“For we have been consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified. You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance. For all our days have passed away in Your wrath; we finish our years like a sigh. The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.” Psalm 90:7-10.
This Psalm is a prayer of Moses, so let us look at it from his standpoint for a moment.
The background is this, the patriarch Jacob (name changed to Israel, see Genesis 32:22-32) and his family had moved to Egypt by invitation of his son Joseph and the Egyptian pharaoh.
Jacob’s son Joseph had been sold into slavery by his brothers years earlier, Genesis 37-50.
The children of Israel (Jacob) lived in Egypt for some 430 years. Toward the end of that time there arose a pharaoh who did not care that Joseph had saved Egypt from starvation many years before, so he put the Israelites into bondage forcing them to work for the Egyptians.
This bondage became so bad that the people cried out to God, and He sent Moses to lead them out of Egypt, see Exodus chapters 1-14.
After leaving Egypt and a series of failures and complaints by the children of Israel in the wilderness, God brought them to the land destined to be theirs.
Moses sent spies into the land to determine the way in which they should enter it and to gain an idea what it was like.
The spies returned and said indeed the land was exceedingly fruitful, but the inhabitants were fierce and frightening, thus discouraging the people.
With this bad report, the people were frightened and rebelled against Moses, determining to return to Egypt. At this point God stepped in and told all those who refused to enter the following.
“The carcasses of you who have murmured against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.” Numbers 14:29.
“According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, for each day you shall bear your guilt one year, namely forty years, and you shall know My rejection.” Numbers 14:34.
This incident is covered fully in Numbers chapters 13-14.
With this background we can see much more clearly how Moses must have felt when he uttered this prayer known as Psalm 90, and more specifically as it relates to verses 7-10 quoted earlier.
The impact of seeing death after death and grave after grave in the wilderness over forty years had to have affected him.
But what was the root cause of God’s anger with these people?
“Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of trial in the wilderness, where your fathers tested Me, proved Me, and saw My works forty years. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart, and they have not known My ways.’ So I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter My rest.’” Hebrews 3:7-11.
It is my own personal opinion that the problem is that believers, whether back then or now, who do not live a life obedient to Christ by learning of Him and by confessing our sins to Him as we recognize them, will not enter the rest that He has for us right now.
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. My little children, these things I write to you, that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. And He Himself is the propitiation [complete payment] for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” 1 John 1:8-2:2.
So the immediate meaning to Moses was that the Israelites were consumed by God’s anger, terrified by His wrath, and God had set their secret sins and iniquities before Him.
In light of the fact that they were all doomed to wander the wilderness for forty years, only to die there, they must have felt His wrath and their lives were like a sigh, or a thought or a moan, as one author put it.
It is good for us to ponder these things, not for the sake of morbidity, but rather to assess our life before God.
We must use every passing minute with the realization that there will be no go-back, no re-do. Only that we are one inevitable step closer to glory or damnation. Which one will it be?
“I said in my heart, ‘Concerning the estate of the sons of men, God tests them, that they may see that they themselves are like beasts.’ For what happens to the sons of men also happens to beasts; one thing befalls them: as one dies, so dies the other. Surely, they all have one breath; man has no advantage over beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place: all are from the dust, and all return to dust. Who knows the spirit of the sons of men, which goes upward, and the spirit of the beast, which goes down to the earth?” Ecclesiastes 3:18-21.
The Christian is not under wrath, but they can experience being consumed, feel terror, and end their lives with a sigh, if they become Christians and then go on their way as if there were nothing more to do than go to church and try to do good.
If we do not confess our sins to God, it is possible for our secret sins and iniquities to be before Him continually, and they will be so until we confess them to Him.
The Christian can elect to spend forty years in the desert if they wish to.
“Beware, brethren, lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living God; but exhort one another daily, while it is called ‘Today,’ lest any of you be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. For we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end, while it is said: ‘Today, if you will hear His voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion.’ For who, having heard, rebelled? Indeed, was it not all who came out of Egypt, led by Moses? Now with whom was He angry forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose corpses fell in the wilderness? And to whom did He swear that they would not enter His rest, but to those who did not obey? So we see that they could not enter in because of unbelief.” Hebrews 3:12-19.
Many folks accept Christ as their Savior but when trials come upon them, they fall away from following Him, they do not lose their salvation, but they do lose the peace they could have had if they had persevered.
Many of these are “hardened through the deceitfulness of sin.” Sin does deceive and the longer you live in it or around it, the more it will deceive you into thinking that it is not so bad, especially considering the evil others do.
Be careful, this is a truth that one ignores to their own peril.
“There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.” Hebrews 4:9.
“The days of our lives are seventy years; and if by reason of strength they are eighty years, yet their boast is only labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:10-12.
“Who knows the power of Your anger?” A God that no one can see gives one a false sense of security and they tend to dismiss that aspect of God out of hand.
This is like children who stand on the street corner and say, “I could beat Mike Tyson!” Yet if he were to walk up to them at that moment, they would run in terror.
The 1989 rap video of Will Smith (star of television’s The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air) performing “I Think I Can Beat Mike Tyson” always comes to mind when I think of people who dismiss God as a sort of senile Santa Claus of whom they have no fear.
It is one thing to think these things and another to face them. Will Smith, in his video talks big, but when that little stick figure climbs into the ring with Tyson who is built like a brick wall, the scene turns ludicrous, and painful.
The truth comes out and as J. Vernon McGee would say, “That is where the rubber meets the road.”
So is the bravado of the God hater, the godless, and the indifferent. Folks need to grasp the fact that those standing before the great white throne on Judgment Day would soil themselves if that were possible.
Know the power of God’s anger; realize that His wrath is surely coming upon the nations and those who reject His Son.
Revere God, not just for His goodness, but because His power is like none other, He is omnipotent; let us take that to heart and let us number our days, “that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”
“For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God – and righteousness and sanctification and redemption – that, as it is written, ‘He who glories, let him glory in the Lord.’” 1 Corinthians 1:26-31.
“Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants. Oh, satisfy us early with Your mercy, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days! Make us glad according to the days in which You have afflicted us, and the years in which we have seen evil. Let Your work appear to Your servants, and Your glory to their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands for us; yes, establish the work of our hands.” Psalm 90:13-17.
We all have trials and tribulations and will continue to have trials and tribulations.
“Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but grievous; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.” Hebrews 12:11.
We must determine to remain faithful to God, who will rescue us from all our troubles and establish the work of our hands.
“And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” Galatians 6:9.
“Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:5.
“And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son as Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” 1 John 4:14-16.
A message to Israel for 10-13-23 and to eternity:
“For thus says the Lord of hosts: ‘He sent Me after glory [God’s glory], to the nations which plunder you; for he who touches you touches the apple of His eye [pupil of God’s eye].’” Zechariah 2:8.
Enosh, Frail Man, Frail Woman, Part 2, taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 9-20-15, updated on 10-12-23.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.