Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 90:3

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

3. The thought here is not merely that man’s life is infinitely brief in contrast to the eternity of God, but that it is absolutely at His disposal. The Psalmist plainly refers to Gen 3:19, though he chooses different words to emphasise his point: Thou makest mortal man return to atoms. Ensh denotes man in his frailty (Psa 103:15): dakk, lit. pulverisation, implies the dissolution of the body into its constituent elements.

and sayest, Return &c.] Two interpretations deserve consideration: (1) ‘Return to the dust whence ye were taken,’ cp. Psa 146:4; Job 10:9; Job 34:15. (2) ‘Return into being,’ a call to new generations to appear on the stage of history (Isa 41:4). Cp. P.B.V. “Again thou sayest, Come again, ye children of men.” In favour of (2) it is urged that and sayest implies fresh action on the part of God: and that the antithesis of the rise of new generations as the old pass away is more forcible than the synonymous parallelism of (1): but (2) involves a somewhat strained interpretation of Return, and the evident allusion to Gen 3:19 is in favour of (1). The interpretations Return to Me (cp. Ecc 12:7), and Return to life in the resurrection, are untenable.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Thou turnest man to destruction – In contradistinction from his own unchangeableness and eternity. Man passes away; God continues ever the same. The word rendered destruction – dakka’ – means properly anything beaten or broken small or very fine, and hence, dust. The idea here is, that God causes man to return to dust; that is, the elements which compose the body return to their original condition, or seem to mingle with the earth. Gen 3:19 : dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. The word man here, of course, refers to man in general – all people. It is the great law of our being. Individual man, classes of people, generations of people, races of people, pass away; but God remains the same. The Septuagint and the Latin Vulgate render this, Thou turnest man to humiliation; which, though not the sense of the original, is a true idea, for there is nothing more humiliating than that a human body, once so beautiful, should turn back to dust; nothing more humbling than the grave.

And sayest, Return, ye children of men – Return to your dust; go back to the earth from which you came. Return, all of you without exception; – kings, princes, nobles, warriors, conquerors; mighty people, captains, and counselors; ye learned and great, ye honored and flattered, ye beautiful and happy, ye youthful and vigorous, and ye aged and venerable; whatever is your rank, whatever are your possessions, whatever are your honors, whatever you have to make you lovely, to charm, to please, to be admired; or whatever there is to make you loathsome and detestable; ye vicious, ye profane, low, grovelling, sensual, debased; go all of you alike to dust! Oh, how affecting the thought that this is the lot of man; how much should it do to abase the pride of the race; how much should it do to make any man sober and humble, that he himself is soon to turn back to dust – unhonored, undistinguished, and undistinguishable dust!

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 90:3

Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.

Mans thoughts of man

I wish to point out our duty to the world of humanity; to the communities to which we belong; to the generation in which we live; to the great family of mankind, of which God has made us members.

1. What have been, what are mens thoughts respecting the race of man? We know not for how many thousands of years our race may have lived on this little planet, rolling and spinning like an angry midge amid the immensities of space; but, over a space of forty centuries at least, in the pages of many literatures, in the accents of many tongues, we find the opinions of men respecting man. They have been uttered, as freely as to-day, by the bards and prophets of races long since vanished, in language long since dead. Man has ever been a mystery to himself. Who are you? indignantly asked an irascible person, who had been delayed in his hurried progress by running against a modern philosopher in the streets. Ah, replied the philosopher, if you could tell me that–if you could tell me what I am–I would give you all I possess in the world. To-day, however, we do not want to enter into any transcendent mysteries; we only want to learn what men have thought of man in his moral, his spiritual, his religious aspect. And here, strange to say, we are confronted at once with a perfect chaos of conflicting judgments. According to some, man is a being so small, so intolerably contemptible, so radically unjust, mean, and selfish, that he is not worth working for; he is not only a shadow less than shade, a nothing less than nothing; not only fading as a leaf and crushed before the moth; not only like the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven; but also, as far as moral dignity is concerned, he is the mere insect of an hour; a creature essentially allied to the animal; a being who combines the instincts of the tiger and the ape; a blot on Gods fair creation; a jar in the sweet untroubled silence; a discord amid the infinite harmony; a flutter in the eternal calm. It is remarkable how cynics and sceptics in all ages have coincided in this view. Think of Diogenes, searching in daylight with a lantern to find a man in the streets of Athens; think of Phocion, whenever a passage in his speech was applauded, turning round and asking, Have I said anything wrong, then? think of Pyrrho the atheist, describing men as a herd of swine, rioting on board a rudderless vessel in a storm; think of La Rochefoucauld reducing mans virtues into mere selfish vices in thin disguise; think of Voltaire describing the multitude as a compound of bears and monkeys; think of Schopenhauer, condemning this as the worst of all possible worlds, and arguing that man is a radical mistake; think of the more serious voice which says, However we brazen it out, we men are a little breed. But then turn to the other side, the grand and exalted opinions which man has entertained of man. Think of Shakespeares, What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason! how infinite in faculty! in form and moving, how express and admirable! in action, how like an angel! in apprehension, how like a god! Think of Henry Smiths, When we turn our eyes upon the soul it will soon tell us its own royal pedigree and noble extraction by those sacred hieroglyphics which it bears upon itself. Or take Novalis, Man is the true Shekinah, the glory-cloud of God. We touch heaven when we lay our hands on that high form.

