Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 90:12
So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom.
12. So teach us] So then, as Thy fear ( Psa 90:11) which is “the beginning of wisdom” requires, make us know how &c.: give us that discernment which we lack.
that we may apply &c.] That we may get us an heart of wisdom (R.V.). The verb is used of garnering in the harvest. The second line combines the thoughts of Deu 5:29; Deu 32:29.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
So teach us to number our days – literally, To number our days make us know, and we will bring a heart of wisdom. The prayer is, that God would instruct us to estimate our days aright: their number; the rapidity with which they pass away; the liability to be cut down; the certainty that they must soon come to an end; their bearing on the future state of being.
That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom – Margin, Cause to come. We will bring, or cause to come, a heart of wisdom. By taking a just account of life, that we may bring to it a heart truly wise, or act wisely in view of these facts. The prayer is, that God would enable us to form such an estimate of life, that we shall be truly wise; that we may be able to act as if we saw the whole of life, or as we should do if we saw its end. God sees the end – the time, the manner, the circumstances in which life will close; and although he has wisely hidden that from us, yet he can enable us to act as if we saw it for ourselves; to have the same objects before us, and to make as much of life, as if we saw when and how it would close. If anyone knew when, and where, and how he was to die, it might be presumed that this would exert an important influence on him in forming his plans, and on his general manner of life. The prayer is, that God would enable us to act as if we had such a view.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 90:12-17
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
Man imploring the mercy of God
Moses prays—
I. For a right estimate as to the duration of life. Teach us to number our days, etc.,
1. There is a certain judgment to be formed as to the duration of our earthly life. The prayer does not mean that we should know the hour, scene, or circumstance of our end; but that we should have a practical impression that life is temporary and preparative.
2. There is a tendency in man to neglect to form a true estimate of life. All men think all men mortal but themselves.
3. The formation of a correct judgment is essential to practical wisdom (Psa 90:12).
II. For a restoration to the blessings of life.
1. Divine favour (Psa 90:13). The meaning is, remove the sense of Thy displeasure, bless us with the consciousness of Thy favour.
2. True satisfaction (Psa 90:14). Let the satisfaction be early. Come at once. Let it run through the whole of our life. That we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Let the satisfaction be proportioned according to our past affliction (Psa 90:15). Let our future joys compensate for our past affliction.
III. For a discovery of Divinity in life.
1. In His works, to men and their children (Psa 90:16). The glory of human life is to see the glory of God in all the works of His hand.
2. In the prosperity of mans own works. (Homilist.)
Numbering our days
This is a psalm of life and death, and one of the finest in the whole Bible. The comparisons made between the frailty and brevity of human life and the omnipotence and eternity of God are very striking. But a right use of the sense of mortality is a priceless blessing. We must all be accountants and arithmeticians in the best sense. Like the wise merchants we must frequently take stock in order to see where we stand. And we must also number our nights, with their blessings of rest and repose and renewal, for human life is incomplete without the night as well as the day.
I. Every man must come to his last day. We are born to die, and we die daily. Our home is not here, but yonder.
II. Man has a set time in which to live. Job speaks of certain bounds which man cannot pass. His life is fitted within certain boundaries by Divine Providence.
III. Mans life on earth is comparatively short. We are asked to number our days, and not our years or months or weeks. We must live a day at a time.
IV. Man is dangerously apt to forget this numbering. He allows the days to slip away unnoticed. He counts his oxen and sheep, but not his days. He numbers other mens days, but not his own. As Sir Thomas Smith said some months before his death, It is a great pity men know not to what end they are born into the world until they are ready to go out of it.
V. The nature of the numbering advocated by the psalmist. Teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. We cannot number our days rightly without the Lord as our Teacher. We must go in for numeration under Divine guidance. It is not mathematical but moral counting–a numbering that brings glory to God. The chief end of man is to seek wisdom–not riches, or worldly honours, or sinful pleasures–but wisdom and not the wisdom of the world, but that of God. We have emphasized the truth of mans mortality, let us also emphasize his immortality. (J. O. Davies.)
Divine teaching
I. Who is it that teaches? It is God Himself. The mere record, as contained in the world which we see, or in the written Word which we read or hear, is not of itself sufficient. It is the letter, not the life: it cannot of itself convey a saving knowledge of the truths, of which it is nevertheless the chosen depository. Christ must be revealed in us as well as to us ere we can know Him as we ought. It was in Him, as the apostle tells the Galatians, that God was pleased to reveal Himself.
II. How does God teach? In many ways. By parents, ministers, friends. Also by outward objects–churchyard, storm, epidemic, etc.
III. The end of Gods teaching. That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Do you find this a hard lesson? The Israelites found it so, and their stiff-neckedness is written in an enduring record for your learning. The old world found it so; for they were eating and drinking, etc. The foolish virgins found it so. Their lamps were gone out, they themselves were slumbering, when the bridegroom came and the door was shut. Are you wiser? Have you profited by these warnings? Have you been taught? Are you numbering your days with a consciousness of the relative difference between time and eternity? But what is wisdom? That is the practical question which so many never ask, though it concern them so vitally to learn the lesson; that is the question, too, which so many ask, but not of Him who alone can give them the true answer. What, for instance, did Moses himself esteem wisdom to be? Not all the learning of the Egyptians with which he was conversant, for he renounced it all, esteeming the reproach of Christ better than all the riches of Egypt. And what is Jobs definition of wisdom (Job 28:28; 1Co 3:19). What did the great apostle pronounce is not to be, after he had ceased to sit as Saul of Tarsus at the feet of Gamaliel? And what does he say it is? First, the receiving of Christ by us as sinners; secondly, the adorning of the doctrine in our lives. (Bp. Sumner.)
Numbering our days
I. What is intended by numbering our days?
1. We must form a correct estimate of human life, comparing its average length with its interests.
2. We must cherish a serious conviction of the uncertainty of life. Boast not thyself, young man, of thy strength, nor old man of thy wisdom, for a worm is in the bud of youth and at the root of age.
3. We must pay an observant regard to our days as they pass away. Days, weeks, and years are but the landmarks.
II. The specific purpose for which we are to number our days.
1. Wisdom consists in the adoption of the best means to secure the best ends. In what relation do I stand to God and eternity? is the first question which every man should put to himself. Until he can answer this solemn inquiry satisfactorily, he is but a fool in knowledge and a child in his pursuits.
2. To apply our hearts unto wisdom, we must moderate our affections to earthly objects. Eternity will be our grand concern. Like the apostle, we shall learn to die daily, we shall be crucified to the world with its affections and lusts; it will gradually recede and eventually disappear as an object of felicitous contemplation.
3. We must peculiarly cherish those graces which mitigate the sorrows and heighten the joys of the present life.
4. We must cultivate those dispositions of mind which will increase all the lawful enjoyments of life. Habitual dependence upon God, walking with humility and gratitude beneath his favour, adds zest to all our enjoyments. (S. Summers.)
The transitoriness of life
I. The feelings suggested by a retrospect of the past.
1. The analogies of nature which correspond with human life. All things here are double. The world without corresponds with the world within. No man could look on a stream when alone by himself, and all noisy companionship overpowering good thoughts was away, without the thought that just so his own particular current of life will fall at last into the unfathomable gulf where all is still. No man can look upon a field of corn, in its yellow ripeness, which he has passed weeks before when it was green, or a convolvulus withering as soon as plucked, without experiencing a chastened feeling of the fleetingness of all earthly things. No man ever went through a night-watch in the bivouac, when the distant hum of men and the random shot fired, told of possible death on the morrow; or watched in a sick room, when time was measured by the sufferers, breathing or the intolerable ticking of the clock, without a firmer grasp on the realities of Life and Time.
2. Moses is looking back, and his feeling is loss. Many a one consumed, like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, by the wrath of God. Many a Hebrew warrior stricken in battle, and over him a sand-heap. And those who remembered these things were old men–consuming, his strong expression, their strength in labour and sorrow. We stand upon the shore of that illimitable sea which never restores what has once fallen into it; we hear only the boom of the waves that throb over all–for ever.
3. There is, too, an apparent non-attainment. A deeper feeling pervades this psalm than that of mere transitoriness: it is that of the impotency of human effort. We are consumed–perish aimlessly like the grass. No man was more likely to feel this than Moses. The cycles of Gods providences are so large that our narrow lives scarcely measure a visible portion of them. So large that we ask, What can we effect? Yet there is an almost irrepressible wish in our hearts to see success attend our labours, to enter the Promised Land in our own life. It is a hard lesson: to toil in faith, and to die in the wilderness, not having attained the promises, but only seeing them afar off.
