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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 90:5 - 90:5
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Psa 90:5-6 tell us how great is the distance between men and this eternal selfsameness of God. The suffix of זְרַמְתָּם, referred to the thousand years, produces a synallage (since שׁנה is feminine), which is to be avoided whenever it is possible to do so; the reference to בני־אדם, as being the principal object pointed to in what has gone before, is the more natural, to say the very least. In connection with both ways of applying it, זָרַם does not signify: to cause to rattle down like sudden heavy showers of rain; for the figure that God makes years, or that He makes men (Hitzig: the germs of their coming into being), to rain down from above, is fanciful and strange. זָרַם may also mean to sweep or wash away as with heavy rains, abripere instar nimbi, as the old expositors take it. So too Luther at one time: Du reyssest sie dahyn (Thou carriest them away), for which he substituted later: Du lessest sie dahin faren wie einen Strom (Thou causest them to pass away as a river); but זֶרֶם always signifies rain pouring down from above. As a sudden and heavy shower of rain, becoming a flood, washes everything away, so God's omnipotence sweeps men away. There is now no transition to another alien figure when the poet continues: שֵׁנָה יִֽהְיוּ. What is meant is the sleep of death, Psa 76:6, שְׁנַת עֹולָם, Jer 51:39, Jer 51:57, cf. יָשֵׁן Psa 13:4. He whom a flood carries away is actually brought into a state of unconsciousness, he goes entirely to sleep, i.e., he dies.
From this point the poet certainly does pass on to another figure. The one generation is carried away as by a flood in the night season, and in the morning another grows up. Men are the subject of יַֽחֲלֹף, as of יִֽהְיוּ. The collective singular alternates with the plural, just as in Psa 90:3 the collective אנושׁ alternates with בני־אדם. The two members of Psa 90:5 stand in contrast. The poet describes the succession of the generations. One generation perishes as it were in a flood, and another grows up, and this also passes on to the same fate. The meaning in both verses of the חלף, which has been for the most part, after the lxx, Vulgate, and Luther, erroneously taken to be praeterire = interire, is determined in accordance with this idea. The general signification of this verb, which corresponds to the Arabic chlf, is “to follow or move after, to go into the place of another, and in general, of passing over from one place or state into another.” Accordingly the Hiphil signifies to put into a new condition, Psa 102:27, to set a new thing on the place of an old one, Isa 9:9 [10], to gain new strength, to take fresh courage, Isa 40:31; Isa 41:1; and of plants: to send forth new shoots, Job 14:7; consequently the Kal, which frequently furnishes the perfect for the future Hiphil (Ew. §127, b, and Hitzig on this passage), of plants signifies: to gain new shoots, not: to sprout (Targum, Syriac), but to sprout again or afresh, regerminare; cf. Arab. chilf, an aftergrowth, new wood. Perishing humanity renews its youth in ever new generations. Psa 90:6 again takes up this thought: in the morning it grows up and shoots afresh, viz., the grass to which men are likened (a figure appropriated by Isa. 40), in the evening it is cut down and it dries up. Others translate מֹולֵל to wither (root מל, properly to be long and lax, to allow to hang down long, cf. אֻמְלַל, אָמַל with Arab. 'ml, to hope, i.e., to look forth into the distance); but (1) this Pilel of מוּל or Poēl of מָלַל is not favourable to this intransitive way of taking it; (2) the reflexive in Psa 58:8 proves that מֹלֵל signifies to cut off in the front or above, after which perhaps even Psa 37:2, Job 14:2; Job 18:16, by comparison with Job 24:24, are to be explained. In the last passage it runs: as the top of the stalk they are cut off (fut. Niph. of מָלַל). Such a cut or plucked ear of corn is called in Deu 23:25 מְלִילָה, a Deuteronomic hapaxlegomenon which favours our way of taking the יְמֹולֵל (with a most general subject = יְמֹולַל). Thus, too, וְיָבֵשׁ is better attached to what precedes: the cut grass becomes parched hay. Just such an alternation of morning springing froth and evening drying up is the alternation of the generations of men.
The poet substantiates this in Psa 90:7. from the experience of those amongst whom he comprehended himself in the לָנוּ of Psa 90:1, Hengstenberg takes Psa 90:7 to be a statement of the cause of the transitoriness set forth: its cause is the wrath of God; but the poet does not begin כי באפך but כי כלינו. The chief emphasis therefore lies upon the perishing, and כי is not argumentative but explicative. If the subject of כָלִינוּ were men in general (Olshausen), then it would be elucidating idem per idem. But, according to Psa 90:1, those who speak here are those whose refuge the Eternal One is. The poet therefore speaks in the name of the church, and confirms the lot of men from that which his people have experienced even down to the present time. Israel is able out of its own experience to corroborate what all men pass through; it has to pass through the very same experience as a special decree of God's wrath on account of its sins. Therefore in Psa 90:7-8 we stand altogether upon historical ground. The testimony of the inscription is here verified in the contents of the Psalm. The older generation that came out of Egypt fell a prey to the sentence of punishment, that they should gradually die off during the forty years' journey through the desert; and even Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb only excepted, were included in this punishment on special grounds, Num 14:26., Deu 1:34-39. This it is over which Moses here laments. God's wrath is here called אַף and חֵמָה; just as the Book of Deuteronomy (in distinction from the other books of the Pentateuch) is fond of combining these two synonyms (Deu 9:19; Deu 29:22, Deu 29:27, cf. Gen 27:44.). The breaking forth of the infinitely great opposition of the holy nature of God against sin has swept away the church in the person of its members, even down to the present moment; נִבְהַל as in Psa 104:29, cf. בֶּחָלָה, Lev 26:16. It is the consequence of their sins. עָוֹן signifies sin as the perversion of the right standing and conduct; עָלוּם, that which is veiled in distinction from manifest sins, is the sum-total of hidden moral, and that sinful, conduct. There is no necessity to regard עֲלֻמֵנוּ as a defective plural; עֲלֻמִים signifies youth (from a radically distinct word, עָלַם); secret sins would therefore be called עֲלֻמֹות according to Psa 19:13. God sets transgressions before Him when, because the measure is full and forgiveness is inadmissible, He makes them an object of punishment. שַׁתָּ (Kerî, as in Psa 8:7 : שַׁתָּה, cf. Psa 6:4 וְאַתָּ, Psa 74:6 וְעַתָּ) has the accent upon the ultima before an initial guttural. The parallel to לְנֶגְדֶּךָ is לִמְאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ. עֹור is light, and מָאֹור is either a body of light, as the sun and moon, or, as in this passage, the circle of light which the light forms. The countenance of God (פני ה) is God's nature in its inclination towards the world, and מאור פני ה is the doxa of His nature that is turned towards the world, which penetrates everything that is conformed to God as a gracious light (Num 6:25), and makes manifest to the bottom everything that is opposed to God and consumes it as a wrathful fire.