Return, Jehovah how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
The psalm spends its first eleven verses on human frailty and God's anger. Verse 13 turns to asking: it calls God to come back, to end the delay, and to spare the people He has been disciplining.
Verse 13 sits inside a block of requests. What comes before it explains why the psalm asks at all.
Verses 12-17 contain all the petitions that make up the prayer. The earlier verses describe in very graphic fashion the plight man is in, and that plight leads to the petitions. We see man stripped of all the false glory he surrounds himself with: a poor, fallen, dying creature.
The verse says "Return," not "Come." That word assumes a bond already there, and mercy already known.
Note, there is known mercy. The word is not "come," but "return." That does not mean God had left them. (As to His ways, it is true of Israel — He hides His face from the house of Jacob.) But we look for His returning as known present mercies and the enjoyment of His favour.
Asking God for blessing is a bold move for people under His anger. What makes it possible is what has already happened in the heart.
With the fear of God, and the confession of sin, there comes confidence in God. So at once the man of God appeals to Jehovah for His blessing. The thief on the cross did the same. He had the fear of God in his heart and the confession of sins on his lips. So he could turn at once with confidence to the Lord and say, "Lord remember me."
The question is not a complaint that God has forgotten. It is a conclusion drawn from what God has promised.
Faith recognizes that it is God's purpose to bless His people. So faith knows there must be an end to the time of affliction and sorrow in the way God governs His people. That is why faith says "How long?" This is the language of faith and hope — of faith in the purpose of God to bless, and hope that reaches out to the coming blessing.
Older translations end the verse with "let it repent you concerning your servants." The ESV has "have pity on your servants." One writer points to the name of God used here, and to God's own stated rule about relenting.
Here the soul finds its need of Him. It turns to Him, and seeks to have Him turn to it. So the psalmist says, "Return, Jehovah." He does not say simply "Lord" now, but uses the nearer name of covenant-goodness: "and let it repent you concerning your servants." For as soon as man repents, God has declared that He will repent of the evil He thought to do to them (Jer. 18:8). The story of Jonah and Nineveh is a precious illustration of His mercies in this way.
One writer reads the psalm as Israel's future cry, and still applies it to believers today.
Psalm 90 is in a special way Israel's cry for mercy and restoration in the last days after their long affliction. But we will apply its principles as usual. It looks at two things in the government of God: discipline, properly speaking, and satisfying mercy. For Israel God's dealing is felt as wrath, because they do not yet know reconciliation. We know it is love. The truth of the dealing is the same, and we can apply it.
Yet the psalm never gives the reason God could relent.
The psalm ends with a prayer: "Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent you concerning your servants;" but it gives no ground for such repentance until we come to the following psalm.
- Order — Fear of God and confession of sin come first. Only then does the prayer ask. Confidence follows confession; it never replaces it.
- Return — The word assumes mercy already known. The prayer is not for a stranger to arrive, but for a God already theirs to turn back.
- How long — The question is faith reasoning from God's purpose to bless, not doubt that He will.
- Jehovah — The prayer uses the covenant name at the moment of appeal. God has declared He relents when man repents.
- Ground — The prayer is real, but this psalm never gives the basis on which God can relent. The next psalm carries it.
Satisfy us early with thy loving-kindness; that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Psalm 90 is Moses' prayer. Its first half strips man of every illusion: short years, lived under God's anger. Then the prayer turns bold. Verse 14 asks not for relief but for satisfaction — and for gladness that lasts a whole life.
These requests do not stand alone. They answer the bleak picture in the verses just before.
Every request that makes up the prayer comes in verses 12-17. The earlier verses paint man's trouble in vivid terms, and that trouble is what leads him to make these requests. We see man stripped of all the false glory he wraps around himself — a poor, fallen, dying creature.
That stripping is not cruelty. One writer traces it back to Eden and finds mercy in the sentence of frailty.
When God drove our first parents out of Eden for their sin, He placed cherubim 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, so that man might know his weakness and frailty, and learn to number his days and gain a heart of 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?
Set beside that picture of dying man, this is a startling thing to ask. But the boldness is the point.
