Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.
Parallel Translations
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Let the favor of the Lord our God be on us. Establish the work of our hands for us. Yes, establish the work of our hands.
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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.
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And let the graciousness of the Lord our God be upon us; establish Thou also upon us the work of our hands; yea, the work of our hands establish Thou it.
Cross-references (14)
Passages linked to Psalms 90:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Proverbs 16:3 Commit your deeds to Yahweh, and your plans shall succeed.
- 1 Corinthians 3:7 So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase.
- Job 22:28 You will also decree a thing, and it will be established to you. Light will shine on your ways.
- 2 Thessalonians 2:16–3:1 Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father, who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word. Finally, brothers, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may spread rapidly and be glorified, even as also with you,
- Psalms 118:25 Save us now, we beg you, Yahweh! Yahweh, we beg you, send prosperity now.
- Isaiah 26:12 Yahweh, you will ordain peace for us, for you have also done all our work for us.
- Psalms 68:28 Your God has commanded your strength. Strengthen, God, that which you have done for us.
- Psalms 80:3 Turn us again, God. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.
- Psalms 80:7 Turn us again, God of Armies. Cause your face to shine, and we will be saved.
- Psalms 50:2 Out of Zion, the perfection of beauty, God shines out.
- 1 John 3:2 Beloved, now we are children of God. It is not yet revealed what we will be; but we know that when he is revealed, we will be like him; for we will see him just as he is.
- Psalms 27:4 One thing I have asked of Yahweh, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in Yahweh’s house all the days of my life, to see Yahweh’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple.
- Psalms 110:3 Your people offer themselves willingly in the day of your power, in holy array. Out of the womb of the morning, you have the dew of your youth.
- 2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face seeing the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (16 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Meaning, that is was obscured, when he ceaseth to…
Meaning, that is was obscured, when he ceaseth to do good to his Church.
For except thou guide us with thine holy Spirit, our enterprises can have no good success.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 90:17 And let the beauty of the LORD…
Psa 90:17 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.
Ver. 17. And let the beauty of the Lord, &c.] i.e. The bounty; the Italian rendereth it, La Giocondita, jucunditas Domini sit in nos.
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And establish thou the work, &c.] Thus we had all need to pray; for,
Nullius est felix conatus et utilis unquam,
Consilium si non detque iuvetque Deus.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain The beauty of the Lord, i.e. his favourable countenance,…
The beauty of the Lord, i.e. his favourable countenance, and gracious influence, and glorious presence.
Upon us; or, in us. Do not only work for us, but in us. And because the glorious work of thy hands is hindered by the evil works of our hands, be thou pleased by thy Holy Spirit to direct or establish (for this Hebrew word signifies both)
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the works of our hands, that we may cease to do evil, and learn to do well, and turn and constantly cleave unto thee, and not revolt and draw back from thee, as we have frequently done to our own undoing.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain And let the beauty of the Lord our God…
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,.... Either the grace and favour of God, his gracious presence vouchsafed in his ordinances, which makes his tabernacles amiable and lovely, and his ways of pleasantness; or the righteousness of Christ, which is that comeliness he puts upon his people, whereby they become a perfection of beauty; or the beauty of holiness, which appears on them, when renewed and sanctified by the Spirit; every grace is beautiful and ornamental: or Christ himself may be meant; for the words may be rendered, "let the beauty of the Lord be with us" (k); he who is white and ruddy, the chiefest among ten thousand altogether lovely, fairer than the children of men, let him appear as the Immanuel, God with us:
and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it; or "direct it" (l); though God works all works of grace for us, and in us, yet there is a work of duty and obedience to him for us to do; nor should we be slothful and inactive, but be the rather animated to it by what he has done for us: our hands should be continually employed in service for his honour and glory; and, whatever we find to do, do it with all the might of grace we have; and in which we need divine direction and strength, and also establishment, that we may be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord: and this petition is repeated, to show the sense he had of the necessity of it, and of the vehemence and strength of desire after it. Jarchi interprets this of the work of the tabernacle, in which the hands of the Israelites were employed in the wilderness; so Arama of the tabernacle of Bezaleel.
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(k) "adsis nobis", Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius; Heb. "sit apud nos", Piscator; "super nobis et apud nos", Michaelis. (l) Sept. "dirige", V. L. Musculus; "dirige et confirma", Michaelis.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain The beauty - His gracious influence, and glorious presence.…
The beauty - His gracious influence, and glorious presence. In us - Do not only work for us, but in us,
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 17. And let the beauty of the Lord]…
Verse 17. And let the beauty of the Lord] Let us have thy presence, blessing, and approbation, as our fathers had.
Establish thou the work of our hands] This is supposed, we have already seen, to relate to their rebuilding the temple, which the surrounding heathens and Samaritans wished to hinder. We have begun, do not let them demolish our work; let the top-stone be brought on with shouting, Grace, grace unto it.
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Yea, the work of our hands] This repetition is wanting in three of Kennicott's MSS., in the Targum, in the Septuagint, and in the AEthiopic. If the repetition be genuine, it may be considered as marking great earnestness; and this earnestness was to get the temple of God rebuilt, and his pure worship restored. The pious Jews had this more at heart than their own restoration; it was their highest grief that the temple was destroyed and God's ordinances suspended; that his enemies insulted them, and blasphemed the worthy name by which they were called. Every truly pious man feels more for God's glory than his own temporal felicity, and rejoices more in the prosperity of God's work than in the increase of his own worldly goods.
A FEW INSTANCES OF MODERN LONGEVITY
In the year 1790 I knew a woman in the city of Bristol, Mrs. Somerhill, then in the 106th year of her age. She read the smallest print without spectacles, and never had used any helps to decayed sight. When she could not go any longer to a place of worship, through the weakness of her limbs, she was accustomed to read over the whole service of the Church for each day of the year as it occurred, with all the Lessons, Psalms, c. She had been from its commencement a member of the Methodist Society heard Mr. John Wesley the first sermon he preached when he visited Bristol in 1739; and was so struck with his clear manner of preaching the doctrine of justification through faith, that, for the benefit of hearing one more sermon from this apostolic man, she followed him on foot to Portsmouth, a journey of one hundred and twenty-five miles! On my last visit to her in the above year, I was admitted by a very old decrepit woman, then a widow of seventy-five years of age, and the youngest daughter of Mrs. Somerhill. I found the aged woman's faculties strong and vigorous, and her eyesight unimpaired, though she was then confined to her bed, and was hard of hearing. She died rejoicing in God, the following year.
Agnes Shuner is another instance. She lived at Camberwell in Surrey; her husband, Richard Shuner, died in 1407, whom she survived ninety-two years. She died in 1499, aged one hundred and nineteen years.