2. Which, then, are we to follow of these diverse judgments? By which are we to be guided in our own dealings with our fellow-men? I answer with all my heart, take the nobler and better view of mankind. Adopt it, not as a voluntary illusion, but as a sacred fact, as a living faith. Good and evil without end may be said of man; and both be amply borne out by history and by experience. That is due to the fact that man is a composite being; that he partakes of two natures–the animal and the spiritual; that he is swayed by two impulses–the evil and the good; that he has in him two beings–the Adam and the Christ; that the Angel has him by the hand, and the serpent by the heart; that our little lives are kept in equipoise by balance of two opposite desires–the struggle of the impulse that enjoys, and the more noble impulse that aspires. Hence we may say of man, in the same breath, How poor, how rich, how abject, how august, how wonderful, how complicated is man. Glory and scandal of the universal, says Pascal, the judge of angels, a worm of earth; if he exalts himself I smite him down, if he humbles himself I lift him up. But is there no practical reconciliation of these antitheses? Yes, there is: not in the world, not in nature, not in philosophy; but there is in religion, there is in Christ..

3. I would urge you, then, not to give up faith in God or in man, or in Gods doctrines for man, nor sweetness, nor charity, nor invincible hopefulness. To lose faith in man is to lose faith in God who made him; to lose faith in mans nature is to lose faith in your own. Depend upon it, that the man who begins by saying, Mankind is a rascal, will soon add the words, The world lives by its scoundrelism, and so will I. It makes all the difference in the world whether you judge man from Thersites or from Achilles, from a Nero or from a Marcus Aurelius, from a Marat or from St. Louis; from living men like one or two whom one could name, or from the depraved, wife-beating sots and brutal burglars who are the festering curse of the lowest dregs of the population; from living women like some whom one could name, or from those unmotherly mothers and unwomanly women who nigh turn the motherhood to shame and womanliness to loathing. Oh, judge mankind from its highest and its best!

(1) Let us try to believe that there is a good side in every man. Man, it has been said, is like a piece of Labrador opal. It has no lustre as you turn it in your hand till you come to a particular angle, and then it shows deep and beautiful colours. We sometimes read with amazement how some one, who seemed to be past all remedy in abandoned vileness, suddenly, touched by the glory of heroism, will rise to a great act of self-sacrifice. Look at the battle of Waterloo; look at the trenches of Sebastopol; look at the charge at Balaclava; look at the burning of the Goliath; look at the wreck of the Birkenhead; to see how the commonest and coarsest of men can recognize the invincible claim and sovereignty of duty, even at the cost of life. Mans nature may often look like the dull chill blank of the Alpine mountain side, darkened only by the shadows of its black and stubborn pines, but let the dawn blush in the vernal sky, and the south wind breathe, and the sun fire to the high tops of those mountain pines, and the snow will melt and vanish under their soft and golden touches, till at last it rushes down in avalanche, and then where yesterday was snow, to-day shall be green grass and purple flower.

(2) And as another way to help us in retaining our faith in human nature, let us sometimes turn away from the thought of bad men altogether, to that galaxy of heaven, wherein shine the clustered constellations of saintly lives. The saints in the long ages have not been few. To these have been due the progress, to these the ennoblement, to these the preservation of the world. Among all the bad passions, among all the disordered lives of men–amid all their meanness, and littleness, and emptiness, and egotism–it is as water in the desert to come in life and more often among the records of the dead on these natures pure as crystal, active as fire, unselfish as the ministering spirits, strong, generous, and enduring as the hearts of martyrs. Look on these; think of these; do not think of the heartless and aimless crowds that vegetate without living, but read the lives and actions of these fine children of the light.

(3) But above all, as the best of all rules, think constantly of Christ; and fix your eyes on Him. Of what account after all are the saints compared to Christ? They are, said Luther, no more than sparkling dewdrops of the nightdew upon the head of the bridegroom scattered among His hair. The only measure of a perfect man is the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.

4. And oh, lastly, the most sure way to justify our faith and hope in human nature is to justify it in ourselves. If you would raise others, live yourself as on a mountain; live yourself as on a promontory. Say with the good emperor of old, Whatever happens I must be good; even as though the emerald and the purple should say, Whatever happens I must be emerald, and keep my colour. That is how men widen the skirts of light, and make the struggle with darkness narrower. To do this is a worthy object; it is the only worthy object of our lives. (Dean Farrar.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Verse 3. Thou turnest man to destruction] Literally, Thou shalt turn dying man, enosh, to the small dust, dacca but thou wilt say, Return, ye children of Adam. This appears to be a clear and strong promise of the resurrection of the human body, after it has long slept, mingled with the dust of the earth.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

But as for man, his case is far otherwise, his time is short; and though he was made by thee a happy creature, and should have been immortal, yet upon and for his sin thou didst make him mortal and miserable.

Sayest, or, didst say, i.e. pronounce that sad sentence here following,

Return, O men, to the dust, out of which you were taken, Gen 3:19; Psa 146:4; Ecc 12:7.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

3. to destructionliterally,”even to dust” (Ge 3:19),which is partly quoted in the last clause.

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Thou turnest man to destruction,…. Or to death, as the Targum, which is the destruction of man; not an annihilation of body or soul, but a dissolution of the union between them; the words may be rendered, “thou turnest man until he is broken” b; and crumbled into dust; thou turnest him about in the world, and through a course of afflictions and diseases, and at last by old age, and however by death, returns him to his original, from whence he came, the dust of the earth, which he becomes again, Ge 3:19 the grave may be meant by destruction:

and sayest, return, ye children of men, or “Adam”; from whom they all sprung, and in whom they all sinned, and so became subject to death; to these he says, when by diseases he threatens them with a dissolution, return by repentance, and live; and sometimes, when they are brought to the brink of the grave, he returns them from sickness to health, delivers them from the pit, and enlightens them with the light of the living, as he did Hezekiah: or this may refer to the resurrection of the dead, which will be by Christ, and by his voice calling the dead to return to life, to rise and come to judgment; though some understand this as descriptive of death, when by the divine order and command man returns to his original dust; thus the frailty of man is opposed to the eternity of God. Gussetius understands all this of God’s bringing men to repentance, contrition, and conversion; and takes the sense to be,

“thou turnest till he becomes contrite, and sayest, be ye converted, ye sons of Adam;”

which he thinks c best agrees with the mind of the Apostle Peter, who quotes the following passage, 2Pe 3:8. Some, as Arama observes, connect this with the following verse; though men live 1000 years, yet they are but as yesterday in the sight of God.

b “convertes hominem usque ad contritionem”, Montanus; “donec conteratur”, Musculus, Tigurine verion; “donee sit contritus”, Vatablus; “ut sit contritus”, Junius & Tremellius. c Ebr. Comment. p. 158.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

3 Thou shalt turn man to destruction. Moses, in the first place, mentions how frail and transitory is the life of man, and bewails its miseries. This he does, not for the purpose of quarrelling with God, but as an argument to induce him the more readily to exercise his mercy, even as he is elsewhere said to pardon mortal men, when he considers of what they are made, and remembers that they are but dust and grass, (Psa 103:14.) he compares the course of our life to a ring or circle, because God, placing us upon the earth, turns us about within a narrow circuit, and when we have reached the last point, draws us back to himself in a moment. Others give a different interpretation, namely, that God leads men forth to death, and afterwards restores them at the resurrection. But this subtilty is far-fetched, and does not harmonise with the context. We have here laid down a simple definition of our life, that it is, as it were, a short revolution in which we quickly complete our circle, the last point of which is the termination of our earthly course. This account of human life sets in a clearer light the gracious manner in which God deals with his servants, in adopting them to be his peculiar people, that he may at length gather them together into his everlasting inheritance. Nor is it in vain that it is added, by way of contrast, (verse 4,) that a thousand years in God’s sight are as yesterday Although we are convinced from experience that men, when they have completed their circle, are forthwith taken out of the world, yet the knowledge of this frailty fails in making a deep impression upon our hearts, because we do not lift our eyes above the world. Whence proceeds the great stupidity of men, who, bound fast to the present state of existence, proceed in the affairs of life as if they were to live two thousand years, but because they do not elevate their conceptions above visible objects? Each man, when he compares himself with others, flatters himself that he will live to a great age. In short, men are so dull as to think that thirty years, or even a smaller number, are, as it were, an eternity; nor are they impressed with the brevity of their life so long as this world keeps possession of their thoughts. This is the reason why Moses awakens us by elevating our minds to the eternity of God, without the consideration of which we perceive not how speedily our life vanishes away. The imagination that we shall have a long life, resembles a profound sleep in which we are all benumbed, until meditation upon the heavenly life swallow up this foolish fancy respecting the length of our continuance upon earth.

As men are thus blinded, Moses sets before their view God as their judge. O Lord! as if he had said, if men would duly reflect upon that eternity from which thou beholdest these inconstant circlings of the world, they would not make so great account of the present life. But as, instead of seriously considering what is true duration, they rather wilfully turn away their eyes from heaven, this explains why they are so stupid, and look upon one day as if it were a hundred years. Moses’ apostrophe to God is emphatic, implying that his patience being exhausted at seeing us so thoughtless, he addresses himself to God; and that it was labor to no purpose for him to speak to the deaf, who would not be taught that they were mortal, no, not even by the proofs of this, which experience was constantly presenting before them. This text is quoted by the Apostle Peter in a sense somewhat different, (2Pe 3:8,) while at the same time he does not pervert it, for he aptly and judiciously applies the testimony of Moses in illustration of the subject of which he is there treating. The design of Moses is to elevate the minds of men to heaven by withdrawing them from their own gross conceptions. And what is the object of Peter? As many, because Christ does not hasten his coming according to their desire, cast off the hope of the resurrection through the weariness of long delay, he corrects this preposterous impatience by a very suitable remedy. He perceives men’s faith in the Divine promises fainting and failing, from their thinking that Christ delays his coming too long. Whence does this proceed, but because they grovel upon the earth? Peter therefore appropriately applies these words of Moses to cure this vice. As the indulgence in pleasures to which unbelievers yield themselves is to be traced to this, that having their hearts too much set upon the world, they do not taste the pleasures of a celestial eternity; so impatience proceeds from the same source. Hence we learn the true use of this doctrine. To what is it owing that we have so great anxiety about our life, that nothing suffices us, and that we are continually molesting ourselves, but because we foolishly imagine that we shall nestle in this world for ever? Again, to what are we to ascribe that extreme fretfulness and impatience, which make our hearts fail in waiting for the coming of Christ, but to their grovelling upon the earth? Let us learn then not to judge according to the understanding of the flesh, but to depend upon the judgment of God; and let us elevate our minds by faith, even to his heavenly throne, from which he declares that this earthly life is nothing. Nor does Moses simply contrast a thousand years with one day, but he contrasts them with yesterday, which is already gone; for whatever is still before our eyes has a hold upon our minds, but we are less affected with the recollection of what is past. In regard to the word watch, the ancients, as is well known, were accustomed to divide the night into four watches, consisting of three hours each. (566) To express still more forcibly how inconsiderable that which appears to us a long period is in God’s eyes, this similitude is added, That a thousand years in his sight differ nothing from three hours of the night, in which men scarcely know whether they are awake or asleep.

(566) “‘Our home’ — or ‘our dwelling-place.’ This image seems to have a particular reference to the unsettled condition of the Israelites before their establishment in the Land of Promise. ‘Strangers and pilgrims as we have hitherto been, in every succeeding generation, from the days of Abraham; first sojourners in Canaan; then bondsmen in Egypt; now wanderers in this dreary waste; we nevertheless find the comforts of a home and settlement in thy miraculous protection.’” — Horsley

Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

(3) Thou turnest . . .Probably we must render, Thou turnest man to dust; and sayest, Turn, sons of Adami.e., one generation dies and another succeeds (see Psa. 104:29-30), the continuance of the race being regarded as distinctly due to Divine power as the Creation, to which there is probably allusion.

The LXX. suggest as the true reading, Turn not man to dust, but say rather, &c.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

3. Thou turnest man to destruction “Man,” a generic term here for the human race, with the fundamental idea of mortal mortal man.

Destruction Crushing, and by metonomy that which is crushed, that is, dust.

Return That is, return to dust, as Gen 3:19.

Ye children of men should be taken as a proper name, and the passage read, Return to dust, ye sons of Adam.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments