meditations in
Psalms, please repost, share, or use any of them as you wish.
These meditations are not controlled by
Creative Commons or other licenses, such as: copyright, CC, BY, SA, NC, or
ND. They are designed and intended for
your free participation. They were
freely received, and are freely given.
No other permission is required for their use.
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