The Countess of Desmond in Ireland. On the ruin of the house of Desmond, she was obliged at the age of one hundred and forty to travel from Bristol to London, to solicit relief from the court, being then reduced to poverty. She renewed her teeth two or three times, and died in 1612, aged one hundred and forty-five years.
Thomas Parr, of Winnington, in Shropshire, far outlived the term as set down in the Psalm. At the age of eighty-eight he married his first wife, by whom he had two children. At the age of one hundred and two he fell in love with Catharine Milton, by whom he had an illegitimate child, and for which he did penance in the Church! At the age of one hundred and twenty, he married a widow woman; and when he was one hundred and thirty could perform any operation of husbandry. He died at the age of one hundred and fifty-two, A.D. 1635. He had seen ten kings and queens of England.
Thomas Damme, of Leighton, near Minshul in Cheshire, lived one hundred and fifty-four years, and died A.D. 1648.
Henry Jenkins, of Ellerton upon Swale, in Yorkshire, was sent, when a boy of about twelve years of age, with a cart load of arrows to Northallerton, to be employed in the battle of Flodden Field, which was fought September 9, 1513. He was a fisherman; and often swam in the rivers when he was more than one hundred years of age! He died A.D. 1670, being then one hundred and sixty-nine years of age!
I shall add one foreigner, Peter Toston, a peasant of Temiswar, in Hungary. The remarkable longevity of this man exceeds the age of Isaac five years; of Abraham, ten; falls short of Terah's, Abraham's father, twenty; and exceeds that of Nahor, Abraham's grandfather, thirty-seven years. He died A.D. 1724, at the extraordinary age of one hundred and eighty-five!
ANALYSIS OF THE NINETIETH PSALM
There are four parts in this Psalm: -
I. An ingenuous acknowledgment of God's protection of the people, Ps 90:1-2.
II. A lively narration of the mortality of man, the fragility and brevity of his life, together with the misery of it, Ps 90:2-7.
III. The causes: man's rebellion and God's anger for it, Ps 90:7-12.
IV. A petition, which is double: 1. That God would instruct man to know his fragility. 2. That he would return, and restore him to his favour, Ps 90:12-17.
I. In the beginning the psalmist freely acknowledges what God had always been unto his people. What he is in himself, and his own nature.
1. To his people he had always been a refuge, as it were, a dwelling-place: though they had been pilgrims and sojourners in a strange land for many years, yet he had been, nay dwelt, among them; and no doubt he alludes to the tabernacle of God that was pitched among them as an evidence of his presence and protection: "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place (a secure place to rest in) in all generations," De 33:1-6.
2. But in himself he was from everlasting: other creatures had a beginning, and their creation and ornaments from him. He, the Eternal Being, "Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth, and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God." Not like man, then, whose mutability, fragility, mortality, brevity, he next describes.
II. "Thou turnest man to destruction." Though framed according to thy own image, yet he is but an earthen vessel; to that pass thou bringest him, till he be broken to pieces, broken as a potter's vessel. To him thou sayest, "Return, ye children of men, (of Adam,) return; for dust thou art, and to dust shalt thou return." The mortality of man may not be then attributed to diseases, chance, fortune, c., but to God's decree, pronounced on man upon his disobedience. First, then, let the sons of Adam remember that they are mortal next, that their life is but very short. Suppose a man should live the longest life, and somewhat longer than the oldest patriarch, a thousand years; yet, let it be compared with eternity, it is as nothing: "A thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday, when it is past;" but as a day which is short, as a day which is past and forgotten; which the prophet farther illustrates by elegant similitudes.
1. "And as a watch in the night." A time of three hours' continuance, which is but the eighth part of a natural day, and so far less than he said before. The flower of our youth, our constant age, and our old age, may well be the three hours of this watch; and wise they are that observe their stations in either of them.
2. "Thou carriest them away as with a flood." As a sudden inundation of waters our life passeth; we swell and fall. Or, As all waters come from the sea, and return thither; so from the earth we came, and thither return. Or, We are as water spilt on the earth, which cannot be gathered up again.
3. "They are as a sleep," or rather a dream; all our happiness a dream of felicity. In our dreams many pleasant, many fearful things are presented; we pass half our time in sleep; drowsily, it is certain, for our life is σκιας οναρ, the shadow of a dream. - Pindar.
4. Or we are like grass: "In the morning they are like grass that groweth up: in the morning it flourisheth and groweth up, in the evening it is cut down and withereth." The herb hath its morning and evening, and its mid-day, and so hath our life; naturally it fades, or violently it is cut off.
III. After he had spoken of and explained our mortality, the brevity, the misery of our life, he next descends to examine the causes of it which are two. 1. God's anger; and that which brought it upon us, our own iniquities.
1. God's anger: "We consume away by thine anger; and by thy wrath are we troubled." The cause, then, of death and disease is not the decay of the radical moisture, or defect of natural heat; but that which brought these defects upon us, God's wrath because of sin.
2. Our own sin: For this anger of God was not raised without a just cause; he is a just Judge, and proceeds not to punishment, but upon due examination and trial; and to that end he takes an account, not only of our open sins, but even of our secret faults, such as are not known to ourselves, or such as we labour to conceal from others.
1. "Thou hast set our iniquities before thee."
2. "And our secret sins in the light of thy countenance." No hypocrisy, no contempt, can escape thine eye: all to thee is revealed, and clear as the light.
3. And then he repeats the effect, together with the cause: "Therefore all our days (viz., the forty years in the wilderness and the seventy in captivity) are passed away in thy wrath." 2. "We spend our days as a tale that is told;" et fabula fies, the tale ended, it vanisheth, and is thought of no more.
4. And as for our age, it is of no great length: "The days of our years are threescore years and ten." To that time some men may be said to live, because the faculties of their souls are tolerably vigorous, and their bodies proportionately able to execute the offices of life.
But allow that it so happen, which happens not to many, "that by reason of strength," some excellent natural constitution, "a man arrive to fourscore years," yet our life is encumbered with these three inconveniences, labour, sorrow, and brevity.
1. It is laborious, even labour itself. One is desirous to be rich, another wise; this man potent, another prudent, or at least to seem so; and this will not be without labour: "All is affliction of spirit."
2. Sorrow; for our life is only the shadow of real life.
3. Short; for it is soon cut off, and we flee away: Avolat umbra. 1. God's anger for sin is not laid to heart; and of this the prophet in the next verse sadly complains: "Who knows the power of thy anger?" Thine anger is great for sin; the power of it fearful and terrible. Thou canst and wilt cast sinners into hell-fire; but who regards it? Thy threats to men seem to be old wives' fables. 2. "Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath;" but be it that this stupidity possess men, yet this is certain, that thy wrath is great; and it shall be executed according to thy fear, in such proportion as men have stood in fear of thee. They that have in a reverential fear stood in awe of thee shall escape it; they that have contemned and slighted thy wrath shall feel it to the uttermost.