Faith knows His purpose is to bless, to give delight and joy to His people, and to do it by His own favour. It knows He delights in them, and it counts on this: "Satisfy us in the morning." What a bold word to say to God! But now it is confidence. The soul is restored in His love, the love He delights in. This joy is looked at as lasting too. "Rejoice and be glad all our days," it says. Why should faith not expect that from the God of goodness?
Notice what is asked for. Not comfort, not longer life — His steadfast love. That choice of word is deliberate.
Faith looks to God, not to failing men or passing circumstances, to give everlasting satisfaction. Still, faith knows that a guilty sinner can only be satisfied on the ground of grace. So the cry is, "Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love."
There is a second reason. Escaping judgment is a small thing next to this.
But turning aside His judgment is a small thing in comparison. The heart that is truly touched longs for God 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 is joy in God found like this! Our days usually come dressed far more plainly than this prayer implies. And yet this is nothing less than what we may all have, and should have.
Asking in the morning matters. One writer sets a life that seeks God early against days that simply pass away under wrath.
How true this would be if we sought the Lord early! Then our days would not be spent as days that "pass away" under God's wrath. But there is recovery, and the psalmist longs for it and for its gladness, in contrast to all the days of God's wrath.
Commentators also read this cry prophetically, as the voice of God's earthly people waiting for their deliverer. One writer sees the request as enormous, and traces where its answer is found.
Hope, then, is not quite extinguished, so the Psalm closes with prayer: "O satisfy us early with Your mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil." A large request indeed!
The same writer points to the psalm that immediately follows, with its promise of protection, long days and salvation shown to the one who dwells with God:
Lasting security is assured to the one who dwells in the shelter of the Most High. He will enjoy long life too, and God will show him His salvation (Psalm 91:14-16). How full an answer this is to the prayer in Psalm 90:13-17!
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- Stripped — Verses 1-11 show man as a frail, dying creature. Only then does this prayer make sense.
- Sentenced, in mercy — The verdict of frailty is itself kindness. It teaches us to number our days, and it turns us to the only One who can help.
- Satisfied by grace — Only grace can satisfy a guilty person. And no creature can be satisfied apart from his Creator.
- Sought early — Seek Him in the morning, and gladness replaces days that pass away under wrath.
- Sustained — The prayer asks for joy that lasts "all our days." One writer finds its full answer in the very next psalm.
Make us glad according to the days [wherein] thou hast afflicted us, according to the years [wherein] we have seen evil.
The psalm has spent fourteen verses on human weakness, God's anger, and days that pass like a sigh. Then it turns and asks God for gladness measured out against the very sorrow He sent.
The psalm belongs first to Israel, in a time of long trouble. Its principles still reach us.
Psalm 90 is in a special way Israel's cry for mercy and restoration in the last days, after their long affliction. But we will apply its principles as usual. It looks at two things in God's government: discipline in the strict sense, and satisfying mercy. Israel feels it as wrath, because they do not yet know reconciliation. We know it is love, but the truth of the dealing is the same, and we can apply it.
One writer ties this gladness to a recovery still ahead:
But there is recovery, longed for with its gladness, in contrast to all the days of God's wrath. We will know it in the measure that we recognise the work of God appearing to us. It has indeed appeared wonderfully in the great sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. But it will not appear to Israel until the day they bow the knee to the Lord Jesus.
Look at what the prayer asks. God sent the affliction as a just judgment. Yet the prayer makes the days of that sorrow the measure of the joy it asks for.
The soul taught by God in His wonderful ways of grace claims compensation. It claims it even for the affliction it has already known. Think of compensation from a judge for a just judgment inflicted! But rather it is a Father's heart that is free to show itself in wiping away the tears that for a time did good.
Such a prayer cannot rest on what the people deserve. The verse just before it asks God to satisfy them with His steadfast love.
Faith looks to God, not to failing men or passing circumstances, to give everlasting satisfaction. Still, faith realises that a guilty sinner can receive satisfaction only on the ground of grace.
The prayer never pretends the trouble came from somewhere else. It names God as the one who afflicted them, and that honesty is why they can ask Him for the joy.
So they look to Jehovah to return for deliverance, with the word of faith — how long? And they ask, for His servants, that His work might appear, since the affliction came from Him.