II. The right use of these sad suggestions. Duty is done with all energy, then only, when we feel, The night cometh, when no man can work, in all its force. Two thoughts are presented to make this easier.
1. The eternity of God. Shall we give up our hopes of heaven and progress, because it is so slow, when we remember that God has innumerable ages before Him? Or our hopes for our personal improvement, when we recollect our immortality in Him who has been our refuge from generation to generation? Or for our schemes and plans which seem to fail, when we remember that they will grow after us, like the grass above our graves?
2. The permanence of results.
(1) The permanence of our past seasons. Spring, summer, autumn, are gone, but the harvest is gathered in. Youth and manhood are passed, but their lessons have been learnt. The past is ours only when it is gone.
(2) The permanence of lost affections. The sound and words are gone, but the tale is indelibly impressed on the heart. So the lost are not really lost. Perhaps they are ours only truly when lost. Their patience, love, wisdom, are sacred now, and live in us.
(3) The permanence of our own selves–The beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Very striking this. We survive. We are what the past has made us. The results of the past are ourselves.
(4) The permanence of work. Not a true thought, pure resolve, or loving act, has ever gone forth in vain. (F. W. Robertson, M. A.)
For the New Year
I. The wisdom contemplated in our text means something like the following: Teach us, O God, the essential truth as embodied in the Lord Jesus Christ, and in His life. Then enable us to accept Him in faith.
II. The word heart includes all the faculties. The whole soul and spirit, with all their strength, are to be applied in the search for wisdom.
III. Gods qualifications to instruct us.
1. He possesses sufficient knowledge. Is it not true that in the study of history, science, or philosophy, we are thinking Gods thoughts? It is said of Agassiz, that before he would venture upon a line of investigation, he would bow his head in prayer, and ask God to direct him in the discovery of the truth. Let us pray, likewise, that God will teach us wisdom; that He will enable us to discover the highest, and the greatest truth; the truth as it is in Christ Jesus, His only begotten Son.
2. God has the power to teach.
3. God has the strong personality necessary to impress the learner.
4. Gods works are evidence to us that He is competent to teach us wisdom. Can we look across the broad meadows of our valleys, the rolling pasture lands on the hillsides, and the boundless grain-fields of redeemed prairies, without feeling in our souls that He has stretched these out before us, and for us, in infinite wisdom? And as we dig into the bowels of the earth, and discover stupendous and varied forces, undreamed-of wealth of gold, silver, copper, oil and gas, are we not confounded and led to exclaim, What infinite wisdom, goodness and power are manifested here?
IV. Time is our only opportunity for acquiring wisdom. An Italian philosopher expressed in his motto that time was his estate; an estate, indeed, that will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always repay abundantly the labours of industry, and satisfy the most extensive desires, if no part of it be suffered to lie waste by negligence, to be overrun by noxious plants, or laid out for show rather than for use. Time is our opportunity to estimate human life by the purpose to which it should be applied. It should be measured by the eternity to which it leads. (R. V. Hunter.)
Life measured by days
Life must be measured by days–
I. Because a day is a Divine division of time.
1. This division of our time by God into periods whose coming and going must be felt, is a beneficent arrangement. Without it the voice of time would be a monotone in which we should sleep, not listen; or, even if we listened, it would make no impression on us. Days should speak.
2. God has given us, in the arrangement of days, striking symbols of the lifetime they unitedly compose. Each day is an epitome of a life. Morning paints our childhood, noon our manhood, night our death.
II. Because of its brevity. We do not attempt to reckon our mortal life by centuries, scarcely by years; for they are so uncertain, and at best there are so few of them. Only then do we realize that the sum of life demands, and will repay, careful calculation, and that a blunder in it is of immense mischief.
III. Because of its worth. Gold-dust and diamonds shall be weighed by grains, not by tons. So, because of its preciousness, Time is dealt out by particles, and we number it, not in decades or in years. Life, as a whole, is of such untold worth, that every portion of it is priceless.
IV. Because of its imperceptible departure. Its final departure is marked and emphatic enough. The agonies of bereavement, the mysterious process of dying, make that known and felt. But it is equally and more solemnly true, that life is always departing. It ebbs from us with every breath. (Homilist.)
The brevity of human life
The frailty of our being; the certainty of our death; the shortness of the intervening period; these are ideas with which we are familiar; and yet, strange to say, they seldom influence us, either justly or constantly. We may use this knowledge, in order to add to stoical indifference; to give pathos and interest to poetry; to induce certain arrangements with respect to our property or our families: to augment, by contrast, the enjoyment of the passing hour; but these are not the essential purposes to which our knowledge of the shortness of life ought to be applied. In the midst of all these speculations we may fail to apply our hearts unto wisdom.
I. The brevity of human life. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Against this destiny no sagacity and no prosperity can build up a shelter.
II. Our indisposition to contemplate wisely the results of that brevity. That which follows death; the introduction to another world; responsibility; judgment to come; the vision of God; eternal weal or woe; the friendly or unfriendly mediation of Christ; the spiritual character which welcomes or opposes the celestial manifestations of truth and wisdom; these are the associations which properly belong to death. Yet from this view of death, men deliberately turn away!
III. Thus situated, thus exposed, thus beguiled, how palpable becomes the truth, that a wise use of our conviction of mortality is the gift of God. Unless God shall deign to teach, we refuse to learn. The means of instruction are indeed abundant. Much knowledge is afloat in the world; and the daily events of life utter solemn accents, were we disposed to listen. But the machinery of instruction; the apparatus of revelation; the combination of events, are inadequate to make us wise. These are the means of wisdom, but they are not the disposition to be wise. The conversion of the heart is from God. (G. T. Noel, M.A.)
Numbering our days
(to children):–
I. What it is to number our days.
1. To find out the number of them. You cannot hope to live above seventy; it is an even chance whether you live to be thirty; and you are not sure that you will live a day.
2. To consider the kind of them. They have all been days of blessing–yet all of sin. Still God has spared you, and all His gifts continue with you.
II. For what purpose we are to number our days.
1. So as to be ready for the last one when it comes. What is the preparation needed? To be in Christ, and so escape condemnation in the judgment (Rom 8:1). To be like Christ, and so fit for the pure joys and company of heaven (1Jn 3:2). To be each of these things now, as our last day may come at any time (Mat 24:44).
2. So as to use them to the best advantage. Time given to sin is wasted and something worse. You must not only be doing, but doing good. Cultivating the garden of life. Digging out the weeds, and digging in the flowers and useful herbs (Eph 4:22). Cultivating the garden of your neighbour also. Helping the sinful out of sin, the suffering out of sickness, the sorrowful out of grief (1Jn 3:17; Rom 9:1-3; 2Co 1:4).
3. So as to make up for lost days. Time is a river, and runs only once under the bridge of life. Still lost time may be made up for a little by working extra in the time that remains. The train behind time makes up for it by putting on extra speed. You may do the same. In one hour get through the work of two.
III. How we are to learn to number our days aright. So teach us, etc. The text is a prayer. Moses could not number his days profitably. But God could teach him, and he cries to be taught. You cannot begin all this too soon. The Inquisition tortured its victims by putting them in a cell which gradually contracted till at last it crushed them to death. So life–large and roomy-looking in youth–gets narrower year by year, till at last we are pressed in the arms of death. Therefore begin early. (J. E. Henry, M.A.)
The wise reckoning of time
I. We ought, as Christians, to appreciate the opportunities presented of making great progress in knowledge–in intellectual improvement. Every thing is tending to show that the human race will soon be under no other government but that of mind; that, whatever may be the instruments which it shall use, intelligence will be the arm that will rule the world. By no higher ends than earth can afford, a multitude of unsanctified minds have been stimulated even to death in the career of mental improvement. Time, health, riches, life, have been sacrificed in the over-reachings of their souls after knowledge. But every Christian has infinitely higher motives to impel him to make acquisition of true science. If he be asked why he is labouring to obtain stores of knowledge, he can answer, because the Lord hath need of them.
II. We ought to count upon the opportunities presented for forming an elevated religious character.
1. One of these is the awakened attention and increased facilities for studying the Bible.
2. As another event in these times, adapted to form religious character, we may notice in some respects a salutary change in the ministry of the Gospel. It is now freed from many of the encumbrances of former ages that destroyed its power on the conscience and the heart.
3. Another fact bearing on this point is, that the days which we are numbering are days in which the glorious ministration of the Spirit, in that form which it took after the ascension of Jesus, has become more pervading and effective than it has been since the day of Pentecost.
