Psalms 90:14

Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. -The Second division of the Second part. Prayer for God's mercy as the source to us of joy, and of the establishment of our work. Verse 13. RETURN - from the wrath which now lies upon us. So Exodus 32:12. HOW LONG? - how long wilt thou be angry with us? AND LET IT REPENT THEE CONCERNING THY SERVANTS. Parallel to the Pentateuch, "The Lord shall repent Himself for His servants;" on which rests Psalms 135:14. God is said to repent when, having first vindicated His justice in punishing sin, He then gives the sinner joy instead of sadness. The language is phenomenal, and relates to things as they appear to us. God is the sa...

12-17 Those who would learn true wisdom, must pray for Divine instruction, must beg to be taught by the Holy Spirit; and for comfort and joy in the returns of God's favour. They pray for the mercy of God, for they pretend not to plead any merit of their own. His favour would be a full fountain of future joys. It would be a sufficient balance to former griefs. Let the grace of God in us produce the light of good works. And let Divine consolations put gladness into our hearts, and a lustre upon our countenances. The work of our hands, establish thou it; and, in order to that, establish us in it. Instead of wasting our precious, fleeting days in pursuing fancies, which leave the possessors for ever poor, let us seek the forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance in heaven. Let us pray that the work of the Holy Spirit may appear in converting our hearts, and that the beauty of holiness may be s...

Verse Psalms 90:14. _O SATISFY US EARLY_] Let us have thy mercy soon, (literally, _in the morning_.) Let it now shine upon us, and it shall seem as the morning of our days, and we shall exult in thee all the days of our life....

O SATISFY US EARLY WITH THY MERCY - literally, “In the morning;” as soon as the day dawns. Perhaps there is an allusion here to their affliction, represented as night; and the prayer is, that the morning - the morning of mercy and joy - might again dawn upon them. THAT WE MAY REJOICE AND BE GLAD ALL OUR DAYS - All the remainder of our lives. That the memory of thy gracious interposition may go with us to the grave....

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,...

O SATISFY US EARLY WITH THY MERCY,.... Or "grace" g; the means of grace, the God of all grace, and communion with him, Christ and his grace; things without which, souls hungry and thirsty, in a spiritual sense, cannot be satisfied; these will satisfy them, and nothing else; namely, the discoveries of the love of God, his pardoning grace and mercy, Christ and his righteousness, and the fulness of grace in him; see Psalms 63:3, this grace and mercy they desire to be satisfied and filled with betimes, early, seasonably, as soon as could be, or it was fitting it should: it may be rendered "in the morning" h, which some understand literally of the beginning of the day, and so lay a foundation for joy the whole day following: some interpret it of the morning of the resurrection; with which compare Psalms 49

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

EARLY. in the morning. MERCY. lovingkindness, or grace....