IV. Upon all the former considerations the psalmist converts his words to a prayer, in which he implores God's mercy, that he would turn, 1. The stupidity of men into wisdom. 2. Our calamity into felicity. 3. His wrath into compassion. And, 4. Our sorrow into joy. For the first he begins thus: -
1. "So teach us to number our days," to cast up the labour, the sorrow, the brevity, the fugacity; thy anger, our sin, that caused it.
2. "That we may apply our hearts unto wisdom;" be no more stupid and secure, but wise; wise, to avoid thy anger, wise to set a true estimate on this life, and wise in time to provide for another.
3. "So teach us;" for God must teach it, or it will not be learned: this wisdom comes from above.
Secondly, he deprecates God's anger: "Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants."
Thirdly, he begs restoration to God's favour; and what will follow upon it, peace of conscience.
1. "O satisfy us with thy mercy." We hunger for it as men do for meat.
2. Early let it be done, quickly, before our sorrows grow too high, and overwhelm us.
3. With thy mercy; not with wealth, delights, c.
4. And with a perpetual joy of heart: "That we may be glad and rejoice all our days."
5. And let our joy bear proportion to our sorrows: "Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil."
6. This is the work he calls God's work for as to punish is his strange work, Isa 28:21, so to have pity and mercy is his own proper work; and this he desires that it should be made manifest: "Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children."
Fourthly, he begs for success in all their work and labours.
1. "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us," for no action of ours is beautiful, except the beauty of God be stamped upon it; done by his direction, his rule, his word, and to his glory.
2. And therefore he prays, and repeats this prayer: "Establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it." There must be opus, our work; for God blesseth not the idle. 2. And opus manuum, a laborious work. 3. God's direction, his word the rule. 4. A good end in it, for that is his beauty upon it. 5. So it will be established, confirmed, ratified. 6. And, lastly, know that there is no blessing to be expected without prayer; and therefore he prays, "Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us." See the notes on this Psalm.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And let the beauty of the Lord our God…
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us - The word translated “beauty” - נעם nô‛am - means properly “pleasantness;” then, beauty, splendor; then grace or layout. The Septuagint renders it here, λαμπρότης lamprotēs, “splendor;” and so the Latin Vulgate. The wish is clearly that all that there is, in the divine character, which is “beautiful,” which is suited to win the hearts of people to admiration, gratitude, and love - might be so manifested to them, or that they might so see the excellency of his character, and that his dealings with them might be such, as to keep the beauty, the loveliness, of that character constantly before them.
And establish thou the work of our hands upon us - What we are endeavoring to do. Enable us to carry out our plans, and to accomplish our purposes.
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Yea, the work of our hands establish thou it - The repetition of the prayer here is emphatic. It indicates an intense desire that God would enable them to carry out their plans. If this was written by Moses, we may suppose that it is expressive of an earnest desire that they might reach the promised land; that they might not all be cut down and perish by the way; that the great object of their march through the wilderness might be accomplished; and that they might be permanently established in the land to which they were going. At the same time it is a prayer which it is proper to offer at any time, that God would enable us to carry out our purposes, and that we may be permanently established in his favor.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 17. Beauty—Understand the word in the sense of grace,…
17. Beauty—Understand the word in the sense of grace, favour. Compare Psa_27:4; Zec_11:7; Zec_11:10.
Establish—Accomplish, confirm.
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Work of our hands—The Church co-works with God, (Php_2:12-13,) and her works become established because they are in harmony with the purposes and works of God. Comp. Deu_14:29; Deu_24:19; Deu_28:12; Deu_30:9. The prayer is for the success and permanent prosperity of the people, both as a nation and a Church, in contrast with their profitless wilderness life, with its reverses, its retrograde marches, and its aimless wanderings.
Upon us—Three times the preposition “upon” occurs—twice in the invocation “upon us,” and once “upon their children.”
“Because the promoting comes from above.”—Hengstenberg.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 17. the beauty] Or, pleasantness: the gracious kindliness of…
17. the beauty] Or, pleasantness: the gracious kindliness of Jehovah. Cp. Psa_27:4; Pro_3:17.
the work of our hands] A phrase characteristic of Deuteronomy, where it occurs seven times. All the ordinary undertakings of daily life are meant, not necessarily any particular enterprise.
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The Psalmist’s prayer is for the restoration of Israel. In the renewed life of the nation (Lam_5:21) the servants of God will recover the gladness of their individual lives, now quenched and dead. The time had not yet come when the hope of personal immortality could be appealed to as the consolation of sorrow and the consecration of effort (1Co_15:58).
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (17) Beauty.—Or, pleasantness. The Hebrew word, like the Greek…
(17) Beauty.—Or, pleasantness. The Hebrew word, like the Greek χάρις, and our “grace,” seems to combine the ideas of “beauty” and “favour.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain And let the beauty of the Lord our God…
And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us (comp. Psa_45:2-4, "Thou art fairer than the children of men;" Psa_27:4, "To behold the beauty of the Lord;" Isa_33:17, "Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty"). The "beauty of God" is upon us when we see and realize the loveliness of his character. And establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. The repetition adds nothing, except it be emphasis. God is asked, finally, to "establish the work" in which his servants are engaged to bless it; that is, to advance it and prosper it. The nature of the "work" is not mentioned.
Prayer and work.
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"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.
I THAT GOOD MEN ARE ENGAGED IN IMPORTANT WORK. God has a work to do; and the psalmist prays that it may be made manifest to their eyes. We desire to see God"s work the revelations and exercises of his great power and love. But the thought here is of our work.
1. It is divinely appointed. Not self-chosen. The great aim of it is the same as God"sto save men, by our giving them all possible help.
2. This work gives to life its chief value and interest. Living for the bodies and souls of others is intrinsically more valuable than all the private ends we pursue.
II GOOD MEN FEEL ANXIOUS FOR THE SUCCESS OF THEIR WORK. They want it established, made strong, prospered. Even as they aim to succeed in their temporal work. On account of the intrinsic importance of the work itself. Because of the consequences of the work in the future. "And thy glory unto their children." Good men think not only of their own future, but of the future of Christ"s Church. Because of our future. It will soon be of the utmost consequence to us whether our work has been established or not. Have we done anything, are we doing anything, that will last of a beneficent kind?
III GOOD MEN FEEL THAT THE SUCCESS OF THEM WORE DEPENDS ON THE BLESSING OF GOD. "Let thy beauty be upon us, and establish thou the work of our hands." If our work is to be strong be established the strength must come from God. The utmost we can do is to accomplish the outward conditions of success; but God alone can reach the heart of the sinner and sufferer to cleanse and comfort. Our work ought to be beautiful, but God alone can give the beauty. If our work be the work of gratitude, love, humility, and self-sacrifice, it is God that has made it beautiful.