III. We ought to count upon exerting a far more widely extended influence as Christians. Such are the laws of our intellectual and social being, arid such are the relations and connections of one mind with another, that an influence of some kind we must and shall inevitably exert. The kind of influence exerted, and the direction which that influence shall take, will be one of the most solemn items of mans last account to his God. The elements of Christian influence are knowledge and holiness. How much more available is the power of holy example now than in those past days, when population was more sparse, and the means of personal intercourse more restricted! What an organ of extended Christian influence does the religious Press constitute! Think, too, what instruments of power are put into the hands of Christians by the organization of the great benevolent societies of these times. They can thus truly extend themselves, in an important sense, beyond their measure,–can stretch out the arm of mercy and pour light on the darkness and miseries of the whole earth. (D. L. Carroll, D.D.)
On numbering our days
I. What is implied. In order to make a just estimate of our days, let us reckon–
1. Those days, or divisions of time, in which we feel neither good nor evil, neither joy nor grief, and in which we practise neither virtue nor vice, and which, for this reason, I call days of nothingness; let us reckon these, and compare them with the days of reality.
2. The days of adversity, and compare them with the days of prosperity.
3. The days of languor and weariness, and compare them with the days of delight and pleasure.
4. The days which we have devoted to the world, and compare them with the days which we have devoted to religion.
5. The amount of the whole, that we may discover how long the duration is of a life consisting of days of nothingness and of reality; of days of prosperity and of adversity; of days of pleasure and of languor; of days devoted to the world, and to the salvation of the soul.
II. Conclusions.
1. The vanity of the life that now is, affords the clearest proof of the life to come.
2. Neither the good things, nor the evil, of a life which passes away with so much rapidity, ought to make a very deep impression on a soul whose duration is eternal.
3. This life is a season of probation, assigned to us for the purpose of making our choice between everlasting happiness or misery.
4. A life through which more time has been devoted to a present world, than to preparation for eternity, corresponds not to the views which the Creator proposed to Himself, when He placed us in this economy of expectation.
5. A sinner who has not conformed to the views which God proposed to Himself in placing him under an economy of discipline and probation, ought to pour out his soul in thanksgiving, that God is graciously pleased still to lengthen it out.
6. Creatures in whose favour God is pleased still to lengthen out the day of grace, the economy of long-suffering, which they have improved to so little purpose, ought no longer to delay, no, not for a moment, to avail themselves of a reprieve so graciously intended. (James Saurin.)
Right estimate of life
The prayer implies–
I. That there is a certain judgment to be formed as to the duration of an earthly life. What is it? Not the exact hour, scene, or circumstances of our end. We thank Heaven for concealing all this. Ignorance of this is–
1. Essential to our practical watchfulness.
2. To our personal enjoyment.
3. To our social usefulness. It means that we should have a practical impression that life here is temporary and preparative.
II. That there is a tendency in man to neglect the formation of such a judgment. Why this tendency?
1. Not from the want of circumstances to suggest it. History, observation, experience–all remind us every day of our end.
2. Not from any doubt that we have about the importance of realizing it. All acknowledge the importance. But–
(1) From the secularity of one controlling purpose.
(2) From the instinctive repugnance that we have to death.
(3) From the moral dread of future retribution.
(4) From the delusive suggestions of the tempter. Ye shall not surely die.
III. That the formation of a correct judgment is essential to practical wisdom. That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
1. Such judgment would serve to impress us with the connection between this life and the future.
2. It would serve to moderate our affections in relation to this earth.
3. It would serve to reconcile us to the arrangements of Providence. We are pilgrims, voyagers, scholars.
4. It would serve to stimulate us to render all the circumstances of this life subservient to a higher. Time is bearing us and all away. (Homilist.)
The just estimate of the shortness of human life, and our proper employment here
I. As regards the present world.
1. As all virtues in general, both by their own proper influence, and the blessing of God, which reason leads us to expect, and Scripture expressly assures us of, conduce to prolong our days, the consideration of their natural brevity may well direct us to a virtuous conduct; particularly to sobriety, temperance, and chastity; to a prudent moderation of anger; and to whatever duties have especially the promise or the prospect of long life annexed to them.
2. Since we have but a small time to stay here, it is our wisdom to make it as easy and agreeable to ourselves, and all with whom we have any intercourse, as we are able; and to imitate persons of prudence, who occasionally go journeys together; bearing with each others temper and behaviour; giving mutual comfort and assistance under the misfortunes and inconveniences of the way; and continually endeavouring to preserve or restore the good humour and cheerfulness of the company.
3. The shortness of life should teach us to be speedy and diligent in doing all such things as we ought to do.
4. The shortness and precariousness of our present state of being should teach us to avoid long pursuits of worldly profits or pre-eminences; which probably either we shall not have time to attain, or must soon quit.
5. A fifth use of numbering our days is, to check and compose all strong emotions of mind about worldly concerns; for in so transitory a state there can be nothing to deserve them. Why should we be elated with hope of future good, when both our own lives, and those on whom our expectations may depend, are subject to such innumerable chances; and the higher we raise ourselves in imagination, the more afflicting will be our fall? Why, again, should we be dejected with fear of future evils, when a thousand accidents which none of us can guess at beforehand, may prevent their coming; or, if they do come, our head may be laid low enough before that time, and far enough out of the way of feeling them?
6. The most important lesson, taught us by the shortness and uncertainty of our present life, considered in itself, is, that we may reasonably expect, and should therefore continually look forward to another.
II. With respect to the eternal life which is to follow. Whatever conclusions men may think they can draw from the former view, yet, when our life on earth is contemplated as a state of preparation for another and an endless one, then neither the wit, nor almost the folly of man, can make any other than virtuous inferences from the shortness of it.
1. Conviction of the necessity of applying diligently to know and do our duty.
2. Encouragement to persist in it to the end against temptation.
3. Support under the afflictions to which we are exposed in the meanwhile. (T. Secker.)
Life wisdom
What is the wisdom which comes from the numbering of our days? Rather let me put it in this way: What are the varieties of human life which this wisdom condemns?
1. The anxious life. A matter of temperament, you say. Yes, to a certain extent. Blood, inherited disposition, may not be overlooked here. Then it is said that this over-anxious condition of the mind is a result of impaired health. And here also is a truth. It is only a very superior person who can rise above and triumph over his physical condition; who can be equable, and wise, and tender, when the body is sick. But admitting all this, still education, reason, truth, must not be left out here. There is such a thing as a man taking himself in hand for correction. He may call reason to his aid. He may smite his propensity with the hand of truth. So here, the hand of truth is raised for smiting, for condemnation. First, this truth,–your own helplessness; secondly,–Gods infinite goodness. And now comes the wisdom of the text, sharpest, strongest of all to rebuke and condemn here. Thus it speaks: It will soon be over. The dream will soon be past. The battle will soon be fought. Do not worry then. The burden so heavy, you shall carry it but for a day. The trial so sharp, you shall soon have an escape from it. These things will soon have an end, and that for ever. Oh, how quiet, how peaceful is the region to which human life hasteth!
2. The selfish life. This covers the whole range from mere indifference to hate; from hands which are folded in the presence of human want, to hands which are raised to beat down the weak and the struggling. Consider that only for the brief period of this life is it given unto any one of us to work our life power into the welfare of our fellow-men.
3. The worldly life. It may be to make money; it may be to get into places of honour; it may be the acquisition of knowledge. It matters not. Only so that the life of man is circumscribed by sense. Only so that in its noblest outreachings it is bounded by this world. So that the man does not love, or think upon, or care for, anything which he cannot handle, or see, or analyze. Just so sure as this is the case, so surely does the wisdom prayed for in the text condemn, Thou fool, thou hast not numbered thy days.
4. The irreligious or unchristian life. Doth not the fact that our days may end at any time condemn such a life? Unpreparedness for an event which may be precipitated at any moment,–is not this folly? (S. S. Mitchell, D.D.)
Time wisely computed
I. The psalmists petition. It suggests–
1. A duty to be discharged: number our days. The very term implies–
(1) That they have a limit, and that this is within the scope of our powers to calculate. The tale may soon be told.
(2) The uncertainty of life.
(3) The preciousness of time. As the miser counts and recounts his gold because it is his treasure, and fears lest a single piece should be lost, so should the child of eternity number those few and fleeting days which constitute his only season for preparing for eternity. Here alone is parsimony a virtue.
2. An inaptitude on the part of man for the fulfilment of the duty. He is called, indeed, to that for which his understanding is qualified, but to which his heart is not inclined.
3. This duty involves–
(1) A comparison of the number of our days with the duration of eternity.