Writers do not leave this with Israel. They treat sorrow in a believer's life as a Father's discipline with a set purpose:
Discipline is the proof of the Lord's love, the evidence of our sonship: His scourging is the road to being received. The end is sharing in His holiness.
The same writer describes handing this verse to an elderly, frail believer, and what she did with it:
She looked back on her long days of affliction, and on the long years in which she had seen evil. Then she looked forward and saw the answer to her prayer close at hand: "MAKE US GLAD for as many days as you have afflicted us."
The psalm ends in prayer, not in results. Commentators read the very next psalm — about dwelling in the shelter of the Most High — as the reply:
So lasting security belongs to anyone marked out in this way. He will enjoy length of days too, and God will show him His salvation (14-16). How full an answer this is to the prayer in Psalm 90:13-17!
- Discipline — The psalm sees two things in God's government: discipline and satisfying mercy. Verse 15 is the hinge between them.
- Honesty — The prayer names God as the one who afflicted. Owning His hand in the sorrow is what makes it possible to ask Him for the joy.
- Grace — The prayer rests on God's steadfast love, not on merit. Only grace can satisfy a guilty sinner.
- Compensation — The prayer asks a judge for compensation over a just sentence. Only a Father's heart gives that, wiping away tears that did good for a time.
- Prospect — The measure of the sorrow becomes the measure of the gladness. The next psalm answers this prayer in full.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy majesty unto their sons.
Psalm 90 spends fifteen verses on how short and fragile human life is, and then it turns to prayer. Two questions follow: what "Your work" means after such a confession of weakness, and why the glory falls on the children.
Verse 16 belongs to a run of requests that all point the same way. One writer draws out what they have in common:
All four of his requests centre on God. Since man is what he is, there is no hope in him and nothing to expect from him. God's mercy, God's work, God's glory, God's beauty were his desire.
The prayer does not ask God to bless our work. It asks Him to show His own:
If God acts in grace, it must be on the ground of His own work. So at once there is the prayer, "Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your majesty to their sons." The power of His work rests on the majesty of His Person. To stain the majesty of His Person is to make little of the power of His work.
Several of these writers quote an older translation: where the ESV has "your glorious power," it reads "your majesty." The point holds either way — what God does carries weight because of who He is.
There is a difference between asking God to stop being angry and asking Him to act in blessing. The prayer of verse 16 reaches past the first to the second:
But faith looks at God's thoughts and purposes in blessing. It goes beyond mercies that return and mercies that hold back judgment. God has purposes in His love, and He works to carry them out. So they ask not only to be satisfied with His mercy, but for His work to appear. God's own work will make blessing good, and how good it will be! It will be shown to their honour and delight. So it is with us, for our souls. We seek not only restoring mercy, but on top of it the positive work of God producing blessing, bringing us nearer to Himself. It is then never merely restoration; it is a soul better able to appreciate God, and God more fully revealed to it.
One writer traces the movement from discipline to something better:
To turn away His judgment is a comparatively small thing. The heart truly touched longs after Himself. How can a creature be satisfied apart from his Creator?… The soul taught by God in His wonderful ways of grace even claims compensation for the affliction it has known. Think of compensation from a judge for a just judgment carried out! Instead it is a Father's heart, free to show itself in wiping away the tears that for a time did good. It was a discipline. He now prays that it may prove effective — that the "work" may appear, and His "glory" shine out after the storm has passed. Yes, and even "upon the children" afterwards.
Why should the glory fall on "their children"? Commentators point ahead to a day still to come. God's glory will then rest on His people on earth:
There will be heavenly and earthly scenes, but all is new creation. The Lamb's wife, the heavenly city, will carry the glory of God in her; but Israel and the earthly city will know that glory too. It will shine on them, if not in them: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you" (Isa. 60:1). All will enjoy it, though not with the same power. So this is the intelligent cry of a man of God, though with earthly hopes, looking on to the kingdom. … This language tells us that Israel speaks in this psalm, though it speaks of man as such. Man was tested in Israel, and Israel's fall is the witness of human frailty.
Another writer warns against resting in a partial answer:
It is good to accept the pledge. It is better still not to rest there, but to wait for the full blessing that Christ alone can give. Then the LORD's work will appear to His servants, and His glory upon their children.
