90:1(A Prayer of Moses a the man of God.) Lord, thou hast
been our b dwelling place in all generations.
(a) Thus the Scripture refers to the prophets.
(b) You have been as a house and defence to us in all our
troubles and travels now this four hundred years.
90:2 Before the c mountains were brought forth, or ever thou
hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting
to everlasting, thou [art] God.
(c) You have chosen us to be your people before the
foundations of the world were laid.
90:3 Thou d turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye
children of men.
(d) Moses by lamenting the frailty and shortness of man's
life moves God to pity.
90:4e For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as
yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.
(e) Though man thinks his life is long, which is indeed
most short, yet though it were a thousand years, yet in
God's sight it is as nothing, and as the watch that
lasts only three hours.
90:5 Thou f carriest them away as with a flood; they are [as]
a sleep: in the morning [they are] like grass [which]
groweth up.
(f) You take them away suddenly as with a flood.
90:7 For we are g consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath
are we troubled.
(g) You called us by the rods to consider the storms of our
life and for our sins you shorten our days.
90:9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we h spend
our years as a tale [that is told].
(h) Our days are not only short but miserable as our sins
daily provoke your wrath.
90:10 The days of our years [are] threescore years and ten; and
if by reason of strength [they be] i fourscore years,
yet [is] their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon
cut off, and we fly away.
(i) Meaning according to the common state of life.
90:11k Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according
to thy fear, [so is] thy wrath.
(k) If man's life for the shortness of it is miserable, it
is even more so if your wrath is on it, as they who
fear you only know.
90:12 So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our]
hearts unto l wisdom.
(l) Which is by considering the shortness of our life,
and by meditating the heavenly joys.
90:13 Return, O LORD, m how long? and let it repent thee
concerning thy servants.
(m) Meaning, will you be angry?
90:16n Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory
unto their o children.
(n) Even your mercy, which is the chiefest work.
(o) As God's promises belong well to their poverty, as to
them, so Moses prays for the posterity.
90:17 And let the p beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and
q establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the
work of our hands establish thou it.
(p) Meaning, that is was obscured when he ceases to do
good to his Church.
(q) For unless you guide us with your Holy Spirit, our
enterprises cannot succeed.