(2) A comparison of the work which we have to do, with the space allotted for its accomplishment.
3. His need of assistance in the duty. God communicates this necessary instruction by His Word, and Providence, and Spirit–reminding by many a solemn text, by many an awakening dispensation, and by many an inward admonition, that The time is short.
II. The end to which the petition was directed. What is wisdom? We need no better definition than that which describes it to consist in pursuing the best end by the best means; and seeing that happiness is our beings end and aim, and that holiness is the only revealed means of securing it, the definition in question obviously identifies wisdom with godliness. The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom. Seek, then, to apply your hearts to the wisdom which cometh down from above. (C. F. Childe, M.A.)
The divine arithmetic of life
If ever we ought to practise what has been called the Divine arithmetic of life, it is at the close of one year and the beginning of another. In garrison towns there is a cannon fired at noon, and when people not accustomed to it hear it for the first time, they generally start and say, Oh my! so that the gun is often called by soldiers the Oh my! People are startled by the noise, but they might start, too, at the thought of how quickly each day passes. How much more ought we to feel the passing of a year !We have known fond mothers who got their children photographed annually to compare the pictures and see the progress that had been made. Were our spiritual photographs compared with those of last year, would we be found to have grown in grace? Have we been as happy as we might have been; have we done any acts of purely unselfish kindness; has any one been much the better for our existence during the past year; have we offered up one uninterrupted prayer? Let the walls of our chambers speak; let our churches, houses, offices speak. Are we more trusting in God and more useful to man? (E. J. Hardy, M.A.)
The true use of time
The man who numbers his days rightly, numbers them not as if they ended anything, but as if they began something. He thinks of them in their termination as bringing him, not to an end, but to a beginning, a beginning for which, if rightly used, they prepare and fit him. You should not look upon men and women as if they were grown, as trees which stand in their maturity plain to your sight. You should look upon them as seeds which are planted, which are hidden as yet, but which are destined to have appearance of full growth by and by. If you will only carry yourself in thought over beyond the time of what you call death; if you will only stretch your lives out endlessly, and conceive of yourselves continuing as living beings with all your present powers amplified and quickened to greater intensity of expression for ever and ever; if you will only think of yourselves as having close and emphatic connections with that which is beyond as well as that which is here–if you will only think of yourselves in this way, I say, until the next world has become as actual and impressive to your consciousness as the present world is, you will then put true measurement upon and give the true significance to time. You will then see what it is worth and what it is not worth. You will then see what it should lead to and what you cannot afford to have it lead to. And seeing this you will apply your hearts unto wisdom. Wisdom is a great word, because the idea it symbolizes is great. It is greater than knowledge, for knowledge symbolizes only what one has received. Knowledge symbolizes the accumulation of facts, the gathering and retention of information, the reception on the part of our memories of whatever has been discovered. But wisdom represents that finer power, that higher characteristic of mind, which suggests the proper application of facts, the right use of knowledge, the correct direction of our faculties. He whose heart is applied to wisdom has put himself in such a position that he can think divinely–think as God would think in his place. Have you this wisdom touching the government of your lives? Do you see your connections with eternity, with its law and its love, with its opportunities and: its occasions, with its joys and its glories? Are you living as those should live who can never stop living, who cannot even remain what they are, but must become better or worse? It is well for us that we can be taught of God. It is well that heaven has not left us in our ignorance. What would the world know of right and wrong but for God? What should we know even of ourselves but for Him? Let us, therefore, more and more accept God as our Teacher. Let us read His Holy Word with profound attention. Let us study Nature with reverent and inquisitive eyes. Let us by every method inform ourselves in respect to those great duties and obligations which deliver us from frivolity and sin. (W. H. Murray.)
How rightly to number our days
I was reading of King Alfred, who, in the days long before the modern time-pieces were invented, used to divide the day into three parts, eight hours each, and then had three wax candles. By the time the first candle had burned to the socket, eight hours had gone; and when the second candle had burned to the socket, another eight hours had gone; and when all the three were gone out, then the day had passed. O that some of us, instead of calculating our days by any earthly time-piece, may calculate them by the numbers of opportunities and mercies which are burning down and burning out, never to be relighted. (T. De Witt Talmage.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. So teach us to number our days] Let us deeply consider our own frailty, and the shortness and uncertainty of life, that we may live for eternity, acquaint ourselves with thee, and be at peace; that we may die in thy favour and live and reign with thee eternally.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
So teach us, by thy Spirit and grace, as thou hast already taught us by thy word. Or, teach us rightly (as this word is used, Num 27:7; 2Ki 7:9)
to number, & c., as it follows. To number our days; to consider the shortness and miseries of this life, and the certainty and speediness of death, and the causes and consequences thereof.
That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom; that we may heartily devote ourselves to the study and practice of true wisdom, which is nothing else but piety, or the fear of God. And why so? Not that the Israelites might thereby procure a revocation of that peremptory sentence of death passed upon all that generation; nor that other men might hereby prevent their death, both which he very well knew to be impossible; but that men might arm and prepare themselves for death, and for their great account after death, and might make sure of the happiness of the future life; of which this text is a plain and pregnant proof.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
12. This he prays we may know orunderstand, so as properly to number or appreciate the shortness ofour days, that we may be wise.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
So teach us to number our days,…. Not merely to count them, how many they are, in an arithmetical way; there is no need of divine teachings for that; some few instructions from an arithmetician, and a moderate skill in arithmetic, will enable persons not only to count the years of their lives, but even how many days they have lived: nor is this to be understood of calculating or reckoning of time to come; no man can count the number of days he has to live; the number of his days, months, and years, is with the Lord; but is hid from him: the living know they shall die; but know not how long they shall live, and when they shall die: this the Lord teaches not, nor should we be solicitous to know: but rather the meaning of the petition is, that God would teach us to number our days, as if the present one was the last; for we cannot boast of tomorrow; we know not but this day, or night, our souls may be required of us: but the sense is, that God would teach us seriously to meditate on, and consider of, the shortness of our days; that they are but as a shadow, and there is no abiding; and the vanity and sinfulness of them, that so we may not desire to live here always; and the troubles and sorrows of them, which may serve to wean us from the world, and to observe how unprofitably we have spent them; which may put us upon redeeming time, and also to take notice of the goodness of God, that has followed us all our days, which may lead us to repentance, and engage us in the fear of God:
that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom; to consider our latter end, and what will become of us hereafter; which is a branch of wisdom so to do; to seek the way of salvation by Christ; to seek to Christ, the wisdom of God, for it; to fear the Lord, which is the beginning of wisdom; and to walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise; to all which an application of the heart is necessary; for wisdom is to be sought for heartily, and with the whole heart: and to this divine teachings are requisite, as well as to number our days; for unless a man is taught of God, and by his Spirit convinced of sin, righteousness, and judgment, he will never be concerned, in good earnest, about a future state; nor inquire the way of salvation, nor heartily apply to Christ for it: he may number his days, and consider the shortness of them, and apply his heart to folly, and not wisdom; see Isa 22:21.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| Prayers for Mercy. | |
12 So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. 13 Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. 14 O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. 15 Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. 16 Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. 17 And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.
These are the petitions of this prayer, grounded upon the foregoing meditations and acknowledgments. Is any afflicted? Let him learn thus to pray. Four things they are here directed to pray for:–
I. For a sanctified use of the sad dispensation they were now under. Being condemned to have our days shortened, “Lord, teach us to number our days (v. 12); Lord, give us grace duly to consider how few they are, and how little a while we have to live in this world.” Note, 1. It is an excellent art rightly to number our days, so as not to be out in our calculation, as he was who counted upon many years to come when, that night, his soul was required of him. We must live under a constant apprehension of the shortness and uncertainty of life and the near approach of death and eternity. We must so number our days as to compare our work with them, and mind it accordingly with a double diligence, as those that have no time to trifle. 2. Those that would learn this arithmetic must pray for divine instruction, must go to God, and beg of him to teach them by his Spirit, to put them upon considering and to give them a good understanding. 3. We then number our days to good purpose when thereby our hearts are inclined and engaged to true wisdom, that is, to the practice of serious godliness. To be religious is to be wise; this is a thing to which it is necessary that we apply our hearts, and the matter requires and deserves a close application, to which frequent thoughts of the uncertainty of our continuance here, and the certainty of our removal hence, will very much contribute.
