Psalm 90:1-17
A prayer of Moses, the man of the [true] God.+
90 O Jehovah,* you yourself have proved to be a real dwelling for us+During generation after generation.+
2 Before the mountains themselves were born,+Or you proceeded to bring forth as with labor pains the earth+ and the productive land,*+Even from time indefinite to time indefinite you are God.*+
3 You make mortal man* go back to crushed matter,*+And you say: “GO back, YOU sons of men.”*+
4 For a thousand years are in your eyes but as yesterday when it is past,+And as a watch during the night.+
5 You have swept them away;+ they become a mere sleep;+In the morning [they are] just like green grass that changes.+
6 In the morning it puts forth blossoms and must change;+At evening it withers and certainly dries up.+
7 For we have come to an end in your anger,+And by your rage we have been disturbed.+
8 You have set our errors right in front of you,+Our hidden things before your bright face.*+
9 For all our days have come to their decline in your fury;+We have finished our years just like a whisper.+
10 In themselves the days of our years are seventy years;+And if because of special mightiness they are eighty years,+Yet their insistence is on trouble and hurtful things;+For it must quickly pass by, and away we fly.+
11 Who is there knowing the strength of your anger+And your fury according to the fear of you?+
12 Show [us] just how to count our days in such a way+That we may bring a heart of wisdom+ in.
13 Do return, O Jehovah!+ How long will it be?+And feel regret over your servants.+
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your loving-kindness,*+That we may cry out joyfully and may rejoice during all our days.+
15 Make us rejoice correspondingly to the days that you have afflicted us,+The years that we have seen calamity.+
16 May your activity appear to your own servants+And your splendor upon their sons.+
17 And let the pleasantness of Jehovah* our God prove to be upon us,+And the work of our hands do you firmly establish upon us.+Yes, the work of our hands, do you firmly establish it.+
Footnotes
^ One of 134 scribal changes from YHWH to ʼAdho·naiʹ. See App 1B.
^ Or, “or the earth and the productive land were brought forth with labor pains,” by a change in vowel pointing.
^ Or, “the Divine One.” Heb., ʼEl; Syr., ʼA·la·haʼ; Lat., Deʹus.
^ Or, “to dust,” as crushed, or pulverized, earth.
^ Lit., “earthling man.” Heb., ʼa·dhamʹ.
^ “Mortal man.” Heb., ʼenohshʹ.
^ Lit., “the luminary of your face.”
^ Or, “loyal love.”
^ See vs 1 ftn.
