Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 90:4
For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.
4. The precise connexion of the thought is obscure. Some commentators connect Psa 90:4 with Psa 90:2, treating Psa 90:3 as a parenthesis. ‘Thou art eternal, for lapse of time makes no difference to Thee.’ But it seems preferable to connect Psa 90:4 directly with Psa 90:3. ‘Thou sweepest away one generation after another, for the longest span of human life is but a day in Thy sight: though a man should outlive the years of Methuselah, it is as nothing in comparison with eternity.’
when it is past ] Strictly, when it is on the point of passing away. A whole millennium to God, as He reviews it, is but as the past day when it draws towards its close, a brief space with all its events still present and familiar to the mind. Cp. 2Pe 3:8, where the converse truth is also affirmed; Sir 18:10 .
and as a watch in the night ] A climax. Said I like the past day? Nay, time no more exists for God than it does for the unconscious sleeper. The Israelites divided the night into three watches (Lam 2:19; Jdg 7:19; 1Sa 11:11). The division into four watches mentioned in the N.T. was of Roman origin.
How could the profound truth that time has no existence to the Divine mind be more simply and intelligibly expressed? To God there is no before and after; no past and future; all is present. To Him ‘was, and is, and will be, are but is.’ It is only the weakness of the finite creature that ‘shapes the shadow, Time.’
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For a thousand years in thy sight – Hebrew, In thy eyes; that is, It so appears to thee – or, a thousand years so seem to thee, however long they may appear to man. The utmost length to which the life of man has reached – in the case of Methuselah – was nearly a thousand years Gen 5:27; and the idea here is, that the longest human life, even if it should be lengthened out to a thousand years, would be in the sight of God, or in comparison with his years, but as a single day.
Are but as yesterday when it is past – Margin, he hath passed them. The translation in the text, however, best expresses the sense. The reference is to a single day, when we call it to remembrance. However long it may have appeared to us when it was passing, yet when it is gone, and we look back to it, it seems short. So the longest period of human existence appears to God.
And as a watch in the night – This refers to a portion of the night – the original idea having been derived from the practice of dividing the night into portions, during which a watch was placed in a camp. These watches were, of course, relieved at intervals, and the night came to be divided, in accordance with this arrangement, into parts corresponding with these changes. Among the ancient Hebrews there were only three night-watches; the first, mentioned in Lam 2:19; the middle, mentioned in Jdg 7:19; and the third, mentioned in Exo 14:24; 1Sa 11:11. In later times – the times referred to in the New Testament – there were four such watches, after the manner of the Romans, Mar 13:35. The idea here is not that such a watch in the night would seem to pass quickly, or that it would seem short when it was gone, but that a thousand years seemed to God not only short as a day when it was past, but even as the parts of a day, or the divisions of a night when it was gone.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 90:4
For a thousand years in Thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
Gods estimate of time
1. Let us set this truth before our minds: that which seems a long season to man seems a very brief season to God.
(1) God has lived for ever. Farther back than our strongest thought can travel, farther back than our swiftest wing or fancy can fly, and there our God was. As a drop in the boundless ocean, so is a cycle of a thousand years in the view of Him who is alike without beginning of days and end of years.
(2) If God estimates the years by the magnitude of His empire, by the multiplicity of His cares, by the wide sweep of His eternal purposes, then no wonder that with God a thousand years are but as yesterday when it is past.
(3) Our Father in Heaven has an unspeakable blessedness. He is infinitely wise, holy, and good. He is love. His tender mercies are over all His works. He tastes for ever the perfect joy of creating bliss, and conferring it upon others.
2. I proceed to point out the practical uses of this truth.
(1) It helps our deep awe and holy reverence. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, as surely as love to God is the very summit of perfection.
(2) One way of keeping the world in its proper subordinate place is to more frequently fasten our attention on these subjects,–the power and grandeur of God, the eternity of His being, the perfection of His character, the boundlessness of His empire. These things have power to lift our minds on high.
(3) Lastly and chiefly: the practical use of this text is to strengthen our patience, and to cherish in us the assurance that, however long delayed, the purposes of God will be accomplished, the promises of God will be fulfilled. (C. Vince.)