II. For the turning away of God’s anger from them, that though the decree had gone forth, and was past revocation, there was no remedy, but they must die in the wilderness: “Yet return, O Lord! be thou reconciled to us, and let it repent thee concerning thy servants (v. 13); send us tidings of peace to comfort us again after these heavy tidings. How long must we look upon ourselves as under thy wrath, and when shall we have some token given us of our restoration to thy favour? We are thy servants, thy people (Isa. lxiv. 9); when wilt thou change thy way toward us?” In answer to this prayer, and upon their profession of repentance (Num 14:39; Num 14:40), God, in the next chapter, proceeding with the laws concerning sacrifices (Num. xv. 1, c.), which was a token that it repented him concerning his servants for, if the Lord had been pleased to kill them, he would not have shown them such things as these.
III. For comfort and joy in the returns of God’s favour to them, Psa 90:14; Psa 90:15. They pray for the mercy of God; for they pretend not to plead any merit of their own. Have mercy upon us, O God! is a prayer we are all concerned to say Amen to. Let us pray for early mercy, the seasonable communications of divine mercy, that God’s tender mercies may speedily prevent us, early in the morning of our days, when we are young and flourishing, v. 6. Let us pray for the true satisfaction and happiness which are to be had only in the favour and mercy of God, Psa 4:6; Psa 4:7. A gracious soul, if it may but be satisfied of God’s lovingkindness, will be satisfied with it, abundantly satisfied, will take up with that, and will take up with nothing short of it. Two things are pleaded to enforce this petition for God’s mercy:– 1. That it would be a full fountain of future joys: “O satisfy us with thy mercy, not only that we may be easy and at rest within ourselves, which we can never be while we lie under thy wrath, but that we may rejoice and be glad, not only for a time, upon the first indications of thy favour, but all our days, though we are to spend them in the wilderness.” With respect to those that make God their chief joy, as their joy may be full (1 John i. 4), so it may be constant, even in this vale of tears; it is their own fault if they are not glad all their days, for his mercy will furnish them with joy in tribulation and nothing can separate them from it. 2. That it would be a sufficient balance to their former griefs: “Make us glad according to the days wherein thou has afflicted us; let the days of our joy in thy favour be as many as the days of our pain for thy displeasure have been and as pleasant as those have been gloomy. Lord, thou usest to set the one over-against the other (Eccl. vii. 14); do so in our case. Let it suffice that we have drunk so long of the cup of trembling; now put into our hands the cup of salvation.” God’s people reckon the returns of God’s lovingkindness a sufficient recompence for all their troubles.
IV. For the progress of the work of God among them notwithstanding, Psa 90:16; Psa 90:17. 1. That he would manifest himself in carrying it on: “Let thy work appear upon thy servants; let it appear that thou hast wrought upon us, to bring us home to thyself and to fit us for thyself.” God’s servants cannot work for him unless he work upon them, and work in them both to will and to do; and then we may hope the operations of God’s providence will be apparent for us when the operations of his grace are apparent upon us. “Let thy work appear, and in it thy glory will appear to us and those that shall come after us.” In praying for God’s grace God’s glory must be our end; and we must therein have an eye to our children as well as to ourselves, that they also may experience God’s glory appearing upon them, so as to change them into the same image, from glory to glory. Perhaps, in this prayer, they distinguish between themselves and their children, for so God distinguished in his late message to them (Num. xiv. 31, Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness, but your little ones I will bring into Canaan): “Lord,” say they, “let thy work appear upon us, to reform us, and bring us to a better temper, and then let thy glory appear to our children, in performing the promise to them which we have forfeited the benefit of.” 2. That he would countenance and strengthen them in carrying it on, in doing their part towards it. (1.) That he would smile upon them in it: Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; let it appear that God favours us. Let us have God’s ordinances kept up among us and the tokens of God’s presence with his ordinances; so some. We may apply this petition both to our sanctification and to our consolation. Holiness is the beauty of the Lord our God; let that be upon us in all we say and do; let the grace of God in us, and the light of our good works, make our faces to shine (that is the comeliness God puts upon us, and those are comely indeed who are so beautified), and then let divine consolations put gladness into our hearts, and a lustre upon our countenances, and that also will be the beauty of the Lord upon us, as our God. (2.) That he would prosper them in it: Establish thou the work of our hands upon us. God’s working upon us (v. 16) does not discharge us from using our utmost endeavours in serving him and working out our salvation. But, when we have done all, we must wait upon God for the success, and beg of him to prosper our handy works, to give us to compass what we aim at for his glory. We are so unworthy of divine assistance, and yet so utterly insufficient to bring any thing to pass without it, that we have need to be earnest for it and to repeat the request: Yea, the work of our hands, establish thou it, and, in order to that, establish us in it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
12. Teach us so to number our days. Some translate to the number of our days, which gives the same sense. As Moses perceived that what he had hitherto taught is not comprehended by the understandings of men until God shine upon them by his Spirit, he now sets himself to prayer. It indeed seems at first sight absurd to pray that we may know the number of our years. What? since even the strongest scarcely reach the age of fourscore years, is there any difficulty in reckoning up so small a sum? Children learn numbers as soon as they begin to prattle; and we do not need a teacher in arithmetic to enable us to count the length of a hundred upon our fingers. So much the fouler and more shameful is our stupidity in never comprehending the short term of our life. Even he who is most skillful in arithmetic, and who can precisely and accurately understand and investigate millions of millions, is nevertheless unable to count fourscore years in his own life. It is surely a monstrous thing that men can measure all distances without themselves, that they know how many feet the moon is distant from the center of the earth, what space there is between the different planets; and, in short, that they can measure all the dimensions both of heaven and earth; while yet they cannot number threescore and ten years in their own case. It is therefore evident that Moses had good reason to beseech God for ability to perform what requires a wisdom which is very rare among mankind. The last clause of the verse is also worthy of special notice. By it he teaches us that we then truly apply our hearts to wisdom when we comprehend the shortness of human life. What can be a greater proof of madness than to ramble about without proposing to one’s self any end? True believers alone, who know the difference between this transitory state and a blessed eternity, for which they were created, know what ought to be the aim of their life. No man then can regulate his life with a settled mind, but he who, knowing the end of it, that is to say death itself, is led to consider the great purpose of man’s existence in this world, that he may aspire after the prize of the heavenly calling.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(12) Number our days.This verse as it stands literally gives to allot, or in allotting (see Isa. 65:12), our days, so teach, and we will cause to come the heart wisdom. The last clause, if intelligible at all, must mean that we may offer a wise heart, and the natural way to understand the verse is to make God, not man, as in the Authorised Version, the reckoner of the days. In allotting our days thus make us know (i.e., make us know the power of Thine anger), in order that we may present a wise heart.
The verse must evidently be taken in close connection. with the preceding, or the point of the petition is lost, and though the ordinary rendering, Teach us to number our days, has given birth to a number of sayings which might be quoted in illustration, it is neither in itself very intelligible, nor, except by one instance in later Hebrew, can it be supported as a rendering of the original.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
12. So teach us This looks to the end of all divine judgment.
Lam 3:39-40. God’s displeasure is manifested to awaken a salutary fear of him, which shall turn men from sin, and lead to the practice of wisdom. So long as men treat sin as a trifle they will treat God with irreverence and themselves with abuse. Rev 15:4
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
These verses contain the sanctified use of the foregoing meditations. If such be the transitory state of man upon earth, Lord cause thy people to improve these appointments of thine, to thy glory, and their welfare. Are our days short? Oh, make them gracious. Are they vain and unsatisfying? Oh, direct us to Jesus, who will cause them that love him to inherit substance. Are they full of sin and infirmities? Oh, let the consciousness of these things endear Jesus in his blood and righteousness: and let all the events of a short, unsatisfying, sinful life, make us long for the work of salvation, and the beauty of our Lord God to be upon us. Lord, work in us, and upon us, both to will and to do of thy good pleasure. Phi 2:13 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 90:12 So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto wisdom.
Ver. 12. So teach us to number our days ] The philosopher affirms, that man is therefore the wisest of creatures, because he alone can number, Bruta non numerant. But in this divine arithmetic of numbering our days (to the which all other is not to be compared, no, though we could, as Archimedes boasted, number the stars of heaven, or the sands by the sea shore), God himself must be our teacher, or we shall never do it to purpose. R. Solomon observeth, that the word rendered “so” here, if taken as numeral letters, maketh seventy, and the years of our life are seventy; out of which, say other Rabbis, if we deduct the time of childhood and youth, which is vanity, the time of sleep, repose, repast, and recreation (which is more than the one half), and the time of affliction and grief which we enjoy not, what a poor pittance will life be reduced unto!
That we may apply our hearts
Unto wisdom
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
number our days. See note on “threescore”, Psa 90:10, above.