IV THAT THE DIVINE BLESSING ON OUR WORK IS OBTAINED BY PRAYER.
1. God has made prayer necessary to the success of spiritual work. Christ taught this constantly, "Pray ye the Lord of the harvest," etc.; "Thy kingdom come.
2. As a matter of experience, the men who have prayed most over their work have succeeded best. Their prayer expressed their earnestness and faith trust and spirit of dependence. Observe how work and prayer are here conjoined, Prayer useless where there is no work on hand. S.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 17. And let the beauty of the Lord…
Ver. 17. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Even upon us who must not see thy glory in the land of Canaan; it shall suffice us if in our characters the holiness of God is reflected, and if over all our camp the lovely excellences of our God shall cast a sacred beauty. Sanctification should be the daily object of our petitions.
And establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it. Let what we do be done in truth, and last when we are in the grave; may the work of the present generation minister permanently to the building tip of the nation. Good men are anxious not to work in vain. They know that without the Lord they can do nothing, and therefore they cry to him for help in the work, for acceptance of their efforts, and for the establishment of their designs. The church as a whole earnestly desires that the hand of the Lord may so work with the hand of his people, that a substantial, yea, an eternal edifice to the praise and glory of God may be the result. We come and go, but the Lord's work abides. We are content to die so long as Jesus lives and his kingdom grows. Since the Lord abides for ever the same, we trust our work in his hands, and feel that since it is far more his work than ours he will secure it immortality. When we have withered like grass our holy service, like gold, silver, and precious stones, will survive the fire.
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Ver. 17. Let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us, etc. Let us try to look at our life's work in relation to the Lord's beauty. Our work and Divine Beauty, at first sight, how different; yet, on deeper insight, how truly one, how inseparably united.
There is light so beauty giving, that nothing it touches is positively ugly. In our sea girt island, with our fickle climate and grey atmosphere, we can only rarely imagine what magic power the serene skies, the balmy air, the sunny atmosphere of the South have over even the least interesting object in nature; but from certain hours, in certain places, I think we may form an idea of the transforming faculty of light.
There is also spiritual light, so beauty inspiring, that the plainest face within which it is born is illumined with singular loveliness, which wins its way into many a heart. Who of us has not marvelled at an unexpected light, in what we had always thought an uninteresting face? Who has not beheld a light divine irradiate the human countenance, giving joy, and prophesying perfection, where we had least thought to find beauty? May we not take these facts as emblems, albeit faint and imperfect, of what the "Beauty of the Lord" does for us, and our work? You know what the natural light can do for material objects; you know what mental and moral light can work for human faces; rise from these, and know what spiritual light, Divine Light, can do for immortal beings and immortal works. —Jessie Coombs, in "Thoughts for the Inner Life", 1867.
Ver. 17. The beauty of the Lord. In the word Men (beauty) there is something like a deluge of grace. Thus far, he says, we have sought thy work, O Lord. There we do nothing, but are only spectators and recipients of thy gifts, we are merely passive. There thou showest thyself to us, and makest us safe, by thy work alone, which thou doest, when thou dost liberate us from that disease which Satan inflicted on the whole human race in Adam, to wit, Sin and Eternal death. —Martin Luther.
Ver. 17. God is glorified and his work advances when his church is beautiful. The beauty of the Lord is the beauty of holiness, — that beauty which in the Lord Jesus himself shone with lustre so resplendent, and which ought to be repeated or reflected by every disciple. And it is towards this that all amongst us who love the Saviour, and who long for the extension of his Kingdom, should very mainly direct their endeavours. Nothing can be sadder than when preaching or personal effort is contradicted and neutralized by the low or unlovely lives of those who pass for Christians; and nothing can go further to insure success than when prayer is carried out and preaching is seconded by the pure, holy, and benevolent lives of those who seek to follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth. —James Hamilton.
Ver. 17. The work of our hands. Jarchi interprets this of the work of the Tabernacle, in which the hands of the Israelites were employed in the wilderness; so Arama of the Tabernacle of Bezaleel. —John Gill.
Ver. 17. The Right Establishment, or the work which will endure— why it will endure and should endure. Why we wish our work to be of such a nature, and whether there are enduring elements in it.
Enarratio Psalmi 90. Per D. Doctorem Martinum Luth. In Schola Vuittembergensi, Anno, 1534, publice absoluta, edita vers Anno MD.
41. (In Vol. 4 of the Jena edition of Luther's Works, 1712 and other years, folio.)
A Meditation of Man's Mortalitie. Containing an Exposition of the Ninetieth Psalme. By that Reverend and Religious Servant of God Mr. William Bradshaw, sometime Fellow of Sidney Colledge in Cambridge. Published since his decease by Thomas Gataker B. of D. and Pastor of Rotherhith. London...1621.
Moses his Prayer. Or, An Exposition of the Ninetieth Psalme. In which is set forth, the Frailty and Misery of Mankind: most needful for these Times.
Wherein:
1. The Sum and Scope.
2. The Doctrines.
3. The Reasons.
4. The uses of most Texts are observed.
By Samuel Smith, Minister of the Gospel, Author of David's Repentance and the Great Assize, and yet Living...1656.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain Let the beauty of the Lord our God be…
Psa_90:17
Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us.
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The beauty of the Lord
We all feel moral beauty to be the highest. Much as we may admire the delicate touches of light and shade in a landscape, the rainbow tints on the rosy-coloured Alps, the beautiful gothic of the arched forest, the fragrant Kentish banks, the human face divine, yet we all feel that given a touch of heroism, martyr-like courage, or persevering fidelity to truth, the beauty of character as far exceeds beauty of face as the soul is higher and nobler than the tabernacle in which it dwells. Blessed be God, the Divine nature can be restored to us, Where sin abounded grace did much more abound, and as at the Cross we receive pardon and remission of our sins, so in vital union with Christ do we receive the new nature and the new name.
I. The beauty of God in our character. We cannot have the highest beauty without having God. I do not say we cannot have anything that looks beautiful. Everything that is amiable, considerate, gentle, true, unselfish in human character is in one sense beautiful--but if you look deeply enough you will see that one thing is wanting, and that without life in God, these virtues are only like the broken arches of Bolton Abbey--beautiful in ruins.
1. Gods image is beauty of the highest type.
2. The beauty of the Lord is brought out by the Spirit of God in the Christian. Character is a garment. Men see it. Religion is the life of God in the soul of man, and it blossoms before men. It is hard to see how a man can be churlish, or cold, or morose, or selfish, and yet claim to be considered a Christian; religion is not grace grafted on to our nature, but grace changing, purifying, and renewing our nature, so that we become new creatures in Christ Jesus.
