Psalm Ninety

Psalm ninety is a prayer that Moses uttered, registered in the pages of psalms. It is a review of his experiences in the desert, as the leader of the nation of Israel on their route to the Promised Land. In this psalm, he acknowledges God as the eternal God, the Creator, the sovereign and powerful God; man’s brevity of life and his fallen nature. Moses, a man of God, whom He considered humble and worth of respect, a man to whom God spoke face to face and defended against those who rebelled against him as in the case of Moses’ brother Aaron and sister, Miriam. In Numbers 12: 5-9 reads: When the Lord came down to deal with them, He said, Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make Myself known to him in a vision and speak to him in a dream. But not so with My servant Moses; he is entrusted and faithful in all My house. With him I speak mouth to mouth, clearly and not in dark speeches; and he beholds the form of the Lord. Why then were you not afraid to speak against My servant Moses? And the anger of the Lord was kindled against them and He departed. There has never been a man on the face of this earth who has had such deep relationship with God. Even, in his death, it was God who buried him. Perhaps angels witnessed Moses’ funeral.

Moses expresses this beautiful prayer from his heart with honest desire to acquire a heart of wisdom. He addresses the Psalm to the Lord, saying, Lord, You have been our dwelling place and our refuge in all generations (verse 1). When Moses shines the light on the fact of whom God is, man, in his natural estate, is nothing but dust, lasting as long as a weed of the field. He can never be compared to God in his sinful condition, although created in the image of God. Moses dealt with Israel for forty years. He came to see his people for what they were: rebellious and of hardened heart. He suffered much under their scrutiny of criticism. As an intercessor, he prayed for them in times when God was angry and ready to give up on those people. In this psalm, he writes, Who knows the power of Your anger? And Your wrath, who connects it with the reverent and worshipful fear that is due You?  (verse11). We see His power displayed in the early years of Israel’s pilgrimage, when God descended to Mount Sinai to covenant with them; Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke, for He descended upon it in fire; its smoke ascended like that of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. (Exodus 19:18). The writer to the letter to the Hebrews describes how Moses felt at that time when God descended to Mount Sinai saying, In fact, so awful and terrifying was the sight that Moses said, I am terrified (Heb. 12:21).

Psalm 90, more than any other psalm, (in my opinion), truly testifies the reality of God as a result of Moses have physically experienced Him. When I read this psalm, I sense the deep relationship between God and Moses. Defending Moses, God told Aaron and his sister, Miriam, “I speak to Moses mouth to mouth and he beholds the form of the Lord.”  Twice, He spent forty days and forty nights on the mountain in the presence of God. His death happened in the presence of the Lord and He buried him there. He heard the voice of the Lord audibly and not in a dream or vision. So, when Moses wrote this psalm, he was reliving those days in the desert with its challenges and victories. He was well acquainted with God’s wrath and anger in His judgment toward Israel. So, his prayer was one of intercession for them when he said, Who knows the power of Your anger and Your wrath? So teach us to number our days that we may get us a heart of wisdom; Turn, O Lord [from Your fierce anger]! How long-? Revoke Your sentence and be compassionate and at ease toward Your servants. O satisfy us with Your mercy and loving-kindness in the morning, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days; make us glad in proportion to the days in which You have afflicted us and to the years in which we have suffered evil; let Your work be revealed to Your servants and Your majesty to their children; and let the beauty and delightfulness and favor of the Lord our God be upon us; confirm and establish the work of our hands- Yes, the work of our hands, confirm and establish it (Ps. 90:11-17).