That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom = That we may bring home a heart of wisdom.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 90:12-17
Psa 90:12-17
MOSES’ PRAYER
“So teach us to number our days,
That we may get us a heart of wisdom.
Hearken, O Jehovah; how long?
And let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
O satisfy us in the morning with thy lovingkindness,
That we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us,
And the years wherein we have seen evil.
Let thy work appear unto thy servants,
And thy glory upon their children.
And let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And establish thou the work of our hands upon us;
Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”
“Teach us to number our days … that we may get … a heart of wisdom” (Psa 90:12). This is a prayer that God will teach men to live as dying men should live, always taking account of the brevity and uncertainty of life and of the inevitable accounting before God in the Final Day. What a contrast is this with the attitude of many wicked people who live exactly as if they expected to live forever!
“Return … repent thee” (Psa 90:13). This is a plea, “For a restoration of God’s favor. To be sure, God does not “repent” in the human sense, but when the repentance and prayers of his people permit it, God indeed will restore them to favor.
“Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us” (Psa 90:15). The two clauses in this and in the second half of the verse are synonymous pleadings with God to, “Balance the evil with good things. It is as if Moses is saying, “O God, let us at least have good times that are as long as the evil times we have suffered.”
“The prevailing thought in this section is one of confidence in the Lord’s kindness and power. The psalmist knows that it is only God’s favor that renews the sense of gladness and truly prospers the works of men.
“Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory upon their children” (Psa 90:16). Barnes understood this to mean, “Let us see thy power displayed in removing the calamities and in restoring our days of prosperity. It was especially a concern of Moses that the next generation of Israel (their children) would also be made aware of God’s glory.
“Let the favor of God be upon us … establish the work of our hands” (Psa 90:17). Those who do God’s will during their earthly pilgrimage are happy indeed. “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, assuredly, for they shall rest from their labors, and their work’s follow with them” (Rev 14:13). This indicates that the works of righteous people shall indeed survive them and follow them even to the Judgment of the Great Day. This must surely be what the psalmist meant by “establish the work of our hands.” How glorious is the apostolic assurance that, “We know that our labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1Co 15:58).
Alexander Maclaren has a marvelous paragraph on this with which we wish to conclude this chapter.
Fleeting as our days are, they are ennobled by our being permitted to be God’s “tools”; and although we the workers have to pass, our work may be established. That life will not die which has done the will of God. But we must walk in the favor of God, so that there can flow down from us deeds which breed not shame but shall outlast the perishable earth and follow their doers into the dwelling places of those eternal habitations.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 90:12. Number our days means to place the proper value on our time; if we do we will not idle it away. We will apply ourselves to those studies and activities that will make us wise and useful in matters that are profitable to all.
Psa 90:13. This is another of the earnest supplications for divine mercy. Again we observe that no complaint is made as to the justice of the correction that has been placed on God’s people. The request is for it to be lessened through mercy.
Psa 90:14. This is another plea for mercy and for it to come early or speedily.
Psa 90:15. This means a request for relief that is according to the distress that had been suffered. In other words, to counteract the days of affliction with a like number of happy days.
Psa 90:16. The writer wished the Lord to bring about the work of relief requested. He also wished it to be made so evident that not only the present generation, but the following ones could realize its existence and be led to appreciate it.
Psa 90:17. One definition of the original for beauty is “agreeableness or delight.” The prayer is that God would remove the distress of chastisement and give his servants an agreeable experience instead. It should be understood that the work of our hands means the righteous works to be performed under the mercy of God. The request is that all such works would be established or accepted by Him.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
The Right Use of Time
So teach us to number our days,
That we may get us an heart of wisdom.Psa 90:12.
1. This psalm of mans pilgrimage through all generations has in it, says Ewald, something unusually arresting, solemn, sinking deep into depths of the Divinity. Moses might well have been seized by these awful thoughts at the close of his wanderings; and the author, whoever he be, is clearly a man grown grey with vast experience, who here takes his stand at the close of his earthly course. The verses of the psalm have become the funeral hymn of Christendom, which every Church recites at the burial of its dead.
The slow, sad experience of life wrought out in the Psalmist a twofold resulthe has learned the secret both of detachment and of attachment. This aged pilgrim grows more and more weaned from the world and detached from things trivial and temporal; he stands aloof and absolved from the accidents of existence. But he clings closer and closer still to things unseen and eternal, and is made partaker of their everlastingness. Such should be the effect of a right numbering of the days and years as they escape usto teach at last that, though the world passeth away, and the lust thereof, yet he who doeth the will of God abideth for ever.
2. But he has learned more than that. He has learned that God is from everlasting to everlasting. It would help to cheer us if we could lay this thought to heart, numbering our days, not merely to realize their brevity, but to realize by contrast the length of Gods years. We have but a short time to work, and it is well to remember that, in order that we may be diligent. But God has a whole eternity wherein to work, and it is well to remember that also, so that we may cease from fretfulness and impatience at the slow progress of the Divine Kingdom. It is by so numbering both our years and Gods that we attain to a wise heart.
Time was Napoleons most precious commodity, and for every stage and state of life he had a routine from which he deviated most unwillingly. In these years his days were spent in the careful husbanding of every hour.1 [Note: W. M. Sloane, Napoleon Bonaparte, ii. 253.]
I
A Prayer for Instruction
Teach us.
1. At first thought it would seem as though we needed not to be instructed on such a subject. It would seem as though mans mortality were so evident that it would be impossible for him to hide it from himself. Nevertheless, he does hide it from himself, and on this account no prayer is more important than the prayer of the text. The demonstration of human mortality is in a hundred generations of the dead. It is in the ground beneath our feet, which is billowy with graves full of the dust which once lived in human forms and spoke and was loved. It is in the long line of the one hundred thousand human lives which every day pass the boundary-line from time into eternity and melt into nothingness before our eyes. It is in every tick of the clock which marks the passage of some immortal soul and declares the death-rate of the world. Yet, humanity at large does not realize the mortality of humanity. So thoroughly unrealized is the mortality of man that the first condition of right living, the fundamental thought of a wise life, is ignored and undreamed of by thousands and thousands.
We can number other mens days and years, and think they will die ere it be long, if we see them sick or sore or cold: but we cannot number our own. When two ships meet on the sea, they which are in one ship think that the other ship doth sail exceedingly fast, but that their ship goeth fair and softly, or rather standeth still, although in truth one ship saileth as fast as the other; so every man thinks that the other post and run and fly to the grave, but that himself standeth stock still, although, indeed, a year with him is no longer than it is with the other.1 [Note: Henry Smith.]
I remember, in the seminary, a fellow student who had upon the crown of his head a tumour that was constantly growing. The physicians told him that it was impossible, by any effort of human skill, to relieve him. He was waiting the moment when, in its growth, it should at last pierce the hard bone of the skull; and he knew that the moment that should be accomplished, he would fall dead. God has spared him these many years to preach the gospel. But, when others were full of frolic and fun, I noted the serious mirth of that man. He lived in a division of his days. He counted nothing in the future. He finished each days work when the night came.2 [Note: S. H. Tyng.]
2. The uncertainty of human life and the vanity of human wishes have always been the theme of the satirist as well as of the preacher. But satire by itself is no remedy; it can, at best, only point out the disease. In the very fact that nothing is certain about life except its uncertainty, we have a safeguard. We know roughly the limits by which we are circumscribed; we know enough to warn, but not enough to paralyse. Could we look forward with absolute certainty to half a century of health and vigour, we might be carried away even more than we are by the pride of life. Did we know that death awaited us in the near future, our spirits would be dulled, our ardour damped in carrying out legitimate schemes of useful work. As it is, we may construct our averages of life, we may frame our insurance tables for the mass with some approach to accuracy; but we cannot predict the length of an individual life, save when medical skill can anticipate by a little the decree which has already gone forth. It is a merciful dispensation that has so ordered things. God would, indeed, have us to ponder over the mysteries which surround our existence, but not in such a way as to sap the power of action in us.
Herein is the secret, the true alleviation of the burden of to-morrow; not the false and feeble attempt to oppose care by carelessness, to turn from the anxieties and troubles of life to a wild recklessness, assuming only a painful jauntiness which conceals the pain. The true remedy is not forgetfulness, but faith. This is the peace of God which passeth all understanding, which guards the heart and calms the fevered life. To the soul which has this noble courage born of faith no turn of affairs can come amiss. He is not open to the blows of chance. It is not mere resignation: it is glad confidence that all things work together for good to them that love the Lord. If I should intend Liverpool and land in heaven, said John Howe about a passage from Ireland. If, what then? To John Howe, who knew that the eternal God was his refuge, and underneath were the everlasting arms, what shadow could the future have? Why should he be bowed down by the burden of to-morrow? As his days, right on till the last sand had run, right on till the last gasp of breath, so would be his strength.1 [Note: Hugh Black, Comfort, 189.]
