What does it mean for God to establish the work of our hands (Psalm 90:17)?

(v. 17) Moreover, the blessing that is secured by God's work must far transcend the requirements of our need, and the deliverance from sorrows by the way. The end is that the beauty of the Lord will be upon us, or as the Christian can say, “Conformed to the image of His Son.” Then, when blessing has been secured by grace, we shall find that the work of our hands will be 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.

But there will be wonderful results from this too. 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. Then after the psalmist speaks of God's work, he is free to pray that God may "establish the work of our hands." For God's work has made a wonderful difference to the work of those who are redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. All the world will be amazed at the marvelous change in Israel's works, as indeed even today many are amazed at the difference God's grace makes in the works of one who is saved by His infinite grace.

Just like the Lord when Jairus appealed to Him, so Elisha consents to come with his servants. He says, "I will go" (v. 3). Once come to the banks of the Jordan, they go to work. But suddenly the work is interrupted. One of the sons of the prophets loses his tool in the river, a tool that was not even his own, for he had borrowed it. His poverty, his incapacity are thus manifested: he has no resources. The river of death has swallowed up all his hope. Elisha alone — Christ in Spirit with the remains — can bring the remedy. Death is conquered; it not only has the gift of cleansing, but it restores to the believer the power he has lost of laboring in the work of Christ and of making Israel to dwell in safety. Everything comes from Him, from the power of His Holy Spirit, from the virtue of His death. He it is who directs the work, who gives the means of accomplishing it, who fills the hearts of His own with the feeling of their own incapacity, who establishes the work of their hands (Ps. 90:17). Without this event the prophetic remnant might have had confidence in its own capacity to do the work of God in Israel. The Spirit of Christ alone has the secret of putting strength in their hands so that they might labor at His work.

We know, with Solomon, that what God does He does for ever. It is certain therefore that if God establishes upon us the work of our hands it will be forever. Just think of it! You and I have at the present moment the opportunity of putting our hands to work, the results of which will never disappear. The work of kings and statesmen, of conquerors and diplomats and builders of big business, is as nothing compared with it.

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.

There is but one answer to such questions. It was by inspiration of the Spirit of God. So great a design as that was in the mind of God for His saints, and in due time, when His mercy, His work, His glory had appeared, the basis for it was laid and the fact of it came to light. The gospel today introduces us into "the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:5-6). Acceptance in the Beloved involves this, that we stand before God in all His favour: 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.

Suffering, then, as the godly will with the rest of the returned remnant, is death to overtake them, ere their long-expected deliverer in the person of the Messiah shall appear? It might seem like it. Brief life their portion, death the certain event (9, 10). 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 (11)? Two petitions then ascend. First, to be taught to number their days, that they may apply their hearts to wisdom (12) and secondly, they request Jehovah to return repenting Himself concerning His servants (13). Hope, then, is not quite extinguished, so the Psalm closes with prayer: "O satisfy us early with Thy mercy that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil." A large request indeed! "Let Thy work," they continue, "appear to Thy servants, and Thy glory to [or, upon, R.V.] their children. 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" (14-17).

Naomi. Elimelech's wife's name, like his own, does not occur elsewhere in scripture. Her name appears to mean "pleasantness" or "sweetness," especially that graciousness of manner which is associated with spiritual beauty. The word is used by the psalmist when he writes of beholding the "beauty (pleasantness, graciousness) of Jehovah" (Ps. 27:4), and again, of his desire that this "beauty" may be upon His people (Ps. 90:17). See also Zech. 11:7, 10, where the word is again found. Naomi (pleasantness) is also connected with wisdom, for Solomon says, "Her ways are ways of pleasantness" (Prov. 3:17). By name therefore, the gracious, good, and wise Naomi must have been a fitting consort for Elimelech; united they would be a noble and goodly pair, powerful and pleasant in their joint lives.

Verse 17 lifts our eyes above this great blessing for Israel, to contemplate the Blesser Himself! “For how great is His goodness and how great is His beauty!” His character of goodness is wonderful, but it draws fuller attention to the great beauty of His own person. The beauty is in Him, not in Israel, though Israel will reflect that beauty as jewels reflect the light. This is confirmed by Psalm 90:17, “Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.” It is His beauty that David desired to behold in the house of the Lord (Ps. 27:4). But in having our eyes directed to the Lord's goodness and beauty, we will in some measure reflect this in our own character.

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 elaborate scientific speculations, all of them, and much more beside, will come in their sum total to exactly — nothing.