3. In the midst of religious privileges this beauty may decay and decline. The Jews.
4. The production of this likeness may involve severe providences. To bring out the Divine likeness so that it may last, you may have to pass through the fiery furnace. God may put us in the furnace, but He will never heat it too highly: the picture will never be marred--never: He will finish the work.
II. The blessing of God on our undertakings. I like that expression, work of our hands--because all work, brain-work for instance, has to do with them, and all the forms of common toil as well. Establish our work! Can we all conscientiously ask God to do that? I do not mean in a spiritual sense as members of Churches, but as Christian men. Are you conducting your work on such principles that you can ask God to bless it? If not, the distinction between spiritual and secular will not help you. There is, of course, in reality no such distinction. It is conventional. But assuming that you use the distinction, how can you ask God to bless the work of your hands, if it is base, tricky, evil? When the prayer in the text was uttered--
1. It was the morning of a new life. Beautiful prayer that at special seasons. When the daughter is leaving her home, and bride and bridegroom are commencing the battle of life together, having to plan, to achieve the position which circumstances make possible to them. Yes! it is a season to kneel around the family altar, and for the fatherly lips to ask God to bless the work of their hands. So is it when we commence new undertakings about which we are full of much anxiety, and which will necessitate much effort. Who can bless, if God cannot?
2. It was the prayer of earnest men. God does not prosper our laziness, but our labour. Moreover, God meant all of us to use our hands. We want earnest hands. Not that earnestness is all. We want intelligence, thought, devoutness, wisdom, behind the earnestness! Our prayers will be but mockeries unless we have work to be established after all.
3. It was the expression of Divine dependence. The best building will soon show signs of downfall and destruction unless the work be cemented together by God. (W. M. Statham.)
The cry of the mortal to the undying
I. The yearning and longing cry of the mortal for the beauty of the eternal. The word translated beauty is, like the Greek equivalent in the New Testament, and like the English word grace, which corresponds to them both, susceptible of a double meaning. Grace means both kindness and loveliness, or, as we might distinguish, both graciousness and gracefulness. And that double idea is inherent in the word, as it is inherent in the attribute of God to which it refers. So the beauty of the Lord means, by no quibble, but by reason of the essential loveliness of His lovingkindness, both Gods loveliness and Gods goodness; Gods graciousness and Gods (if I may use such a word) gracefulness. The prayer of the psalmist that this beauty may be upon us conceives of it as given to us from above and as coming floating down from Heaven, like that white Dove that fell upon Christs head, fair and meek, gentle and lovely, and resting on our anointed heads, like a diadem and an aureole of glory. Now, that communicating graciousness, with its large gifts and its resulting beauty, is the one thing that we need in view of mortality and sorrow and change and trouble. And then, note further, that this gracious gentleness and longsuffering, giving mercy of God, when it comes down upon a man, makes him, too, beautiful with a reflected beauty. If the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, it will cover over our foulness and deformity.
II. The cry of the worker in a fleeting world for the perpetuity of his work. Establish, or make firm, the work of our hands upon us, etc. Our work will be established if it is His work. This prayer in our text follows another prayer (Psa_90:16)--namely, Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants. That is to say, my work will be perpetual when the work of my hands is Gods work done through me. When you bring your wills into harmony with Gods will, and so all your effort, even about the little things of daily life, is in consonance with His will, and in the line of His purpose, then your work will stand. If my will runs in the line of His, and if the work of my hands is Thy work, it is not in vain that we shall cry, establish it upon us, for it will last as long as He does. In like manner, all work will be perpetual that is done with the beauty of the Lord our God upon the doers of it. Whosoever has that grace in his heart, whosoever is in contact with the communicating mercy of God, and has had his character in some measure refined and ennobled and beautified by possession thereof, will do work that has in it the element of perpetuity. And our work will stand if we quietly leave it in His hands. Quietly do it to Him, never mind about results, but look after motives. Be sure that they are right, and if they are, the work will be eternal. Just as a drop of water that falls upon the moor, finds its way into the brook, and goes down the glen and on into the river, and then into the sea, and is there, though undistinguishable, so in the great summing up of everything at the end the tiniest deed that was done for God, though it was done far away up amongst the mountain solitudes where no eyes saw, shall live and be represented in its effects on others and in its glad issues to the doer. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
A lovable God
Our times need the doctrine of a lovable God--a God whoso moral beauty may be all around us and upon us. The distortion and deformity of the Deity have long enough followed mankind. The moral beauty of such a Being should be above us, and in mans heart and life. This beauty may in part be seen in the assumption of a long day for the unfolding of the Divine plan. It is perfectly vain to seek the beauty of God in the few days that surround man here. It is necessary to chant the words of the old anthem, from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. As we cannot take up a drop of water from the Atlantic and find in that drop the flow of the tides, the lifting up of billows, the power that floats all the ships of a thousand ports, and the soft and loud music of calm and storm; as to see the ocean we must grasp it all in its rocky bed, bordered by continents, so we cannot, in the face of a dying infant, or in the adversity of a good man, see the government of love of God. It has boundaries wider than these. We must wait, and, what the fleeting moments of man deny, ask the great years of God to bring. The tides of the mind, the deep music of human waters, cannot be seen in the drop of life. There is a God of justice that may be all lovable. The punishment may be so just, so inseparable from conscious guilt, so essential to the welfare of time and eternity, that it will not make God fearful, but will be one more circle of splendour in His halo of light. Alongside this attribute of justice must be seen with wonderful distinctness the fatherly love. We must give thousands of years of time to a Divine love. Our earth must be seen floating, not in an ether which our chemists shall attempt to weigh--not even in that sweet ether which Figuier imagines to surround some stars, and to be the food of the souls beyond--but floating in a Divine love. (D. Swing.)
Moral beauty
What are some of the characteristics of moral beauty?
1. Beauty has no sharp angles, but its lines of continuance are so gentle that curve melts into curve. The truly beautiful life has no breaks, no harsh traits, or times when the better nature seems asleep or on a journey; no sudden starts from moral torpor into fresh spiritual life. The moral life is uniform; varied, it may be, at times, but pervaded always by the same spirit. But let it be said emphatically that this beauty cannot be put on. The blast that shall awake the souls rich melody must come, not from without, but from within. This beauty can be sustained only by taking our Saviours motto, I am not alone, but the Father is with me. The felt presence of God will be efficient beyond all things in keeping passion subdued and temper under control, while we maintain in the daily flow of life that sweet serenity with which everything good is seen to be in harmony. I remember seeing a picture of Josephs workshop, representing the carpentership of our Lord. The holy light which encircled the place rested on the shavings, the chips, the plane, and the saw, making it look like a picture of heaven. The painter was right; for with our Lord there was just the same Divine beauty in His handling of the plane and the saw as when He stooped at the grave of Lazarus and bade him rise and come forth. In so far as we can put this spirit into the humblest of work or play we make it divinely beautiful.
