1 A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, a habitation Thou--Thou hast been, To 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 The resurrection of the Lord is our hope, the Lord's ascension our glorification. Today, you see, we are celebrating the feast of the ascension. So if we are to celebrate the Lord's ascension in the right way, with faith, with devotion, with reverence as God-fearing people, we must ascend with him and lift up our hearts. In ascending, however, we must not get above ourselves.
2 Before mountains were brought forth, And Thou dost form the earth and the world, Even from age unto age Thou art 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 Thou turnest man unto a bruised thing, And sayest, Turn back, ye sons of men.
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 Thine eyes are as yesterday, For it passeth on, yea, a watch by 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 Thou hast inundated them, they are asleep, In the morning as grass he changeth.
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 flourisheth, and hath changed, At evening it is cut down, and hath withered.
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 were consumed in Thine anger, And in Thy fury we have been troubled.
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 Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, Our hidden things at the light of Thy 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 pined away in Thy wrath, We consumed our years as a meditation.
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 And so the human race was lying under a just condemnation, and all men were the children of wrath. Of which wrath it is written: "All our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told." Of which wrath also Job says: "Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble." Of which wrath also the Lord Jesus says: "He that believeth on the…
10 Days of our years, in them are seventy years, And if, by reason of might, eighty years, Yet is their enlargement labour and vanity, For it hath been cut off hastily, and we fly away.
Jerome · AD 420 The days of our years in themselves are seventy years. Where are the thousand years? We have been contracted into seventy years: but if more, eighty. But if we live longer, it is no longer life, but death. But if among the powerful, eighty years. For whom will you find to be an eighty-year-old and to be healthy?
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 knoweth the power of Thine anger? And according to Thy fear--Thy wrath?
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 number our days aright let us know, And we bring the heart to 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 Turn back, O Jehovah, till when? And repent concerning Thy servants.
Jerome · AD 420 Turn back, O Lord, how long? We have sinned much, you turn away your face, our sins are not worthy to be seen by your eyes, and therefore we pray: Turn back, O Lord, how long? Behold, now so many ages have flowed by: the prophets have always proclaimed to the nations that you would come, and still you have not come. And direct the sons of men.
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 at morn with Thy kindness, And we sing and rejoice all our days.
Jerome · AD 420 And we have exulted and been delighted. After the joy of the resurrection of our Lord, by which we now believe both that we have been redeemed and that we shall rise again, for the remaining days of our life, rejoicing in this confidence, we exult, and with hymns and spiritual songs we render praise to God through Jesus Christ our Lord: to whom is glory unto the ages of ages.
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 Cause us to rejoice according to the days Wherein Thou hast afflicted us, The years we have seen evil.
16 Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, And Thine honour on 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 Jehovah our God be upon us, And the work of our hands establish on us, Yea, 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 And let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us. The Apostle also says to the Hebrews that the Lord and Savior is the splendor of the glory of the Father. And let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us. This is what is said also in another place: "The light of your countenance has been sealed upon us, O Lord." The sign of the cross is our banner.
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.