The long day of God
With the Deity, such a vast existence indicates only vast events. And these events must necessarily assume the form of a progress in which the present shall become the cause of the morrow, for any other method would either make eternity a monotone, or else a reckless succession like the results of chance, the throwing of dice, or the forms assumed in the kaleidoscope. In ages and centuries where the mind has become aroused into that action which is called civilization, it is utterly impossible to believe in God except as being the Supreme Activity. Assuming, then, this Divine activity, we may the more readily assert that the endless events of this God will assume the form of a progress. This assumption of a universal law is justified by the fact proclaimed in many special laws. The acorn passes to leaf, to twig, to bush, to sapling, to tree, to the great monarch of the forest. In its long life each year is a progress, each day being the cause in part of the next day. Its second year so multiplies the leaves that they breathe in a double quantity of air in behalf of the third year, and the roots of the second year so redouble the nutriment on hand that they also order an advance of the whole plant for the next springtime. All that we see around us in the organic form is acting under a law of progress, hence it does not seem hasty if we conclude that all the events coming from the Divine activity are occurring in the form of a progression, the present being a result of the past and a cause of the future. If, as we all believe, man is an image of the Creator, we may read in the human mind a confirmation of the idea that God is expressing Himself in a continuous series of events, for in such a career only does man, Gods image, find happiness. The idea that God once acted should be crowded out by the idea that He is now acting. The world is a chain in which all the links are equally valuable, because each one is an inseparable part–a part without which there is no value in the chain. Hence you stand as much in the presence of God to-day as stood the earth when God was planting the Garden of Eden for the first sons of man. It may be that the external world, with all its forms and laws, is nothing else than the spiritual God, expressing Himself in visible and audible and tangible forms, in order that our souls may possess some outward revelation of the Deity. The light that makes myriads of colours, the sound that is divided up into music, the height and depth that are emblems to us of infinity, the grandeur of the star depths, and the millions of years consumed in their orbits, may be the only ladders upon which our humble feet can climb to any belief in a God. The laws of the universe, instead of concealing a God, do reveal Him, for they are the footprints of One whose form cannot otherwise be traced As the delicate wire of Franklin revealed an agency of which he had only dreamed–as it became a Jacobs ladder upon which the invisible angels came down from the clouds–so the whole material world must be concluded as the path where God bursts from His invisible spirit-life out upon the sight of His children. Hence the laws of Nature are not indications that there is no God, or that there once was, but they are the places and the times when and where this Creator continually confesses His presence. The thousand-year day of God seems to argue that His children will not be limited to the earthly mornings and evenings, but will rise to where they can, like their Heavenly Father, see the past and the present, rise to where the love and memory dimmed by a few years have many returns to the souls torn asunder in this vale. If in Gods sight the children of earth stand near together, so that Paul and Wesley mingle their eloquence, and Magdalen and Guyon mingle their love, and Lovejoy and Lincoln their liberty and blood, then this thousand-year day which so mingles things separated on earth should be mans day also beyond the tomb, that there, in blest companionship, souls may meet which toiled here for one end, but who never saw the faces about to follow them, nor saw the golden harvest destined to spring from their blood and tears. If to God the graves of Paul and Fenelon, of Magdalen and the Dairymans Daughter, of Lovejoy and Wiberforce, are all close together; under the same flowers and same Divine presence, there should be a realm beyond where those sleeping souls should wake to consciousness of their blended lives. (D. Swing.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 4. For a thousand years in thy sight] As if he had said, Though the resurrection of the body may be a thousand (or any indefinite number of) years distant; yet, when these are past, they are but as yesterday, or a single watch of the night. They pass through the mind in a moment, and appear no longer in their duration than the time required by the mind to reflect them by thought. But, short as they appear to the eye of the mind, they are nothing when compared with the eternity of God! The author probably has in view also that economy of Divine justice and providence by which the life of man has been shortened from one thousand years to threescore years and ten, or fourscore.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
A thousand years, if we should now live so long, as some of our progenitors well nigh did. As he compared mans duration with Gods in respect of its beginning, Psa 90:2, so here he compareth them in respect of the end or continuance.
In thy sight; in thy account, and therefore in truth; which is opposed to the partial and false judgment of men, who think time long because they do not understand eternity; or in comparison of thy endless duration.
When it is past; which is emphatically added; because time seems long when it is to come, but when it is past, and men look backward upon it, it seems very short and contemptible, and men value one hour to come more than a thousand years which are past.
A watch, which lasted but for three or four hours; for the night was anciently divided into three or four watches. See Jdg 7:19; Mar 6:48; 13:35; Luk 12:38.
In the night; which also hath its weight; for the silence and slumbers of the night make time seem shorter than it doth in the day.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
4. Even were our days now athousand years, as Adam’s, our life would be but a moment in God’ssight (2Pe 3:8).
a watchor, third partof a night (compare Ex 14:24).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday,…. Which may be said to obviate the difficulty in man’s return, or resurrection, from the dead, taken from the length of time in which some have continued in the grave; which vanishes, when it is observed, that in thy sight, esteem, and account of God, a thousand years are but as one day; and therefore, should a man lie in the grave six or seven thousand years, it would be but as so many days with God; wherefore, if the resurrection is not incredible, as it is not, length of time can be no objection to it. Just in the same manner is this phrase used by the Apostle Peter, and who is thought to refer to this passage, to remove an objection against the second coming of Christ, taken from the continuance of things as they had been from the beginning, and from the time of the promise of it: see 2Pe 3:4, though the words aptly express the disproportion there is between the eternal God and mortal man; for, was he to live a thousand years, which no man ever did, yet this would be as yesterday with God, with whom eternity itself is but a day, Isa 43:13, man is but of yesterday, that has lived the longest; and were he to live a thousand years, and that twice told, it would be but “as yesterday when it is past”; though it may seem a long time to come, yet when it is gone it is as nothing, and can never be fetched back again:
and as a watch in the night; which was divided sometimes into three, and sometimes into four parts, and so consisted but of three or four hours; and which, being in the night, is spent in sleep; so that, when a man wakes, it is but as a moment with him; so short is human life, even the longest, in the account of God; [See comments on Mt 14:25].
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(4) A thousand years.This verse, which, when Peter II. was written (see New Testament Commentary), had already begun to receive an arithmetical treatment, and to be made the basis for Millennarian computations, merely contrasts the unchangeableness and eternity of the Divine existence and purpose with the vicissitudes incident to the brief life of man. To One who is from the infinite past to the infinite future, and Whose purpose runs through the ages, a thousand years are no more than a yesterday to man:
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death;
or even as a part of the night passed in sleep:
A thousand years, with Thee they are no more
Than yesterday, which, ere it is, is spent.
Or, as a watch by night, that course doth keep,
And goes and comes, unwares to them that sleep.
FRANCIS BACON.
The exact rendering of the words translated in the Authorised Version, when it passeth, is doubtful. The LXX. have, which has passed; and the Syriac supports this rendering. For the night watches, see Note, Psa. 63:6.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. A thousand years Longer than the life of Adam or Methuselah.
Yesterday when it is past Which we remember but indifferently, and only by the few commonplace events which transpired.
Watch in the night A synonyme of brevity. On the Hebrew watches, see on Psa 63:6
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 90:4 For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.
Ver. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight, &c. ] q.d. Live men a longer or shorter space, Serius aut citius, thou endest their days; and in comparison of thine eternity, Puncture est quod vivimus et puncto minus, it is a small span of time that the longest liver hath upon earth, 2Pe 3:8 Psa 39:5 . Non multum sane abest a nihilo. Some would hence infer, that the day of judgment shall last a thousand years; fides sit penes authores.
When it is past
And as a watch in the night
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
a thousand years. Compare 2Pe 3:8.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For: 2Pe 3:8
is past: or, when he hath passed them
and as: Mat 14:25, Mat 24:43, Luk 12:38
Reciprocal: Job 8:9 – we are but Job 15:20 – the number Psa 39:5 – Behold Psa 90:9 – a tale Psa 102:27 – years Heb 1:12 – and thy Heb 13:8 – General Rev 20:3 – the thousand
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 90:4. For a thousand years If we should now live so long, (as some of our progenitors nearly did,) in thy sight In thy account, and therefore in truth; which is opposed to the partial and false judgment of men, who think time long because they do not understand eternity; or, in comparison of thy endless duration, are but as yesterday, when it is past Which is emphatically added, because time seems long when it is to come, but when it is passed, and men look back upon it, it seems very short and contemptible. And as a watch in the night Which lasted but three or four hours.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
90:4 {e} For a thousand years in thy sight [are but] as yesterday when it is past, and [as] a watch in the night.
(e) Though man thinks his life is long, which is indeed most short, yet though it were a thousand years, yet in God’s sight it is as nothing, and as the watch that lasts only three hours.