Psalms 90:1

LORD, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Psalms 90:1.-A meditation: the Lord our dwelling-place, the counterpoise to our transitory life: death, the wages of sin (Psalms 90:1); prayer: as men so little know the connection of our dying frailty with God's mighty anger against our sins, God teach us it so that we may apply our hearts to the wisdom which shrinks from sin (Psalms 90:11); return from thy wrath as the people turn to thee; comfort us according to the shortness of life wherein thou hast afflicted us (Psalms 90:13). Title. - THE MAN OF GOD - im...

1_O Lord! thou hast been our dwelling-place. _In separating the seed of Abraham by special privilege from the rest of the human family, the Psalmist magnifies the grace of adoption, by which God had embraced them as his children. The object which he has in view in this exordium is, that God would now renew the grace which he had displayed in old time towards the holy patriarchs, and continue it towards their offspring. Some commentators think that he alludes to the tabernacle, because in it the majesty of God was not less conspicuous than if he had dwelt in the midst of the people; but this seems to me to be altogether out of place. He rather comprehends the whole time in which the Fathers sojourned in the land of Canaan. As the tabernacle had not yet continued for the space of forty years, the long duration here mentioned —_our dwelling-place from generation to generation _— wouldnot at...

1-6 It is supposed that this psalm refers to the sentence passed on Israel in the wilderness, Psalms 90:14. The favour and protection of God are the only sure rest and comfort of the soul in this evil world. Christ Jesus is the refuge and dwelling-place to which we may repair. We are dying creatures, all our comforts in the world are dying comforts, but God is an ever-living God, and believers find him so. When God, by sickness, or other afflictions, turns men to destruction, he thereby calls men to return unto him to repent of their sins, and live a new life. A thousand years are nothing to God's eternity: between a minute and a million of years there is some proportion; between time and eternity there is none. All the events of a thousand years, whether past or to come, are more present to the Eternal Mind, than what was done in the last hour is to us. And in the resurrection, the bod...

PSALM XC _The eternity of God_, 1, 2; _the frailty of the state of man_, 3-9; _the general limits of human life_, 10; _the danger of displeasing God_, 11; _the necessity of considering the shortness of life, and of_ _regaining the favour of the Almighty_, 12; _earnest prayer for the restoration of Israel_, 13-17. NOTES ON PSALM XC The _title_ of this Psalm is, _A Prayer of Moses the man of God_. The _Chaldee_ has, "A prayer which Moses the prophet of the Lord prayed when the people of Israel had sinned in the wilderness." All

LORD - Not יהוה _Yahweh_ here, but אדני _'Adonāy_. The word is properly rendered “Lord,” but it is a term which is often applied to God. It indicates, however, nothing in regard to his character or attributes except that he is a “Ruler or Governor.” THOU HAST BEEN OUR DWELLING-PLACE - The Septuagint renders this, “refuge” - καταφυγἡ _kataphugē_. So the Latin Vulgate, _“refugium;”_ and Luther, “Zuflucht.” The Hebrew word - מעון _mâ‛ôn_ - means properly a habitation, a dwelling, as of God in his temple, Psalms 26:8; heaven, Psalms 68:5;...

EXPOSITION THE ascription of this psalm in the title to Moses must be admitted to be very remarkable. No other psalm is so ascribed. Nor indeed is a date given to any other earlier than the time of David. The psalm itself, however, when examined, is found to accord with the traditional date. Professor Cheyne notes in it a "roughness," which is presumably a sign of antiquity. Ewald says of it, "The poem has in it something uncommonly striking, solemn, sinking into the depth of the Godhead. In contents and language it is throughout original and powerful; and, as it is undoubtedly very old, it would have been universally considered as correctly derived from Moses, had we known exactly the reasons which guided the collector." Hengstenberg, Kay, professor Alexander, and Dean Johnson accept unhesitatingly the Mosaic authorship. The psalm is termed, "A Prayer of Moses, the man of God." It is,...

LORD, THOU HAST BEEN OUR DWELLING PLACE IN ALL GENERATIONS,.... Even when they had no certain dwelling place in the world; so their ancestors, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, dwelt in tabernacles in the land of promise, as in a strange land; and their posterity for many years served under great affliction and oppression in a land that was not theirs; and now they were dwelling in tents in the wilderness, and removing from place to place; but as the Lord had been in every age, so he now was the dwelling place of those that trusted in him; being that to them as an habitation is to man, in whom they had provision, protection, rest, and safety; see Psalms 31:2 so all that believe in Christ dwell in him, and he in them, John 6:56, they dwelt secretly in him before they believed; so they dwelt in his heart's love,

A Prayer of Moses the man of God. It may help us to understand this Psalm if we recollect the circumstances which surrounded Moses when he was in the desert. For forty years, he had to see a whole generation of people die in the wilderness. In addition to the deaths which might occur among those who were born in the wilderness, the whole of that great host which came out of Egypt, numbering, probably, between two and three millions of persons, must lie in their graves in the desert, so that there must have been constant funerals, and the march of the children of Israel could be perceived along the desert track by the graves which they left behind them. You do not wonder, therefore, at this expression of the awe of «Moses the man of God» as he was so continually reminded of the mortality of mankind, and you note how reverently and trustfully he turns to the ever-living and eternal God, an...

IV. THE NUMBERS SECTION: BOOK FOUR: PSALM 90-106 The Ninetieth Psalm begins the fourth book of Psalms, corresponding in different ways with the book of Numbers. It opens with the only Psalm written by Moses in the wilderness when the people were dying on account of unbelief, and is followed by a Psalm which shows the second Man, the Lord as the head of a new creation. In this book are found numerous millennial Psalms, showing us prophetically when under Christ, in the day when all things are put under His feet, the wilderness experiences of His people end, glory comes to Israel, the nations and all the earth. Psalms 90:1 ; Psalms 91:1; Psalms 92:1;...

BOOK IV. PSS. XC.- CVI. XC. Man's Mortality and his Refuge in the Ever-living God. Psalms 90:1. The nothingness of man's life, the eternity of God's life. Psalms 90:7. It is the sinfulness of man which makes his life so short. Psalms 90:11 f. Man's lot should teach him reverence and wisdom. Psalms 90:13. Prayer for God's blessing in the future. PSALMS 90:1. DWELLING-PLACE: the thought is beautiful but irrelevant. The Psalmist is speaking of God's eternity, not of His dealing with Israel. Mo