Who knoweth the power of thine anger? and thy wrath according to the fear of thee?
The psalm has just described a short life lived under God's displeasure. Now it asks a question no one can answer: who has ever measured the force of God's anger, or weighed His wrath against the fear that is due to Him?
The question stays open, and one writer reads the whole line as two admissions of ignorance.
God's wrath, too, they keenly feel. But who knows the power of His anger? None on earth have experienced that. Who, indeed, knows that wrath according to the fear that is due to God?
The second half of the verse sets a standard. God's wrath is not a mood. It matches the fear due to Him, and so it comes out of His own character.
And first as to ways: "as his fear, so is his wrath." It is not arbitrary, but according to His own nature and character. Fear is knowing Him in truth. Then what He is judges, in holiness, everything inside the soul, so that nothing should displease Him or hinder fellowship with Him.
The phrase is short, and commentators differ on how to unfold it. One writer, working from an older wording, sets out two possible senses:
Verse 11, "even according to your fear, your wrath" — is it "the fear we have of you, so your wrath appears," or "as terror now, so wrath to come"?
God's anger can seem heavy. One writer answers that it could not be any less, and points to how hard people work to keep the subject out of mind.
One might think He had pressed it heavily on man — but how could He do less? Look, after all, at the folly bound up in man's heart! Man only tries to drive thought away, to "kill time," to push conviction aside, to do Satan's work for him as thoroughly as he can. And yet no thought can exceed the truth of God's anger against sin: even according to the fear of You is Your overflowing wrath.
The power of that anger is unknown. One writer draws a warning from it: cleaning ourselves up, apart from coming back to God as Saviour, is not a neutral act.
So every attempt by man to beautify or purify himself is only a fight against God — unless he returns to God as Saviour, in the faith of the gospel. It is a practical refusal to admit that God is true and righteous in giving him this dishonoured place. And it only arms him as an enemy against the One who avenges His own name, according to the unknown power of His wrath (Ps. 90:11).
Placed beside God's anger, present trouble shrinks. One writer weighs affliction against sin, hell and glory.
It is heavy to flesh and blood, but it is light to faith. It is light compared with sin; the one who feels sin heavy feels suffering light. Affliction is light compared with hell; what is persecution next to damnation? What is the fire of martyrdom to the fire of the damned? "Who knows the power of Your anger?" (Ps. 90:11). Affliction is light compared with glory; the weight of glory makes persecution light.
The verse is not the end of the thought. It is the hinge into the prayer of the next verse.
The power of God's anger goes beyond what man knows. If we take that serious lesson to heart, it will put a deep and reverent fear of God in us (v. 11). That leads to the right prayer: "So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom" (v. 12). Our days are short, so we need grace from God to number them — to keep them under close watch, so that we do not lose the lessons each day is meant to teach.
- Unknown — No one on earth has taken the measure of God's anger; the question in the verse has no human answer.
- Not arbitrary — His wrath matches the reverence due to Him, so it expresses what He is, never a change of mood.
- Underestimated — Man kills time and pushes conviction away. Yet no thought can exceed the truth of God's anger against sin.
- Dangerous — Clean ourselves up apart from returning to God as Saviour, and we only arm ourselves against Him. His wrath is beyond our measuring.
- Wisdom — Take that unknown weight seriously and it breeds reverent fear. That fear turns into prayer: teach us to number our days and give us a heart of wisdom.
So teach [us] to number our days, that we may acquire a wise heart.
Psalm 90 spends eleven verses on hard facts: human life is short and frail, and God's anger rests on it. At verse 12 the psalm turns from looking to asking — and the first request is not for a longer life, but for a right way to count the life we have.
The psalmist does not look away from the way things really are. He asks God to turn that hard reality into gain.
Let us not run from the way things really are, he asks. Let us gain by it: "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." Here is the "beginning of wisdom," because here is the "fear of the Lord," and the fear of the Lord is that beginning. Here the soul finds how much it needs Him, turns to Him, and seeks to have Him turn to it.
Verse 12 opens the section of requests, and it shapes everything asked afterward. Miscount your days and your heart attaches itself elsewhere.
Verse 12 gives us the first request which, it is easy to see, exerts a controlling influence on all the rest. We are only the feeble dying children of Adam, and much is gained if we simply recognise that fact. As long as we do not number our days rightly, we imagine ourselves to be something other than what we are. So we apply our hearts to pleasure or money-making or sport or a hundred and one things of small importance. When we number our days rightly and see the plight we are in, we apply our hearts to wisdom. And the beginning of wisdom is the fear of the Lord.
Numbering is more than knowing life is short. It is watching each day closely enough that its lesson is not wasted.
Since our days are short, we need grace from God to number them, that is, to keep them under close observation, so that we do not lose the lessons each day is intended to teach. It is such exercise by which we "gain a heart of wisdom."
The verse asks God to teach. That word matters, because no one learns this on his own.
In how many ways is God begging man to consider his own condition, if nothing else! In how many languages is this "Adam, where are you?" repeated to the present day! ... And here is Wisdom crying in the streets, even where there is no speech and no word: "So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom." Man never does this until God teaches him.
Two men show the difference. Caleb's days added up; Jacob's, by his own account, mostly did not.
I call attention to the way a spiritual man numbers his days. I refer to Caleb, a man who wholly follows the Lord, a man of God who can count his days by the thousand. Another man has to say, "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life" — he had lived 130 years when he spoke. I refer to Jacob. As he looked back, how many days there were in which he had no contact with God — lost days, not to be numbered. Solemn, in the light of the day of God, to lose days.
Being shut out of Eden was not judgment alone.
When God turned Adam and Eve out of Eden for their sin, He set angels at the entrance to the garden, with a flaming sword turning every way to guard the way to the tree of life. There was both mercy and judgment in this. It was mercy, that he might know his feebleness and frailty, and learn so to number his days as to apply his heart to wisdom. ... How can such a feeble creature fail to turn with true repentance to the only One in whom help and mercy can be found?
A heart of wisdom does not stop at escaping judgment. It goes on to want God Himself.
But to avert His judgment is comparatively a little thing. The heart truly touched longs after Himself. How can a creature be satisfied apart from his Creator? "Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days." How rarely do we find joy in God like this!
- Face it. The prayer starts with the truth about man: he is frail, he is dying, and God's anger rests on him.
- Ask for it. We never count our days rightly on our own. God must teach us, so we ask Him to.
- Count them. To number days is to watch them closely, so the lesson each one carries is not lost.
- Live them. Caleb could count his days one by one. Jacob called his years "few and evil" — days out of touch with God are lost days.
- Gain by it. The taught heart stops chasing small things. It wants more than escape from judgment — it wants God Himself, and gladness all its days.