The Long Obedience - Psalm 90
The Psalms were the hymnbook of ancient Israel.
Psalm 90 is well known to some of us through Isaac Watts’s paraphrase of it for the hymn “O God our help in Ages past”, which he penned in 1708.
I have no doubt that Moses wrote this original psalm – some say it was a prayer written in response to Israelite slavery in Egypt – others say it was written in the wilderness. I do not know, but I suspect it was the latter – written during the wilderness years. It was a cry to God for help from the pastor of a people who felt lost and perhaps even forgotten in the desert.
Vv1-2 deal with the eternity of God – which was not in dispute, which is contrasted with the mortality of man. When Moses wrote this psalm he was surrounded by death. The people of Israel, whom Moses had led out of Egypt were condemned to die in the desert and never see the Promised Land because of their rebellion against God, after they heard the negative report from the 12 spies. Israel was condemned to wander in the desert until all the men of fighting age, who had come out of Egypt had died. Every day there must have been the sound of funerals and wailing as men died prematurely during those 40 years. This is surely a type of the deadly effects of the law without the grace of God in Christ. Surely Paul had Israel’s plight (even after Sinai) in mind when he was writing Rom 7:9 “… I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died.” Every day this must have been a reminder of human mortality, failure and rebellion. Even Moses knew he would have to die before fully receiving the promises.
Although Moses was one of the greatest religious leaders whoever lived, he was caught up in this death spiral. And it was pretty negative for them – just going round and round in circles through the Sinai wilderness waiting for certain people among you to die! So it was not surprising he prayed for a way out and for a window of hope thus we have vv12ff …
12 So teach us to number our days
that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! How long?
Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us,
and establish the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
This is a cry of the heart for the experience and knowledge of God – for the worship of God in Spirit and in truth of John ch4. It was an acknowledgment that, yes, our days are limited in number, but a plea to God to help us to enjoy his presence in those days.
I think the message of the latter part of this psalm is this: we have a limited lifespan so let’s live it for God. After all, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That is what brought me into missions service: life is like a coin, you can only spend it once. Let us use our life well while we have it.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
I think that that verse may be referring to receiving an understanding of that steadfast love which the rebellious Israelites never really understood or believed existed – the steadfast love, the chesed, which is that persistent grace of God available to the man or woman who trusts in God – So the line, “Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,” encourages us to have an understanding of the steadfast love of God at an early stage of life, the morning of our lives, so “that we may rejoice and be glad all our days” and so that in the evening of our life we can be satisfied that we have done the right thing and see that:
17 … the favour of the Lord our God [has been] upon us,
and [has] establish[ed] the work of our hands upon us;
yes, establish the work of our hands!
This doesn’t mean that your life of obedience will be easy, but you do have a sense of where you are – you are linked to the eternal God who never changes. We may suffer many days of affliction. This is why theology is so important – you can’t lead a Christian life by how you ‘feel’ that morning. Theology helps us to see things from God’s point of view.
“A Long Obedience in the Same Direction: Discipleship in an Instant Society” – By Eugene Peterson which is a commentary on the Psalms of Ascents Pss 120-134. What a wonderful title! That is what God calls us to and I think it is the road Moses was working through for his people in the wilderness. We have an advantage over Moses’ Israelite flock. We can see the cross and resurrection as past events, and we have received the Holy Spirit individually. Alleluia!
It was a valid prayer by Moses in the wilderness for Israel but also a valid prayer for us today in our still very uneven lives. As Isaac Watts’s hymn goes … : “O God our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.” He will always be there, the same unchanging God.