2. This beauty grows, or, if not, it cannot be. This is so with the outward beauty of the universe and its changes; year by year the spring in its delicate foliage is beautiful as it comes upon us so full of promise from the lifeless winter; but not less beautiful is the glow of summer; nor is the limit of this beauty reached till the fields bend with ripening grain, the trees with golden, luscious fruit, and the vines are drooping with the purple clusters. But the beauty of character, as that of nature, fades as soon as it ceases to grow. Take Gods perfect law, and look at it as the microscope for the examination of your characters; bring it to the level of your thought, feeling, and conduct for a single day; look close and deep, endeavour to ascertain precisely how your soul would appear with the strictest standard of judgment applied. I trust many of you would find ample reason to be happy and thankful; but are you sure that the microscopic mirror would not reveal to you those defects of which otherwise you were not aware? But apply this scrutiny to your Saviours character, and it only brings to light finer lines and richer hues of spiritual beauty; and those who have been long in the holy temple of that Divine character feel that it still grows upon them, and they can see more and more to admire every year they live. Thus it is that the best of men and women can talk of themselves in the humblest terms, not because they are less good, but because they use the microscope of Gods law upon themselves, and therefore see the difference between themselves and their heavenly Father. The more of His Spirit they have the more earnestly they crave for more.
3. Such are some of the characteristics of moral or spiritual beauty; and we need it for our own sake and for the sake of our fellowman.
(1) For our own sake, because without it we cannot in any sense be satisfied with ourselves.
(2) We need this beauty of character for the sake of others; it is this which, far more than anything else, confers goodness and the power of doing good. You will do good not so much by what you say as by what you are. What you say and do for others, and what you give, is the mere multiplicand of which yourself and the soul of goodness in you is immeasurably the larger multiplier; and the nature of the product depends mainly upon the multiplier.
4. Contemplate for one moment the union of strength and beauty in our great Exemplar, Christ; and the degree to which that strength, in Him so peculiar, lay in His beauty of character. As for strength, the world has not seen might like His. You know how the multitudes were silenced into respect by His presence. His days were full of energetic toil, and the prophetic phrase, travelling in the greatness of His strength, seems to refer to the momentous journey from His baptism to His cross; but would this might have come down through the ages had it not been for its majestic and transcendent beauty?
5. Take with you on your lifes journey the motto given in our text: Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Seek with strength that beauty that shall make your strength immeasurably stronger; so far as you can see along your path, instead of thorns, instead of briars, show by your faithful conduct that the flowers of heaven can grow on earthly ground. Worship God in the beauty of holiness; not alone in formal prayer and praise, but by making your work itself worship, your enjoyments thanksgiving. Rejoice in the Lord always; and so live that yours shall ever be a happy, lovely service, one that waits not for its reward in heaven, but is in itself an exceeding great reward (A. P. Peabody, D.D.)
The beauty of God
I. What is the beauty of God? Some have said that beauty is the indication of utility, the stamp of the highest usefulness. Others have made it to consist in the harmony of opposites; others in proportion or symmetry; others in conformity to a certain ideal standard of perfection. The saying attributed to Plato comes nearest to satisfying us,--Beauty is the splendour of truth. It is the lustre of perfection, the sign or token of a completed ideal. It always suggests the thought of a Being behind who seeks to realize His ideas and express Himself in them, and give a conception of their worth and beneficence. Do not beauty and sublimity owe their power to this, that they are suggestions of the illimitable, the transcendent, the infinite? Once in the history of this sinful world infinite beauty appeared. Divine loveliness spoke and acted among us, shone through the eyes, and lived in the actions and sufferings of Jesus of Nazareth. A beauty more splendid than day and all the jewelled crown of night, more tender than the most ethereal tints of flowers, more sublime than the mountains--the beauty of Divine love and truth and righteousness, of patience and longsuffering, dwelt in mortal flesh, streaming evermore through its covering, seeming the richer and tenderer for its covering, till it shone out in noontide glory through anguish and death. It is a perception of the beauty of God, a delight in it, a desire after it, which distinguish the spiritual man from others.
II. The beauty of God as reflected in man. There is always a suggestion of joy and hope about spiritual beauty. It speaks of a wide horizon. It is the beauty of a day in spring, having a hold of the future, while struggling with east winds and rain; looking on to summer, and not back upon it as do the fairest autumn days. It is the beauty of the rising sun, or of the sky before sunrise that presages a day of glory. Benevolence is the essential element. It is love that is lovely. To love the Infinite One and all Being in and through Him cannot but impart to the soul a deep beauty in harmony and alliance with the fairest scenes in Nature. But it is a strong and abundant life that is beautiful. Strength is the natural and genuine root of loveliness; and if there be anything fair to look upon that is not associated with this, but is rather a tender delicate grace inseparable from feebleness of principle or purpose, it must be somewhat of the nature of a sickly flush. Only, we should not forget that there is a beauty that precedes strength. For this is a characteristic of Gods work as distinguished from mans, that it carries a measure of beauty with it from the beginning through all its stages. There is one beauty of the tender shoot and another of the plant in flower. Unity is an element of beauty. Intellect requires unity and is pursued through all sciences by this quenchless thirst. Conscience, heart and imagination also desire it, and without it have no rest. If we will examine it, we shall find that in every object which we reckon beautiful there is unity open or concealed. What we call proportion, harmony, balance, order are only modifications of this. But unity must never be so understood as to seem in conflict with freedom. The beautiful is free, expansive, flowing. Unity and freedom are both included in this utterance, as they are in the truth of things--I will walk at liberty because I seek Thy precepts. Joy also is an element of beauty. The joy that we get by looking at Christ is healing and softening. It is a joy from beholding beauty of the loftiest and tenderest kind, and must be productive of beauty. Repose is not less an element of beauty. How powerfully this element of calm strikes us in the life of our Lord. He had the repose of a perfectly balanced soul, of strength and love, of patience, meekness, and unshaken trust in God. Hence there is a beauty in Him of which the tranquil majestic vault of heaven and the serene stars are a picture. They who inherit His peace cannot but inherit something of His beauty. Naturalness and unconsciousness must be added as necessary to all the elements of beauty. Let us have simple reality, whatever else we want. The beauty of life is life. We do not make beauty. It grows. We must not seek it directly, else we shall certainly miss it. Now, what light does this psalm shed on this beauty of God? What light does it give on the means of attaining it? First of all, a soul must have its home in God. It must have rest and a centre, and it can only have this in the bosom of infinite love. It must realize Gods eternity. A deep sense of sin is another outstanding element in this psalm, and there is no real beauty possible to sinful man without that. The gladness that God gives, and the wisdom that God gives, are both prominent here, and they are both necessary to work out the beauty of God in us. (A. Raleigh, D.D.)
