Geneva Bible Study Notes :: Footnotes for Psalms 90

Psa 90:2 Before the (c) mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou [art] God.

(c) You have chosen us to be your people before the foundations of the world were laid.

Psa 90:3 Thou (d) turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

(d) Moses by lamenting the frailty and shortness of man's life moves God to pity.

Psa 90:4 (e) For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.

(e) Though man thinks his life is long, which is indeed most short, yet though it were a thousand years, yet in God's sight it is as nothing, and as the watch that lasts only three hours.

Psa 90:5 Thou (f) carriest them away as with a flood; they are [as] a sleep: in the morning [they are] like grass [which] groweth up.

(f) You take them away suddenly as with a flood.

Psa 90:7 For we are (g) consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.

(g) You called us by the rods to consider the storms of our life and for our sins you shorten our days.

Psa 90:9 For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we (h) spend our years as a tale [that is told].

(h) Our days are not only short but miserable as our sins daily provoke your wrath.

Psa 90:10 The days of our years [are] threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength [they be] (i) fourscore years, yet [is] their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.

(i) Meaning according to the common state of life.

Psa 90:11 (k) Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, [so is] thy wrath.

(k) If man's life for the shortness of it is miserable, it is even more so if your wrath is on it, as they who fear you only know.

Psa 90:12 So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto (l) wisdom.

(l) Which is by considering the shortness of our life, and by meditating the heavenly joys.

Psa 90:13 Return, O LORD, (m) how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.

(m) Meaning, will you be angry?

Psa 90:16 (n) Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their (o) children.

(n) Even your mercy, which is the chiefest work.

(o) As God's promises belong well to their poverty, as to them, so Moses prays for the posterity.

Psa 90:17 And let the (p) beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and (q) establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.

(p) Meaning, that is was obscured when he ceases to do good to his Church.

(q) For unless you guide us with your Holy Spirit, our enterprises cannot succeed.