Matthew Poole Commentary - Psalms 90:11 - 90:11

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Matthew Poole Commentary - Psalms 90:11 - 90:11


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Who knoweth? few or none sufficiently apprehend it, or stedfastly believe it, or duly consider it, or are rightly affected with it. For all these things are comprehended under this word knoweth.



The power of thine anger; the greatness, and force, and dreadful effects of thine anger conceived against the sons of men, and in particular against thine own people, for their miscarriages.



According to thy fear, i.e. according to the fear of thee; as my fear is put for the fear of me, Mal_1:6, and his knowledge for the knowledge of him, Isa_53:11. According to that fear or dread which sinful men have of a just and holy God. These fears of the Deity are not vain bugbears, and the effects of ignorance and folly or superstition, as heathens and atheists have sometimes said, but are just, and built upon solid grounds, and justified by the terrible effects of thy wrath upon mankind.



So is thy wrath; it bears full proportion to it, nay, indeed, doth far exceed it. It cannot be said of God’s wrath, which is said of death, that the fear of it is worse than the thing itself. But this verse is by many, both ancient and later interpreters, rendered otherwise, and that very agreeably to the Hebrew text, Who knoweth the power of thine anger, and thy wrath according to thy fear? i.e. either,



1. According to the fear of thee, or so as thou art to be feared, or answerably to thy terrible displeasure against sin and sinners. Or,