The beauty of the Lord
There is a relation between beauty and work. In this writers mind the two things are indissolubly connected. To him the beauty of the Divine nature is the beauty of an energy ever streaming forth towards some harmonious and perfect end. This is clear from the parallelism between the parts of this sentence: Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants, And Thy glory unto their children, and, Let the beauty of the Lord our God rest upon us. Gods work, then, is His glory and His beauty. The three are correlated as parallel, and therefore kindred, ideas. Perfect beauty is the fruit of activity ever tending towards useful and beneficent ends. You may have a beautiful statue or a beautiful picture, but the highest beauty is when you have movement and development. A painted flower, however exquisitely wrought, can never exercise the same charm as a growing wheat-stalk or an expanding rose-bud. Work itself is beautiful. What is more fascinating than to watch the movements of a skilled workman, a master of his craft? Let us understand, then, that the only truly beautiful life is the active life. The beautiful hand is the hand that has wrought something for the benefit and enrichment of humanity, that has achieved something for the common good. If I were to ask you to name the most beautiful life ever lived upon this earth, you would not hesitate. You would name the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the life whose motto was, Wist ye not that I must be about My Fathers business? and whose record was, He went about doing good. And herein was its beauty, that though cut off in its prime, He could say, I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do. And I want you to feel that the beauty of the Lord our God may be upon us in all honest, earnest doing. No one ever asks whether Jesus of Nazareth was physically beautiful or not. He may have been plain-featured, as was Socrates; none the less is He the altogether lovely to our thought. It is significant that religion should be always spoken of in the Bible as a work of Divine grace in the heart; and grace is an essential element in our conception of beauty. It is the same identification as that which arose in the mind of the psalmist. He is thinking of no mere outward decoration stuck on to hide something ugly, like the plaster and stucco adornments of our modern debased architecture, which only accentuate the native hideousness of that which they are designed to conceal. He is thinking of the beauty which is the expression of an inward life, the beauty of holiness. (J. Halsey.)
The beauty of God
Beauty is that indescribable something in an object of sight or thought which awakens in us a feeling of satisfaction and gratification by the presentment of a perfect symmetry and harmony, a true proportion and adjustment, a unity without confusion or discord of a multitude of parts in a complete and congruous whole. And thus far the feeling is one and the same in the region of sense and in the region of mind. The beautiful in nature, the beautiful in art, the beautiful in literature, the beautiful in a person, the beautiful in a character, might be spoken of without impropriety in the same terms and ascribed substantially to the same characteristics, however distinct and diverse its action in these several provinces. The effect, the influence of beauty is, of course, utterly different in a thing and in a person--in a scene or a landscape on the one hand, in a countenance or a character on the other; and yet the same nominal account might be given of both, and the admiration awakened by both might be described in the very same phrase. Even so is it in that beauty which the text speaks of. Like that love of God which the Bible tells of, and which we must conceive of, however inadequately, as of the same nature and texture, so to say, only differing in its intensity and its purity, as the love which glorifies and sanctifies this human life of ours, so also is the beauty of God and the admiration of it by men and angels not to be idealized away in the fear of too much humanizing it; rather shall we dare to say of it, that it is the same quality and the same emotion in nature and science with the human, only infinitely lifted above it by its application to that one object in which there is no touch of defect in the beauty, and no possibility of excess in the admiration. It is still the symmetry and the harmony, the unity in manifoldness, the combination of parts in one consistent and congruous whole, which is the beauty, and which awakens the admiration of God Himself. But now, lest we should lose the thought in words, or fail to grasp the thing signified, just because it is so far above out of our sight, let us mention two or three particulars, the absence of any one of which in the revelation of what God is would be fatal to the beauty, and therefore fatal to the admiration, of God.
1. And we shall all, I think, be willing to place first, and not last, the Divine holiness as an attribute essential to the perfect Being. When a man really feels what sin is, feels what is the hatefulness, the meanness, the shamefulness, what is the wretchedness of sin, or of having sinned; that he even wishes to have it judged, and punished, and slain in himself; that it were no boon, but a sore penalty to be left with, and in, his sin, punishment being excused him;--I am sure that that man would miss in God, if it were not there, the attribute of severity; he would feel that the proportion, that the balance, that the combination was imperfect, if the Lord God were not, whatever else He be, strictly, severely just, of purer eyes than to look with toleration upon iniquity whatever the consequence to the creature that has clone amiss, and let in the tempter.
2. But if holiness is the first ingredient of the Divine beauty, certainly you will all say that sympathy is the second. To have revealed to me only a just God, only a God who rewards or recompenses according to our deservings, or only a God who makes His sun to rise indifferently on the evil and the good, and has made no provision at all for the mighty transition from the one class to the other by an all-availlng sacrifice and by a sanctifying Spirit--this would be to break the unity, to destroy the harmony, of Divine beauty, for it would leave me such as I am, out of the light and the warmth, out of the very reach and scope of the saving regard. I want the sympathy, which can supplement, which can condescend to touch the leper, and avail to say to the dead man, I say unto thee, Arise.
3. And we must not end without a third element, and what is that but the Divine help? Oh, when the battle has gone against me, when the good resolution has been again broken, when the severe lesson of consequence has been learned yet once more in vain, where should we be and what, if we might not still look up and lift up the eyes to One who is willing, often as it is, to help our infirmities, who will not upbraid us with sin or ingratitude will we but seek Him again with all our hearts, crying out for strength perfect in weakness, nay, enabling us to hazard the audacious yet most true paradox, When I am weak, just then, and then only, I am strong? Oh, let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, stirring us first to admiration, then to adoration, and then to communion. Let us remember how each one of the constituent parts of the Divine beauty is associated in Scripture with the name of Love. In one single letter St. Paul uses the three phrases, Love of God, Love of Christ, Love of the Spirit. In one single verse St. Paul brings together in prayer the Trinity of the Divine Unity when he says, The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship (or communion) of the Holy Ghost be with you all. Grace, love, communion. What lack we yet? Only that we stir up the gift; only that with such blessings as ours we starve not for lack of using; only that we east ourselves more humbly upon the goodness and forbearance, and longsuffering which has suffered us all those years, and still waits to bless. (Dean Vaughan.)
Beauty
Beauty would be said, I dare say, by scholars, to be not a Hebrew, but a Greek idea. And yet the Hebrews had an idea of their own of beauty, and a very original one.
I. That God is beautiful (2Ch_20:21; Psa_27:4; Zec_9:17; Isa_33:17).
1. A feature of God which appears to ms go have this attractiveness is His own love of beauty. All the beauty that exists in the universe is of Gods making. From Him all things sweet derive their sweetness, all things fair their beauty, all things bright their splendour, all things that live their life, all things sentient their sense, all that move their vigour, all intelligences their knowledge, all things perfect their perfection, all things in any wise good their goodness.
2. A second feature of the mind of God which makes the same impression is the artistic perfection He bestows on His work. The two great instruments of modern scientific investigation, the telescope and the microscope, have enlarged our knowledge of Gods works in opposite directions.
3. There is a beauty of a still higher order, which we call moral, and this is still more characteristic of God. There are some elements of moral character which we cannot see displayed in men or illustrated in their actions without the heart rising up to greet them with delight. Gentleness, for instance, is of this nature. Is there any sight more touching you can see in a home than a strong man stooping to a child, and laying aside his strength and dignity to be its playmate, or in the streets than a father leading his little one and waiting patiently for the toddling foot? The same may be said of generosity. If a man who has been wronged, having both right and power on his side, yet forbears to take revenge and heaps kindness on his enemy, poetry will celebrate his act, and every heart that listens to it will respond. Self-sacrifice, voluntarily giving up comfort and dignity to go down to the rescue of the miserable, commands the same kind of allegiance. Now, all the qualities of this class, in their highest form and intensest degree, belong to God. They are comprehended in what is called the grace of God.
4. One other feature of the beauty of God must be mentioned, because it is the one which the Old Testament writers chiefly had in view when they conceived God as beautiful. This is holiness. God is even called in one passage the beauty of holiness. Now, by this word we generally understand a negation of everything impure, absolute freedom from sin and abhorrence of it. But in the Scriptures the word has a more positive and a richer signification: it signifies the perfection and unison of all Gods attributes. No quality belonging to a perfect being is absent from His nature; every quality is present in perfect development; and all are in unbroken harmony. This is very nearly the Greek idea of beauty.
II. The Church of God is beautiful, and its beauty is derived from the beauty of God: Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us. Is not holiness beautiful? Is there anything else so beautiful? I appeal to you who have seen it. Have you ever known any one who was conspicuously holy; who, when he met you, created in you the impression often that he had just come out of the presence of Jehovah, and that the glory of the interview was still lingering about him; whose very look reminded you of God and heaven, and was an undeniable proof of their existence? If you leave known such an one, tell me if you have ever seen anything else so beautiful as such a character? It is all beautiful, but there are some elements of holiness that have a quite peculiar attractiveness. Humility is one. What a lovely grace that is, especially when it is united with exceptional position or exceptional gifts! Unselfishness produces the same effect on the beholder, and so does the simplicity of a large manhood. But the beauty of the Church and of the true Christian is not only the beauty of the Lord in the sense of being like His, but also in the sense of being obtained from Him. It is not natural, not derived. It is a beauty which the Lord puts upon His people; and it is communicated not from without, but from within. (J. Stalker, D. D.)
Mans prayer for triumph over time and death
I. Mans character when Divinely beautified. The prayer is that the beauty of God should be upon us. Then we shall remain. Our circumstances will change, our condition alter, our bodily powers decay, but upon us, that is upon something that is the actual, veritable indestructible we, a Divine something may ever rest. The beauty of God is that something. All colours, lines, beauties of visible creation and of the invisible heavens are but dim hints of the ineffable beauty of God, the beauty not of His creation, which is only a partial manifestation of Him, but of His character, which is Himself. This beauty of holiness is the beauty of God. When it clothes, covers, possesses, in a word is upon the human character, man is Divinely beautified.
I. What is the nature of this beauty?
(1) Manifold. Exquisite variety.
(2) Complete. No blemish or defect.
(3) Lasting. True character endures. Fever cannot burn out truth, consumption cannot waste away conscience, the axe or the guillotine cannot smite love. When we pray for the beauty of God, then we pray for a character that nothing can consume, or wither, or even enfeeble.
2. What is the method of its attainment?
(1) Right relationship with God. God must be our home, the sphere of our thoughts, labours, loves. Reconciled to God; at one with God.
(2) The discipline of the past. It was upon Moses, when he was old, that the beauty of the Lord our God was to rest. Just as it was upon Paul the aged that there gathered the glories of contentment, and peace, and heroism, that lit up his brow as with a diadem from heaven.
II. Mans work when Divinely blessed. Establish Thou the work of our hands, etc. Mens works outlive them. This is true in every sphere. The common masons labour has helped to build houses that will stand long after he has become dust. And in the realms of mind and morals it is still more emphatically so. But mans great triumph, as Moses felt his would be, is in work that God so establishes that generations to come shall be blessed by it. It may have been quiet work. It may have been unseen work, as the hidden under waves of the tide that leave their deep ripples congealed on the sand long after the tossing, breaking surface breakers have been absorbed again in the great sea. Yes, in its results, work done for God and done in Gods Spirit is permanent. The results of the work of a reformer, like Luther, or statesman like Hampden, or philanthropist like Howard, are henceforward part and parcel of the moral universe, as truly as the planets are part and parcel of the material. But yet more permanent. They will last throughout eternity. (Homilist.)
Spiritual beauty
This beauty is--
I. Varied. Faith in Abraham; patience in Job; purity in Joseph; meekness in Moses; earnestness in Paul; love in John; all in Jesus.
II. Growing. Like corn: first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear; like the growth of trees: first the seedling, then the young tree fenced round, then the large tree fully developed, with its beautiful arch reflecting perfectly the great arch of the majestic sky overhead; like light: first the twilight, then the silver dawn gradually growing into the golden splendours of noon.
III. Unfading. Earthly beauty grows until it reaches full bloom, and then it begins to fade. But not so with the beauty of God. It grows brighter and brighter, for ever and ever. Time cannot write its wrinkles; care cannot plough its furrows; disease cannot impress its marks upon any of the features of this beauty; death cannot breathe upon its fadeless bloom.
IV. Attracting. Josephus informs us that the babe, Moses, was so remarkable for beauty, that it happened frequently that those that met him, as he was carried along the road, were obliged to turn again upon seeing the child; that they left what they were about and stood still a great while to look on him. Thus the perfect beauty of childhood is attracting, and in this it is a lovely symbol of spiritual Beauty. The beauty of God upon the primitive Church drew the eyes of the heathen toward her, and forced from them the exclamation, Behold these Christians, how they love one another. The beauty of God upon the disciples caused the people around to wonder, and take knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. The beauty of God upon the members of the Church has been drawing and assimilating men of all tribes and all ages. And in proportion as her members have this beauty upon them are they successful in making others lovely.
V. Unconscious. A dutiful daughter watches by the bedside of her dying mother; anticipates her every wish; serves her day and night. How beautiful she is, but she does not know it. So with spiritual beauty (Exo_34:29; Mat_25:37-39). