Infusion-- Psalm 90

A prayer of Moses, the man of God
The transcript of this psalm says that it was written by Moses. The Hebrew vocabulary of this psalm is very similar to that of the book of Deuteronomy, and has some of the themes of Deuteronomy as well. Thus, whoever edited the book of Deuteronomy is probably the author of this book, so it make sense that it is ascribed to Moses.

Yahweh, you have been our dwelling place in all generations
Before the mountains were born
And the earth and world writhed in pain
From eternity to eternity you are God
Yahweh is the most powerful, amazing God. In the pagan world at the time of the psalm, there were many gods, all of whom had their own powers, but Yahweh alone is the One who is most powerful from the beginning of time to the end. Other gods raise up in authority and then descend. Other gods obtain power and then lose it. But Yahweh alone is the god who is over all and does not falter or lose any of his authority. He is greater than all the earth, greater than all heavenly beings.

To dust you turn humanity,
Saying, "Return, O sons of men!"
Or as a watch in the night.
You sweep them away like a flood
For a thousand years in Your eyes
Are as yesterday's day when it is past
They sink into deep sleep
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
In the morning it flourishes and sprouts
Toward evening it withers and dries up.
So we vanish by Your wrath
Overcome in horror by your fury
You have arrayed our sins before You
Our secrets in the light of Your face.
All our days pass away in Your anger
We end our years like a sigh.
In comparison to humanity, God is most powerful. All humans, no matter who they are have limits and an end. But God does not. For Him, a thousand years is but a moment, because he has always existed and always will, beyond the scope of creation.
And God puts limits on humanity. God created humans, and He causes them to cease as well. The limitation of human life is done because of God’s wrath, as it says in Genesis 6:3. In that context, humanity was becoming more and more corrupt, more and more violent. So God limits their lives in order to limit their corruption. Even so, God’s wrath recognizes the harm that humanity does to one another, and so He limits our lives. This only displays humanity’s frailty before God. God is the powerful one, we are but leaves of grass, dependent on Him for our very lives.

As for the days of our life, they contain seventy years
And if because of strength, eighty years.
Yet their pride is but toil and sorrow
They are quickly cut off and we fly away.
Who can comprehend the power of your wrath?
Give us the knowledge so to number our days
That we may acquire a heart of wisdom.
All humans can do is compare our lives with others to see if it was significant, or if it was long. Some have 70 years, some 80, depending on our strength. But in the end, our lives are limited, hard and short. We work hard all of our lives to get by, to raise our families and to make our mark and in the end all we have to show for it is our death.
So the psalmist prays for us and asks God to give us wisdom. Help us realize, the psalmist cries out, the shortness of our lives and to make the most of them. We only have so many days, and so we should take advantage of what we have. Not for selfish reasons, but to do things that are helping others. We need to have the wisdom to realize that we cannot procrastinate. If we want to accomplish something, we need to do it now.

Return, O Yahweh! How long?
Reconsider your worshippers.
Sate us in the morning with our faithful love
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Make us rejoice according to the days you have afflicted us.
And the years in which we have seen evil.
Let your deeds be shown to Your servants
And your splendor to their children.
May the delight of Yahweh our God be upon us
And fulfill the work of our hands
Yes, fulfill the work of our hands.
The work of humans is limited and often faithless. Our lives are brutish and short. But if we have God in our lives, then it can all be worth it. The problem with human life is that it is limited by human frailty. But if our lives are infused with divinity, then it can accomplish something much more. Our work can be worth something, if God gets involved. So the psalmist prays here that God take the pointlessness and frailty of our human efforts and to make it accomplish something great. Even if we only exist for a moment, God can take our work and make it eternal. Our work, our accomplishments, can be something amazing, if only God would sustain it and fulfill it beyond what we ourselves can do.