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THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE

"Behold thou hast made my days as a handbreath, my lifetime is as nothing. Before thee verily every man standeth but as vapor.

"Surely as a semblance man walketh about, as vapor he is disquieted.

He heapeth up riches and he knoweth not who shall gather them. "And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? my hope is in thee;

From all my transgressions deliver me, make me not the reproach of im-
pious fools.

'I am dumb, I open not my mouth, because thou hast done it.
10 Remove thy stroke from off me; I am consumed by thy might."
"When with rebukes thou dost correct a mortal man because of iniquity,
As a moth thou destroyest his beauty; yea, every man is but as vapor.

12 Hear, O Jehovah, my prayer, and give ear to my cry.
Hold not thy peace at the tears which I shed,°

For I am thy guest, a sojourner, as were all my forefathers.
13Oh spare me, that I may take heart again before I depart and be no more.'»

§ 169. Prayer That God the Infinite May Be Gracious to Finite Man, Ps. 90

Ps. 90 10 Lord, thou hast been' in all generations; 2Before the mountains were brought forth,

Or the earth and the land were born,"

From everlasting to everlasting thou art God.

"Thou turnest man to dust,"

And sayest, 'Return, ye sons of men.'

4For a thousand years in thy sight

Are but as yesterday when it is past,
And as a watch in the night."

395 Slightly correcting the Heb., which repeats the all twice in the line. the vs. seems to be that finite man is, in the sight of God, but a passing vapor. 3910 Following the Gk. Lit., by the might of thy hand. 3912 Heb. has simply at my tears.

P 3913 This line is based on Job 1020. 21.

The meaning of

169 This ps. bears the striking title, A Prayer of Moses, the Man of God, probably suggested by the reminders of the opening chapters of Gen. in 1.2 and by its majestic spirit. Like many of the hymns of the Psalter, it grew out of deep personal experience; but vss. 13-17 show that it was originally written to express the feelings of the Jewish community. Possibly, however, an older individual ps. is to be found in 1-12. If so, 13-17 contain a later appendix, intended to adapt it to use in public worship. In any case a satisfactory background is found for the ps. in the latter part of the Gk. period, when writers, like the author of Ecc., were meditating on the significance of life. The strong didactic purpose and the wisdom point of view revealed in the ps. confirm this dating.

901 As has been pointed out by many commentators, the phrase our dwelling place, which is found in the standard Heb. text, obscures the thought of this opening stanza. It was probably introduced from 91. Certain Gk. MSS., influenced by 912, read stronghold, indicating that the text was uncertain. The present Heb. reads:

1901 I. e., thou art eternal.

O Lord, thou art our dwelling place,

Thou art ours in all generations.

90 So Gk., Syr., Targ., Aquila, and Syr., supported by the context. I. e., the dry land was separated from the waters. Cf. Gen. 1. Heb., thou hadst formed.

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190 Cheyne, from aon to aon. Certain interpreters would transpose this and the following The parallelism with 5. supports the present order. It is a striking example of enveloping parallelism. u 903 Not destruction, as in the current translations.

90 This two-beat line may be secondary.

Pity and deliver

finite

man

Heed

my

prayer

God's

eternal character

Man's frailty and finiteness

Brevity of his life

Tragic fatal effects

of his sins

Sad and sorrowful his days

May God

instruct

his children

And

show

them his

mercy and

favor

"Thou sowest them year by year;

They are like grass which groweth up in the morning,
"In the morning it blossometh and groweth up,
In the evening it fadeth and withereth.

"For we are consumed in thine anger,

And by thy wrath we are filled with dismay.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee,
Our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
'For all our days do decline,*

In thy wrath we bring our years to an end.

10As a sigh are the days of our years,
In them are threescore years and ten,
And, if one be strong, fourscore years;
Yet is their duration" but labor and sorrow,
For it is soon gone, and we fly away.

"Who knoweth the strength of thine anger,"
And who beholdeth thy wrath?

12So teach us to number our days, b
That we may get a mind that is wise.

13 Relent, O Jehovah! How long?

And take pity again on thy servants.

14Oh satisfy us in the morning with thy lovingkindness,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

15 Make us glad according to the days thou hast afflicted us,
And the years wherein we have seen evil.

16 Let thy work be revealed to thy servants,

And thy glory unto their children.

17 May thy favor, O Lord, be upon us;

And establish thou the work of our hands.

Cf.

905 Following a suggestion of the Gk., which is strongly supported by the context.
Haupt, Journ. of Bib. Lit., XXXI, Pt. III, 115, 116, who reads, Thou bringest them into being each
year, lit., thou hast gendered. The current rendering, Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they
are as sleep, makes no sense and is a loose translation of the Heb. The consonants of the Heb.
word for year and sleep are the same. Gk. and Syr. retain the original year.
*90 So Briggs, P88., II, 271.

y 9010 This division of the vs. improves the parallelism, metre, and thought.
9010 Lit., breadth. A revised text gives the reading most of them.

9011 Following the Gk. supported by the parallelism. The current translation, and thy wrath according to the fear that is due thee, is simply an awkward attempt to extract a meaning from the corrupt Heb. text.

b9012 Or, with Haupt, make us know accurately how to number our days.

9012 Lit., with Syr., Aquila, and Sym., enter into a heart of wisdom.
d9013 Lit., turn.

9017 Certain MSS. read, simply, favor of Jehovah. Heb. adds our God. The metre and the remarkable symmetry of this ps. confirm the conclusion that it originally read as above.

19017 So certain Heb. MSS. and Gk. The Heb. adds upon us, and the work of our hands establish it. This awkward addition is clearly due to the error of a scribe.

I.

REFLECTIVE AND DIDACTIC PSALMS

THE LESSONS OF ISRAEL'S HISTORY REGARDING JEHO– VAH'S CHARACTER AND DEMANDS

Dt. 321-43, Ps. 78, 106, 77, 817-16, 127, 14412-15

II. THE VALUE OF THE LAW

Ps. 197-14, 119

III. THE PROPHETIC STANDARDS OF RIGHT AND WRONG Ps. 15, 361-4, 50

IV. THE FATE OF THE RIGHTEOUS AND THE WICKED Ps. 14 (53), 32, 37, 49, 34, 52, 1, 91, 112, 73, 82, 94, 125, 128, 133

REFLECTIVE AND DIDACTIC PSALMS

I

THE LESSONS OF ISRAEL'S HISTORY REGARDING JEHOVAH'S
CHARACTER AND DEMANDS

Dt. 321-43, Ps. 78, 106, 77, 817-16, 127, 14412-15

§ 170. Jehovah's Justice and Fidelity Revealed in Israel's History, Dt. 321-43

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For all his acts are justice;

A God of faithfulness and without deceit,
Just and upright is he.

The Reflective and Didactic Psalms.-The sages speak in this group of pss., which might properly be classified with the other wisdom writings, such as Pr., B. Sir., and Job. Here the didactic purpose of the psalmist is clearly revealed. The wise teachers of old Israel realized that what men sang under the influence of deep emotion sank deepest into their consciousness. Plato voiced the same when he declared, the character of the people depends so much more upon their songs than upon anything else that we ought to make these the chief forces in education.

§ 170 In this vigorous hymn the thoughts of the prophets and sages mingle. Such passages as 3 and 43 indicate that the author lived very nearly if not quite contemporaneously with the author of Is. 40-55. Like the author of those immortal poems, the psalmist studies the past to learn the lessons which it taught regarding Jehovah's attitude toward his people and their obligations to him. History, in the poet's mind, is but an illustration of Jehovah's character and ways of dealing with men. The resemblance in general theme between this ps. and 78 and 105 is close. Its style is vigorous. It contains many ideas and figures taken from Am., Hos., and Ezek. Its prevailing expressions are those which characterize the writings of Jer. and Ezek. It certainly is not earlier than the period of Judah's decline. The prominence of the reflective, wisdom motif suggests a later date. Vss. 20-33 may refer to the Assyr. invasion but they find their natural background in the period of the Bab. exile. The foes are probably the Edomites and Ammonites, who improved the hours of Judah's humiliations to pay off old scores. The hope that Jehovah will soon rise in judgment finds its closest analogies in the prophecies of Hag. and Zech., so that the ps. is probably to be dated in the first half of the Persian period. The prologue, 31, and the epilogue, 324, preserve the late tradition that Moses was the author of this ps. Probably the tradition that associated it with Moses is responsible for its place in the book of Deuteronomy.

pss.

324 A common designation of the Deity. Cf. 15, 18, 30, 31, 37 and II Sam. 233 and often in It is the symbol of his unchanging character ever present as a protection and refuge for his people. Great Rock was also a title often used of the Assyrians in addressing their gods. b324 Lit., crookedness, the antithesis of upright in the next line.

Jehovah's fidelity and

Israel's in

fidelity

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