1 A prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been a dwelling for us in generation and generation.
Origen of Alexandria · AD 253 Amen I say to you, that this generation shall not pass away, until all these things be done. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. Let us see what this generation is, of which Christ speaks.
Basil of Caesarea · AD 379 Therefore, "God is our refuge and strength." To him who is able to say, "I can do all things in him," Christ, "who strengthens me," God is strength. Now, it is the privilege of many to say, "God is our refuge," and "Lord, you have been our refuge." But to say it with the same feelings as the prophet is the privilege of few.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another" [Psalm 90:1]: either in every generation, or in two generations, the old and new: because, as I said, he was the Minister of the Testament that related to the old generation, and the Prophet of the Testament which appertained to the new.
From Everlasting to Everlasting 2 Before the mountains were born, and you brought forth the earth and the world, and from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.
Jerome · AD 420 From generation to generation. In this place the serpent hisses. For those who say that souls were made before the world and before they were put into bodies, say this: Lord, you have become a refuge for us from generation to generation, before the mountains were made or the world was formed — that is, before this world was created, you were our refuge — punctuating badly, unde…
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 He adds, how He became our refuge, since He began to be that, viz. a refuge, to us which He had not been before, not that He had not existed before He became our refuge: "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever the earth and the world were made: and from age even unto age You are" [Psalm 90:2].
3 You turn man back to dust, and you say, “Return, sons of man.”
Jerome · AD 420 Turn not man away into lowliness. Moses prays on behalf of man, and what does he say? Do not suffer to perish him whom you fashioned in your image. Turn not man away into lowliness. Consider not the vileness of the body, but the dignity of the soul.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 But as our life here is exposed to numerous and great temptations, and it is to be feared lest we may be turned aside by them from that refuge, let us see what in consequence of this the prayer of the man of God seeks for.
4 For a thousand years in your eyes are like yesterday when it passes, and like a watch in the night.
Victorinus of Pettau · AD 304 Wherefore to those seven days the Lord attributed to each a thousand years; for thus went the warning: "In Thine eyes, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day." Therefore in the eyes of the Lord each thousand of years is ordained, for I find that the Lord's eyes are seven.
Jerome · AD 420 And as a watch in the night. The night has four watches, marked off in periods of three hours each, as it is said in the Gospel, "In the fourth watch of the night" Jesus "came to them," which is understood to be about cockcrow. This, then, is what he says: a thousand years with you are to be compared not only to the shortness of a day, but to the span of three hours.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday, which is past by" [Psalm 90:4]: hence we ought to turn to Your refuge, where You are without any change, from the fleeting scenes around us; since however long a time may be wished for for this life, "a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday:" not as tomorrow, which is to come: for all limited periods of time…
5 You flood them away; they are a sleep; in the morning they are like grass that passes on.
Jerome · AD 420 Their years shall be counted as nothing. What he says is this: since man from the beginning of the world lived nearly a thousand years, and a thousand years before God are as a watch in the night. Nay, I have said enough: the ages of men are as nothing in comparison with the divine eternity. Do you wish to know more fully how human life is nothing? Hear what follows.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Next, the man of God, or rather the Prophetic spirit, seems to be reciting some law written in the secret wisdom of God, in which He has fixed a limit to the sinful life of mortals, and determined the troubles of mortality, in the following words: "Their years are as things which are nothing worth: in the morning let it fade away like the grass" [Psalm 90:5].
6 In the morning it blossoms and passes on; by evening it withers and dries up.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "In the evening," it means after they come, "let it fall, and be dried up, and withered" [Psalm 90:6]. It is "to fall" in death, be "dried up" in the corpse, "withered" in the dust. What is this but flesh, wherein is the accursed lust of fleshly things?
Bonaventure · AD 1257 Adam passed over from truth to vanity. "A phantom only, man goes his ways; like vapor only are his restless pursuits; he heaps up stores, and knows not who will use them.
7 For we are finished in your anger, and by your wrath we are terrified.
Jerome · AD 420 In your anger we have failed. Because through our sins we have earned your anger, we have lost in Adam the immortality you had given, from whom sin has been handed down to us, as it were naturally, by hereditary right. And in your fury we have been troubled.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Making no secret that this fate is a penalty inflicted for sin, he adds at once, "For we consume away in Thy displeasure, and are troubled at Thy wrathful indignation" [Psalm 90:7]: we consume away in our weakness, and are troubled from the fear of death; for we are become weak, and yet fearful to end that weakness.
8 You have set our iniquities before you, our hidden things in the light of your face.
Jerome · AD 420 You have set our iniquities in your sight. Nothing of our sins has been hidden from you: all the evils we have committed are manifest before you.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "You have set our misdeeds before You" [Psalm 90:8]: that is, You have not dissembled Your anger: "and our age in the light of Your countenance." "The light of Your countenance" answers to "before You," and to "our misdeeds," as above.
9 For all our days have turned away in your fury; we have finished our years like a murmur.
Dionysius of Alexandria · AD 264 For in the most general sense it holds good that it is apparently not possible for any person to remain altogether without experience of ill.
Jerome · AD 420 For all our days have failed. So do the days pass and death draw near, that in a manner, while we know it not, our whole age and life itself is stolen away, scanty as it is.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For all our days are failed, and in Thine anger we have failed" [Psalm 90:9]. These words sufficiently prove that our subjection to death is a punishment.
10 The days of our years — in them are seventy years, or if with strength, eighty years; and their pride is trouble and iniquity, for it passes quickly and we fly away.
Jerome · AD 420 The days of our years in themselves are seventy years: but if in strength, eighty years: and more than these is labor and sorrow. See what he says, More than these is labor and sorrow. This is what we said above, that where we think there is gain in our life, there we find loss and disadvantage.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "The days of our age are threescore years and ten; and though men be so strong that they come to fourscore years, yet is more of them but labour and sorrow" [Psalm 90:10]. These words appear to express the shortness and misery of this life: since those who have reached their seventieth year are styled old men.
11 Who knows the strength of your anger, and your fury according to the fear of you?
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "For who knows the power of Your wrath: and for the fear of You to number Your anger?" [Psalm 90:11]. It belongs to very few men, he says, to know the power of Your wrath; for when Thou dost spare, Your anger is so far heavier against most men; that we may know that labour and sorrow belong not to wrath, but rather to Your mercy, when You chasten and teachest those whom You lov…
12 To count our days — so make it known, and we will bring in a heart of wisdom.
Jerome · AD 420 Make your right hand thus known, and those fettered in heart in wisdom. Your right hand, with which you made the world, enlighten the world. "For the arm of the Lord, to whom has it been revealed?" Your right hand, with which you made man, let it itself take up and save the human body. And those fettered in heart in wisdom.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "Make Your right hand so well known" [Psalm 90:12]. This is the reading of most of the Greek copies: not of some in Latin, which is thus, "Make Your right hand well known to me." What is, "Your right hand," but Your Christ, of whom it is said, And to whom is the Arm of the Lord revealed?
Desert Fathers · AD 500 A hermit said, 'If you lose gold or silver, you can find something as good as you lost. But the man who loses time can never make up what he has lost.'
13 Return, LORD! How long? And have compassion on your servants.
Jerome · AD 420 Turn back, Lord, how long? Turn back, Lord, and look upon your image: do not show us your back, but your face. Turn back, how long? He who says how long shows that he desires, and cannot bear the delays of his desire.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 And as when they became so well known, as to despise these things, and by setting their affections on things eternal, gave a testimony through their sufferings (whence they are called witnesses or martyrs in the Greek), they endured for a long while many bitter temporal afflictions.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your loyal love, and we will sing aloud and be glad in all our days.
Jerome · AD 420 We have been filled in the morning with your mercy. There are mysteries in what is said in the psalms, and all things are full of figures. Moses prays in the person of the human race, that the Son of God may deign to come to the lands of earth.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 Next, in anticipation of future blessings, of which he speaks as already vouchsafed, he says, "We are satisfied with Your mercy in the morning" [Psalm 90:14]. Prophecy has thus been kindled for us, in the midst of these toils and sorrows of the night, like a lamp in the darkness, until day dawn, and the Day-star arise in our hearts.
15 Gladden us according to the days you afflicted us, the years we have seen evil.
16 Let your work appear to your servants, and your majesty to their sons.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 But now in days that are as yet evil, let us speak as follows. "Look upon Thy servants, and upon Thy works" [Psalm 90:16]. For Thy servants themselves are Thy works, not only inasmuch as they are men, but as Thy servants, that is, obedient to Thy commands.
17 And let the pleasantness of the Lord our God be upon us; and establish the work of our hands upon us — and the work of our hands, establish it.
Athanasius of Alexandria · AD 373 Thus, if Isaiah says, "The everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth"; and Susanna said, "O everlasting God";42 and Baruch wrote, "I will cry to the Everlasting in my days," and shortly after, "My hope is in the Everlasting, that he will have you, and joy is come to me from the holy One"; yet forasmuch as the apostle, writing to the Hebrews, says, "Who being the rad…
Jerome · AD 420 This much we have said for the present about the psalter, and I reckon we have lingered longer than we should have. We realize that we have said much more than we ought to have said; but we cannot keep silent about the words of our Lord, we cannot leave a psalm we have begun. Whatever profits the soul is not too much; nothing is enough of what is good, if indeed it is good.
Augustine of Hippo · AD 430 "And let the brightness of the Lord our God be upon us" [Psalm 90:17]; whence the words, "O Lord, the light of Your countenance is marked upon us." And, "Make Thou straight the works of our hands upon us:" that we may do them not for hope of earthly reward: for then they are not straight, but crooked.