II
A Wise Enumeration
Teach us to number our days.
1. What does it mean to number our days? Not just to calculate the chances of our own survival in this worldwhich we may easily gather from the actuarial tables of an insurance company. It means to take the measure of our days as compared with the work to be performed, with the provision to be laid up for eternity, with the preparation to be made for death, with the precaution to be taken against judgment to come. It is to estimate human life by the purposes to which it should be applied, by the eternity to which it must conduct. It means to gauge and test our own career in the light of its moral and spiritual issues. And as God teaches us this, we understand the secret of true wisdom. For wisdom lies in a just estimate of the real value of things. What shall it profit a man? remains the final question. As Plato said, in one of his mystical sentences, it is the art of measurement which would save the soul.
2. The Psalmists petition in effect asks that we shall so mind the things of this world as not to forget their issues; and that we shall so mind the things of eternity as not to forget that they are to be gained through godliness, righteousness, and sobriety in using the things of time. The sublime motive in the distance must not overpower us, so that we shall be rendered unfit for discharging our present duty, small and insignificant though it may be; nor must we be so engrossed with the present duty as to lose sight of the grand motive, which redeems from littleness every duty, however small, which is a means to so great an end.
3. The true way to number our days is not so to number them that they seem to include the result of our lives, but so to number them that they seem to include simply the beginning of our lives. They and all they bring are only stepping-stones which lead us up to the threshold of a nobler life, nobler in its opportunities, occasions, and the character of its joy. Life is not mere existence, the coming and the going of breath, and its coming again; life means all that it includes of feeling and thinking and doing and growth. And the heavenly life is only the continuing of our activities and the multiplication of serviceable occasions along those high levels and stretches of being to the altitude of which we are lifted by the movement of prior activities, as birds are lifted by the movement of their wings. The man who numbers his days rightly, numbers them not as if they ended anything, but as if they began something. He thinks of them in their termination as bringing him not to an end but to a beginninga beginning for which, if rightly used, they prepare and fit him.
What would you wish to be doing, was the question once put to a wise man, if you knew that you were to die the next minute? Just what I am doing now, was his reply, though he was neither repeating the creed nor telling his religious experience, but, for aught I know, posting his accounts, or talking merry nonsense with his children round the fire. Nothing that is worthy of a living man can be unworthy of a dying one; and whatever is shocking in the last moment, would be disgraceful in every other.1 [Note: James Martineau.]
The family motto of Dr. Doddridge was Dum vivimus, vivamus, which in its primary significance is, to be sure, not very suitable to a Christian divine; but he paraphrased it thus:
Live, while you live, the epicure would say,
And seize the pleasures of the present day.
Live, while you live, the sacred preacher cries,
And give to God each moment as it flies.
Lord, in my views let both united be,
I live in pleasure, when I live to Thee.2 [Note: Gentlemans Magazine, 1786, p. 35.]
Life is unutterably dear,
God makes to-day so fair;
Though heaven is better,being here
I long not to be there.
The weights of life are pressing still,
Not one of them may fall;
Yet such strong joys my spirit fill,
That I can bear them all.
Though Care and Grief are at my side,
There would I let them stay,
And still be ever satisfied
With beautiful To-day!1 [Note: Charlotte F. B. Rog.]
III
The Units of Life
Our days.
1. Notice the writers unit of computation in measuring life. He speaks not of years, not even of months or weeks, but of days. There is something very impressive in such a mode of reckoning. A year is a long period; and while we may hope for years of life, be they many or few, the passage of time is not continuously felt by us. But dayshow they rush past and fly away with a rapidity which on reflection is almost appalling! Even the heedless man must feel the ebb of life when it comes to be calculated by days. Yet as we see the winged hours go by, we are apt to think as lightly of them as if the series would never cease. We sleep and play and busy ourselves with what we call the serious business of life without much reference to the rising and setting of the sun. A day lost, a day half wasted, a day misused, causes us no poignant regret. We are so confident that many others are still in store for us. As they have come and gone in the past, so will they come and go in the future. We must admit, if we are pressed, that the supply is not absolutely unlimited. An end will be reached at some indefinite epoch, but not yetnot yet; and if meanwhile we are careless or prodigal, we anticipate many opportunities of making up for lost timeas if it were ever possible to make up for lost time!
Oh, Day, if I squander a wavelet of thee,
A mite of my twelve hours treasure,
The least of thy gazes or glances,
(Be they grants thou art bound to or gifts above measure)
One of thy choices or one of thy chances,
(Be they tasks God imposed thee or freaks at thy pleasure)
My Day, if I squander such labour or leisure,
Then shame fall on Asolo, mischief on me!1 [Note: Browning, Pippa Passes.]
2. On our maps we have lines to mark the parallels of latitudebut these lines are only on the map. Crossing the equator or the tropics you see no score in the water, no line in the sky, to mark it; the vessel gives no lurch, no call is emitted from the deep; it is only the man of skill, the pilot or the captain, with his eye on the signs of heaven, who can tell that an event has happened, and that a definite portion of the voyage is completed. And, so far, our life is like a voyage on the open sea, every day repeating its predecessorthe same watery plain around and the same blue dome aboveeach so like the other that you might fancy the charmed ship was standing still. But it is not so. The watery plain of to-day is far in advance of the plain of yesterday, and the blue dome of to-day may be very like its predecessors, but it is fashioned from quite another sky.
Their advent is as silent as their going,
They have no voice nor utter any speech,
No whispered murmur passes each to each,
As on the bosom of the years stream flowing,
They pass beyond recall, beyond our knowing,
Farther than sight can pierce or thought can reach,
Nor shall we ever hear them on Times beach,
No matter how the winds of life are blowing.
They bide their time, they wait the awful warning
Of that dread day, when hearts and graves unsealing,
The trumpets note shall call the sea and sod,
To yield their secrets to the suns revealing:
What voices then shall thrill the Judgment morning,
As our lost hours shall cry aloud to God?2 [Note: R. T. W. Duke.]
3. Is it because God gives us time so imperceptibly that none of us estimates the full value of time? The individual moment is not looked upon as a precious grain of gold. One could prove this in many ways; but let us be satisfied with one way. Take, as an example, the names of our various methods of getting rid of time. These indicate our undervaluation of time. Notice some of these names: pastime, i.e., what consumes and uses up the hours easily; amusement, i.e., what prevents musing or meditation; diversion, i.e., what turns aside; entertainment, i.e., what holds in suspense or equilibrium. These words, which are in common use, indicate and reveal a wrong condition of thought and feeling about time. They characterize it as a drug in the market to be got rid of at any price and in any quantity, whereas it is the most precious trust we have.
The illusion haunts us, that a long duration, as a year, a decade, a century, is valuable. But an old French sentence says, God works in moments,En peu dheure Dieu labeure. We ask for long life, but tis deep life, or grand moments that signify. Let the measure of time be spiritual, not mechanical. Life is unnecessarily long. Moments of insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glancewhat ample borrowers of eternity they are!1 [Note: Emerson.]
Forenoon and afternoon and night,forenoon
And afternoon and night,forenoon andwhat?
The empty song repeats itself. No more?
Yea, that is life: make this forenoon sublime,
This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer,
And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won.2 [Note: Edward Rowland Sill.]
IV
Reckoning with a Purpose
So teach us to number our days, that we may get us an heart of wisdom.
The reckoning must be made with a purpose. Objectless meditations, and laments without a practical outcome, will avail nothing. The result of our counsels must be the attainment of wisdom, and wisdom does not consist in the mere recognition of a truth, however momentous. It is a small thing to face the fact of the shortness of human life, and call it an evil not to be avoided by any. The shallowest of heathen philosophies could tell us that. So teach us to number our days, that we may get us an heart of wisdom.
1. Wisdom is a great word, because the idea it symbolizes is great. It is greater than knowledge, for knowledge symbolizes only what one has received. Knowledge signifies the accumulation of facts, the gathering and retention of information, the reception on the part of our memories of whatever has been discovered. But wisdom represents that finer power, that higher characteristic of mind, which suggests the proper application of facts, the right use of knowledge, the correct direction of our faculties. Knowledge is full of error. The stubble and the chaff lie together in its chambers, and both represent it. But wisdom never errs. It separates the wheat from the chaff. It discards what is worthless, and retains only the valuable. Knowledge represents the results of human industry. Wisdom represents the characteristic of Divinity. He whose heart is applied to wisdom has put himself in such a position that he can think divinelythink as God would think in his place.
Wisdom signifies an acquisition, by means of the souls faculty of perception, of true knowledge; and the lack of such knowledge is ignorance. The idea, held by many people, that wisdom is a gift bestowed on a few privileged souls is erroneous. Wisdom is open to all, without price or favour. Wisdom, beautiful and divine, represents the highest development of the human soul. There is a path leading from the lowest to the highest, and it is open equally to all. As soon as a man begins to seek for knowledge and truth, he begins to advance out of ignorance and to acquire wisdom. The desire for knowledge and truth is itself an evidence of Wisdom 1 [Note: R. H. Hodgson, Glad Tidings, 42.]
2. Now wisdom for time and for eternity does not lie in the pursuit of pleasure, not even in the pursuit of happiness, but in the cultivation of a rising life. This is not to say that happiness may never be hoped for or enjoyed when it comes. If we did not desire to be happy, we should be more than human,or less. But the only way of obtaining happiness is to renounce altogether the pursuit of it. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these thingsthings which go to make life happyshall be added unto you. Self-consecration is the root of all true happiness. It is the one thing that ensures contentment here and hereafter; the one thing that will bring a man peace at the last. Only by losing our life in God can we hope to find it immortalized. Only by a dedication of all that we have, and are, and desire, shall we attain to the perfect existence. This is wisdom and this is happiness.
The third chapter of Dr. Hannas Memoir describes Dr. Chalmers ordination to his Fifeshire parish of Kilmany, in the Maytime of 1803; but we have to journey on to the eighth chapter and the winter of 1811, before the preacher has any Gospel to proclaim. Through the intervening years Chalmers was more interested in mathematics than in the New Testament, and in his lectures to the students of St. Andrews on chemistry and geology than in the spiritual welfare of his people. The author of this pamphlet, he wrote in self-defence, can assert, on the authority of his own experience, that, after the satisfactory discharge of his parish duties, a minister may enjoy five days in the week of uninterrupted leisure for the prosecution of any science in which his taste may dispose him to engage. Years afterwards, in a debate in the Assembly of 1825, he recanted the words and confessed his error amid the deathlike stillness of the House. I have no reserve in saying that the sentiment was wrong, and that, in the utterance of it, I penned what was most outrageously wrong. Strangely blinded that I was! What, sir, is the object of mathematical science.? Magnitude, and the proportions of magnitude. But then, sir, I had forgotten two magnitudes. I thought not of the littleness of time; I recklessly thought not of the greatness of eternity.1 [Note: A. Smellie, Robert Murray McCheyne, 13.]
3. The end of life is not to live the maximum number of hours in pleasure, but to form a character for all eternity; and if we want to take stock of loss and gain aright, we must look into our own hearts. We must see what treasure it is to which they are drawn, whether above or below. Let us not scruple to put this to familiar and matter-of-fact tests; there should be no false dignity about religion. Let us ask ourselves plain questions like these: Has our time been frittered away, in society, in amusement, in the thousand distractions of lifeharmless, perhaps, each one taken by itself, but in the aggregate fatal to the usefulness and true greatness of life? Has God been crowded out of our thoughts? Has our hold on the unseen diminished? Have we become more encrusted with earthly things, till we find it impossible to look up, prayer being more difficult and the thought of religion more unwelcome? Is our moral courage less? Are we more afraid to confess God before men, or to protest against insults which we hear offered to His name? Are we more haunted by evil thoughts, and less able to resist them? Have we grown in patience, cheerfulness, humility? Are we more ready to do the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness, which have none of the charm of heroism, and remain unknown beyond the narrowest circle? Has our will grown in strength, so that we are less at the mercy of chance desires and sudden temptations, more at unity with ourselves, more settled in the drift and direction of our lives? And an answer we can give to these if we take the troublenot necessarily the same answer to all, not perhaps an unqualified answer to many, but still something that will show us whether we are being carried along by the stream or making way against it.
The universe is full of miracle and mystery; the darkness and silence are set for a sign we dare not despise. The pall of night lifts, leaving us engulphed in the light of immensity under a tossing heaven of stars. The dawn breaks, but it does not surprise us, for we have watched from the valley and seen the pale twilight. Through the wondrous Sabbath of faithful souls, the long day of rosemary and rue, the light brightens in the East; and we pass on towards it with quiet feet and opening eyes, bearing with us all of the redeemed earth that we have made our own, until we are fulfilled in the sunrise of the great Easter Day, and the peoples come from north and south and east and west to the city which lieth foursquarethe Beatific Vision of God.1 [Note: Michael Fairless, The Roadmender, 90.]
Time speeds on his relentless track,
Andthough we beg on bended knees
No prophets hand for us puts back
The shadow ten degrees:
Yet dream we each returning spring,
When woods are decked in gold and green,
The dawning year to us will bring
The best that yet has been.
Which is an earnest of the truth
That when the years have passed away,
We shall receive eternal youth
And never-ending day.
An angel to each land and clime
Shall locust-eaten years restore,
And swear by Him who conquered Time
That Time shall be no more.1 [Note: Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Loves Argument, 115.]
Literature
Darlow (T. H.), The Upward Calling, 346.
Gregg (D.), Our Best Moods, 339.
Hobhouse (W.), The Spiritual Standard, 210.
Hodge (C.), Princeton Sermons, 346.
Lee (R.), Sermons, 268.
Lefroy (E. C.), The Christian Ideal, 102.
Morgan (G. E.), Dreams and Realities, 49.
Murray (W. H.), The Fruits of the Spirit, 157.
Prothero (G.), The Armour of Light, 33.
Smellie (A.), In the Secret Place, 396.
Trimmer (R.), Thirsting for the Living Waters, 132.
Tyng (S. H.), The Peoples Pulpit, iv. 205.
Christian World Pulpit, lviii. 65 (M. G. Pearse).
Guardian, lxvii. (1912) 418 (J. W. Willink).
Homiletic Review, l. 379 (M. G. Pearse).
Literary Churchman, xxiii. (1877) 540.
National Preacher, xxxiv. 33 (A. Barnes).
Preachers Magazine, viii. 557 (T. Puddicombe); xxii. 67 (J. Edwards).
Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible
So: Psa 39:4, Deu 32:29, Ecc 9:10, Luk 12:35-40, Joh 9:4, Eph 5:16, Eph 5:17
that: Job 28:28, Pro 2:2-6, Pro 3:13-18, Pro 4:5, Pro 4:7, Pro 7:1-4, Pro 8:32-36, Pro 16:16, Pro 18:1, Pro 18:2, Pro 22:17, Pro 23:12, Pro 23:23
apply our hearts: Heb. cause our hearts to come
Reciprocal: Gen 47:28 – the whole age Job 15:20 – the number Psa 119:84 – How Pro 4:20 – General Pro 19:20 – be Lam 3:27 – bear Col 4:5 – Walk
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 90:12. So teach us By thy Spirit and grace, as thou hast already taught us by thy word; to number our days To consider the shortness and miseries of this life, and the certainty and nearness of death, and the causes and consequences thereof; that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom That we may heartily devote ourselves to the study and practice of true wisdom; meaning, undoubtedly, that wisdom which alone is such in the sense of the Holy Scriptures; namely, the fearing God and keeping his commandments, or true, genuine godliness and righteousness; that so, by making a right use of this short, uncertain space of time allotted us here, we may prepare for another state, a state of happiness hereafter. For Moses could not intend hereby to give the Israelites any hopes that, by applying their hearts unto wisdom, they might procure a revocation of that peremptory sentence of death passed upon all that generation; nor to suggest that other men might, by so doing, prevent their death; both which he very well knew to be impossible; but he intended to persuade the Israelites and others to prepare themselves for death, and for their great account after death, and, as they could not continue long in this life, and must expect much misery while they did continue in it, to make sure of the happiness of another. It appears, then, that the Israelites in the wilderness, when cut off from all hopes of an earthly Canaan, and the promises of this life, were not left destitute of better hopes, or without the knowledge of a Redeemer and life to come; and that when it is said, Deu 8:2; Deu 8:16, God led them through this great and terrible wilderness, to humble them, and to prove them, that he might do them good in their latter end; the meaning is, that he might do them good in their future state, according to the most natural sense of the word , acharitham, there used, and Deu 32:29.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
90:12 So teach [us] to number our days, that we may apply [our] hearts unto {l} wisdom.
(l) Which is by considering the shortness of our life, and by meditating the heavenly joys.