The Oldest Psalm – A Song and a Prayer for Cantate 2020

            The Song of Moses at the Red Sea in Exodus 15 is the first “song” in the Bible.  We should learn it well because the saints of heaven sing this song in eternity! (Revelation 15:3) Moses gives us another song in Deuteronomy 32, but that’s not where I want us to go for Bible study on this Cantate Sunday.  Let’s go to Psalm 90, a prayer written by Moses and the only one of his in the Book of Psalms.

A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.

90 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
    in all generations.
2 Before the mountains were brought forth,
    or ever you had formed the earth and the world,
    from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You return man to dust
    and say, “Return, O children of man [Hebrew: Adam]!”
4 For a thousand years in your sight
    are but as yesterday when it is past,
    or as a watch in the night.

5 You sweep them away as with a flood; they are like a dream,
    like grass that is renewed in the morning:
6 in the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
    in the evening it fades and withers.

7 For we are brought to an end by your anger;
    by your wrath we are dismayed.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
    our secret sins in the light of your presence.

9 For all our days pass away under your wrath;
    we bring our years to an end like a sigh.
10 The years of our life are seventy,
    or even by reason of strength eighty;
yet their span is but toil and trouble;
    they are soon gone, and we fly away.
11 Who considers the power of your anger,
    and your wrath according to the fear of you?

12 So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.
13 Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.
16 Let your work be shown to your servants,
    and your glorious power to their children.
17 Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,
    and establish the work of our hands upon us;
    yes, establish the work of our hands!

Well, that was a wild ride! From God being our “dwelling place” to His hot wrath and anger bringing us into the dust of death, to a hopeful plea for instruction, gladness, and God’s work to be done, we’re up then down, then eyes lifted up in hope.  One thing is for sure, the message about sin and death in this psalm is striking and even intimidating.  You probably won’t find many modern praise bands turning this psalm into a syncopated refrain. In fact, this psalm even clashes with how a lot of Christians speak about death. There’s much to learn! Let’s dive in:

What Was Moses Thinking?  Remember His Specific Ministry

            Saint Paul gives us an important reminder about the work of Moses and his Law.  2 Corinthians 3:7-9, “Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory.”

            The Law threatens and accuses, that’s why its ministry is one of death and condemnation.  This is NOT because the Law is bad.  The Law is Good! Supremely good! It’s God’s good and perfect will.  The threats, accusations, death, and condemnation are not the fault of the Law, but the fault of the law-breakers! You and me!

            Now remember, the Law and its conscience-killing work are not ends in themselves. They are preparation for the new life that comes through the Gospel- the grace of God in Jesus Christ that was God’s plan before the foundation of the world (Ps. 90:2).  His death and resurrection is what Psalm 90:16-17 is pointing us towards.  Psalm 90 fully captures that preparatory work of the Law and Moses’ ministry of death, praying to God for the mercy, grace, and favor that will be upon them only through Jesus Christ and His means of Grace.

A Walk through the Psalm, Section by Section

The Address

v. 1—Moses, and all who sing this Psalm call on the Lord as “our dwelling place (or refuge) in all generations.” Are we included in “all generations”?  Then this is our prayer and song as well! 

 

The Rationale

vv. 2-6—Moses forces ahead with clarity: God’s eternity (v. 2) contrasts man’s perishability (v. 3). This comparison is expanded in verses 4-6.  A thousand years, a greater sum than even the longest life recorded in the Bible, is in God’s perspective but a day, yesterday which has just passed, even only a brief three or four-hour watch of the night. Mankind, on the other hand, and all his generations, rise and fall in the sleep of death.  Moses switches the imagery in the middle of verse 5.  Now man’s entire life is compared with the brevity of grass, ever changing and fading, even after a morning resurgence it is certain to wilt and wither by evening.

v.7—Moses explains why man must perish in this way.  The cause of death is God’s wrath over sin. Death is not a person, the grim reaper, who carries out his own will (although even Scripture personifies it this way at times, “O Death, where is your victory?”). Saying God is the cause of death is another way of saying He’s the One who carries it out, and He does so with the same mode of operation with which He carried out the creation of Man- through His Word.  “You say, ‘return, O children of Adam.’”

The Lamentation or Confession                    

vv. 8-10—Moses demonstrates for us that God is justified.  Man is guilty of sin and deserves death. The cause of God’s wrath is man’s sin (vv. 7-8).  Our days fade away with no personal righteousness to alleviate God’s wrath. So we pass our years with the brevity and emptiness of a sigh (v. 9).  Even if a man by reason of strength (or medical innovations) prolongs his life from 70 to 80 years, the best of it is all trouble and disaster.  It accomplishes nothing before God. Indeed the pride of those years, the strength that sustained man, vanishes quickly and the hot East wind gathers up the dead grass and it flies away with no vitality left to help it cling to the arid soil.

The Transition

v.11—Moses concludes the rationale for this prayer by asking parallel rhetorical questions that flow from verses 3-10 and prepare us for the petitions of verses 12-17.  Who knows the power of God’s anger and His rage according to properly ordered fear?  WOW!  What a stunning and spot-on depiction of how we all live.  No one, in any generation of mankind thinks about his own mortality until it seizes him, until he is actively perishing.  Then we experience this divine reality. Since such suffering (olden days called “the pangs of death”) is typically at life’s end and risks being too sudden or too late for repentance Moses moves into the petitions that call us back to the worshiper’s everlasting refuge.

The Petitions

v.12—The first petition is for instruction that we would recognize the truth of sin and its consequences and thereby live a rightly ordered life in repentance and faith. 

vv.13-17—The final petitions of this prayer all build on the hope from verse 1 and anticipate the Law’s fulfillment in Jesus Christ who brings life through faith, apart from the Law of sin and death.  Yahweh, the God of the Covenant, is called upon to return speedily and have pity in accord with His proclamation of His own Name “Yahweh, Yahweh, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, preserving steadfast love for thousands, bearing iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will certainly not leave unpunished [the guilty], visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children, to the third and the fourth generation” (Ex. 34.6-7).

The terror experienced in verses 3-10, the teaching and work of the Law, can only produce a devastating contrition and repentance.  The faith that undergirds this prayer is taught them in the promise of Yahweh made to them in His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  Moses appeals to this promise and God’s grace and favor when asking for pity (v. 13), steadfast love (v. 14), and joy and gladness (vv. 14-15). Finally, Moses prays for the work of the Gospel to come to fruition. That is, that Yahweh’s work be revealed and the splendor of His Son’s incarnation be made manifest to their sons.  Then, truly, the grace and favor of the Lord will be upon this perishing people and their deeds may be firmly established in faith instead of under the Law.