Psalm 90 is a song, a prayer by Moses. He begins by describing the immensity of God, who has been our home throughout all generations:
Lord, you have been our dwelling place
in all generations.
Before the mountains were brought forth,
or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Then, Moses contrasts God with us humans. When Moses says, “You turn us back to dust, and say, ‘Turn back, you mortals,’” Moses calls forth to memory when God created the world and the first people. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, God cursed them, saying, “You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Moses continues to describe the dustness of human existence, comparing it to a dream that is swept away, or grass that flourishes in the morning and fades in the evening.
For we are consumed by your anger;
by your wrath we are overwhelmed.
You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your countenance.
Here Moses connects our finitude with our sins and with God’s anger. If you are like me, Moses’ description of God’s anger and wrath may seem overwhelming. If I were to write a prayer to God, I would not focus on God’s anger and wrath, of which I have not experienced much, if any, but rather on God’s kindness, mercy, patience, and love. Moses knows about such characteristics of God, but Moses had also experienced God’s wildness.
When God first called Moses to lead the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, Moses saw a burning bush whose leaves were not consumed, and he hid his face from God’s presence. Later, Moses witnessed God’s power when God divided the Red Sea, through which the Israelites escaped the Egyptian armies. In the wilderness, when the Israelites created and worshiped a golden calf instead of God, God was so angry that God's anger could have consumed the Israelites. But Moses interceded, asking God to turn and have compassion on the people, and God listened. Moses knew the power of God.
For all our days pass away under your wrath;
our years come to an end like a sigh.
The days of our life are seventy years,
or perhaps eighty, if we are strong;
even then their span is only toil and trouble;
they are soon gone, and we fly away.
Moses draws a boundary around human existence. But this boundary is not only quantitative; Moses describes what those years of life are like. Our days end like a sigh, and are full of toil and trouble. Again, Moses reminds us of the curse of death in the Garden of Eden. When God cursed the ground, God said to the humans, “In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you.”
Throughout the first half of his prayer, Moses has been describing the vanity of human life compared to the vastness of God and God’s power. At the moment when God’s anger seems unbearable, Moses does not retreat, but makes a request: “So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” In other words, teach us to live each day with intention and meaning so that our innermost being may be wise.
Turn, O LORD! How long?
Have compassion on your servants!
Just as Moses asked God to turn and have compassion on the Israelites in the wilderness, here Moses is asking God to turn and have compassion—but this time, his prayer is grander. Moses is not simply asking God to forgive the Israelites for worshiping an idol. Rather, Moses is asking God to reverse the very curse of death.
Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
I believe this is the heart of the psalm. Although human existence is short and toilsome, Moses prays that God would satisfy, fulfill our deepest longings with God’s steadfast love, which endures from generation to generation, as long as God endures. Moses prays that God would satisfy us in the morning, which is the most vulnerable and precious time of the day. The morning is both the end and the beginning. It follows our dreams, in which we may have wrestled with angels or been bewildered, and the morning comes before the sun has risen, before the challenges and joys we may face. The morning is both the obscurest and clearest time of the day. It is a time of transition, and is the foundation of the day, and it is at this time that Moses asks that God would satisfy us with God’s steadfast love so that we may sing for joy and celebrate life.
It is good news that Moses prays this. It teaches me that I, too, can pray this when my life seems to have little meaning, when I have lost count of my days, when each day seems full of challenges. It teaches me that in spite of death in its various forms, I can hope and pray for joy and gladness for all my days.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and prosper for us the work of our hands—
O prosper the work of our hands!
In contrast to the result of the curse of death, work that was toilsome and troublesome, Moses prays that God would prosper and establish our work so that it brings joy, so that it bears fruit. It is related to a life that is satisfied with God’s steadfast love. May God give us such meaningful, fulfilling work.
Psalm 90 is a prayer of Moses, and it can be our prayer. But I would also like to think of Psalm 90 as a prayer of Jesus. Today is Palm Sunday, when much of the Church remembers when Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, which meant that he was Israel’s king, and that the reign of God was at hand, a reign which came not through force or violence but through peace.
In many ways, this reign of God answered Moses’ prayer, reversing the curse of death. Jesus brought life to people. He healed the sick, fed the hungry, proclaimed good news to the stranger, clothed the naked. Through Jesus, all were satisfied in the morning with God’s steadfast love. Yet 2,000 years later, we know that the curse has not been reversed. People still pray Psalm 90, asking for God’s satisfaction. How can Jesus have said the reign of God had come?
I think it is like how last Wednesday was officially the first day of Spring. But if you told that to anyone, no one would believe you, especially with this storm today. Yet we know that Spring is coming, and has come. Something has turned.
The work which God had established for Jesus’ hands led him to his death. In the Christian calendar, the week following Palm Sunday is Holy Week, in which many Christians remember how Jesus suffered. The kingship of Jesus, and even the reign of God, is not glorious, as we may have expected. Rather, it comes in humility.
That is why I think we can read Psalm 90 as a prayer of Jesus. Surely, Jesus knew that God was his dwelling place, that God was from everlasting to everlasting. Jesus knew how fleeting is human existence, and that God turns us back to dust. Jesus experienced the wrath of death when on the cross he prayed, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus did not live as long as most people live.
At the same time, God had established and prospered the work of Jesus’ hands. Jesus had counted his days and lived with wisdom. And three days after Jesus died, early in the morning, Jesus was satisfied with God’s steadfast love, and he rejoices and is glad all his days.
We live in an in-between period, in a time when it is Spring and yet not quite Spring, when the reign of God has come and yet is not fully here. We are awake, and the sky is alight, but the sun has not yet risen. How do we live in this time? We can pray:
God, satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Verses are from the NRSV.
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