- Emptied. There is no hope in man and nothing to expect from him — so every request in this prayer looks to God.
- Grounded. Grace acts "on the ground of His own work," and that work draws its power from the majesty of God's Person.
- Beyond. The request goes past mercies that merely restore, to "the positive work of God producing blessing, bringing us nearer to Himself."
- Compensating. After the discipline, His glory shines out "after the storm has passed — yes, and even upon the children afterwards."
- Ahead. Commentators see the full answer as still future — glory resting on God's people, and a blessing only Christ can give.
And let the beauty of Jehovah our God be upon us; and establish thou the work of our hands upon us yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it.
Psalm 90 has spent sixteen verses on how short and frail human life is, and it ends not in despair but in a request. Moses asks for two things. He asks that God's favor rest on His people — older translations, the ones the writers quoted here use, read "the beauty of the LORD." And he asks that the work of their hands should last.
The closing requests all look one way. After describing what man is, Moses asks nothing from him.
All four of his requests are centred in God. Man being what he is, there is no hope in him and nothing to be expected from him. God's mercy, God's work, God's glory, God's beauty were his desire.
The word behind "beauty" also lies behind the name Naomi, a woman in the book of Ruth. One writer traces its sense from her name to the psalms.
Her name appears to mean "pleasantness" or "sweetness," especially the gracious manner that goes with spiritual beauty. The psalmist uses the word when he writes about seeing the "beauty (pleasantness, graciousness) of the LORD" (Ps. 27:4), and again, of his desire that this "beauty" may be upon His people (Ps. 90:17).
There is a large step between admiring God's beauty in His house and asking to be dressed in it. One writer asks how Moses dared to ask for such a thing, and where the prayer came from.
There is but one answer to such questions. It was by inspiration of the Spirit of God. God had a design as great as that in mind for His saints. In due time, when His mercy, His work and His glory had appeared, He laid the basis for it and brought it to light... Being accepted in the Beloved means this: we stand before God in all His favour, and the beauty of the Beloved is upon us. No greater beauty than that could possibly be ours. Moses' request was a bold one, but not too bold. It has had an abundant answer.
No one makes this beauty for himself.
The beauty is in Him, not in Israel, though Israel will reflect that beauty as jewels reflect the light. Psalm 90:17 confirms this: "Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us." It was His beauty that David longed to see in the house of the LORD (Ps. 27:4).
Commentators apply the verse both ways. Israel still waits for it. Believers already stand in it.
Though the nation has never before known the preciousness of verse 17, at that time they will be invested with "the beauty of the LORD," just as believers today are seen by God to be "in Christ," for His beauty is put upon us in place of the ugliness of sin.
The order in the verse matters. The beauty comes first; the establishing of our work follows it, and depends on it.
In the end the beauty of the LORD will be upon us. The Christian can say it another way: "Conformed to the image of His Son." Then, once grace has secured the blessing, we shall find that the work of our hands is established. The works of self-righteousness will pass, but the works that flow from grace will be established. Not a cup of cold water given for Christ's sake will be forgotten.
Set that against what the man of the world builds.
Work of this sort is outside the range of the man of the world. He cannot touch it. He applies his hands to work of many varieties, yet it all decays. His empires, his pyramids, his skyscrapers, his giant businesses, his grand scientific theories — all of them, and much more besides, add up to exactly nothing.
The prayer asks God to establish our work because the ability to do it was never ours to begin with.
Everything comes from Him, from the power of His Holy Spirit, from the virtue of His death. He is the one who directs the work. He gives the means to do it. He fills the hearts of His own with a sense of their own inability. He establishes the work of their hands (Ps. 90:17).
- Source. Every request in the closing verses looks away from man and rests on God — His mercy, His work, His glory, His beauty.
- Gift. The "beauty" is God's own graciousness, the same beauty David longed to gaze at, now asked to rest on His people.
- Answer. Commentators see the bold request answered in Christ: we stand accepted in the Beloved, with His beauty upon us.
- Reach. The beauty stays God's own. Israel will reflect it as jewels reflect light.
- Result. Then the work stands. Self-righteous effort decays along with the world's empires. But not one cup of cold water given for Christ's sake is forgotten.