Psalms 90:2

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God. BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS WERE BROUGHT FORTH, OR EVER THOU HADST FORMED THE EARTH AND THE WORLD, EVEN FROM EVERLASTING THOU (ART) GOD. As man's weakness is connected with his mortality, so God's omnipotence follows necessarily from His eternity. "The mountains," by their majestic height and unshaken stability, give the impression of antiquity and unchangeableness. Compare Genesis 49:26, "the everlasting hills;" Deuteronomy 33:15; Habakkuk 3:6. "The earth" is this globe below, in contrast to the heavens above. "The world" ...

2_Before the mountains were brought forth. _Moses designs to set forth some high and hidden mystery, and yet he seems to speak feebly, and, as it were, in a puerile manner. For who does not know that God existed before the world? This we grant is a truth which all men admit; but we will scarcely find one in a hundred who is thoroughly persuaded that God remains unchangeably the same. God is here contrasted with created beings, who, as all know, are subject to continual changes, so that there is nothing stable under heaven. As, in a particular manner, nothing is fuller of vicissitude than human life, that men may not judge of the nature of God by their own fluctuating condition, he is here placed in a state of settled and undisturbed tranquillity. Thus the everlastingness of which Moses speaks is to be referred not only to the essence of God, but also to his providence, by which he govern...

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...

Verse Psalms 90:2. _BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS WERE BROUGHT FORTH_] The mountains and hills _appear_ to have been everlasting; but as they were _brought forth_ out of the womb of eternity, there was a _time_ when _they were not_: but THOU hast been _ab aeternitate a parte ante, ad_ _aeternitatem a parte post_; from the eternity that is past, before time began; to the eternity that is after, when time shall have an end. This is the highest description of the _eternity_ of God to which human language can reach....

BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS WERE BROUGHT FORTH - Before the earth brought forth or produced the mountains. In the description of the creation it would be natural to represent the mountains as the first objects that appeared, as emerging from the waters; and, therefore, as the “first” or “most ancient” of created objects. The phrase, therefore, is equivalent to saying, Before the earth was created. The literal meaning of the expression, “were brought forth,” is, in the Hebrew, “were born.” The mountains are mentioned as the most ancient things in creation, in Deuteronomy 33:15. Compare Genesis 49:26; Habakkuk 3:6. OR EVER THOU HADST FORMED - literall

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,...

BEFORE THE MOUNTAINS WERE BROUGHT FORTH,.... Or "were born" b, and came forth out of the womb and bowels of the earth, and were made to rise and stand up at the command of God, as they did when he first created the earth; and are mentioned not only because of their firmness and stability, but their antiquity: hence we read of the ancient mountains and everlasting hills, Genesis 49:26, for they were before the flood, and as soon as the earth was; or otherwise the eternity of God would not be so fully expressed by this phrase as it is here, and elsewhere the eternity of Christ, Proverbs 8:25, or "ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world"; the whole terraqueous globe, and all the inhabitants of it; so the Targum; or "before the earth brought forth; or thou causedst it to bring forth" c its herbs, plant

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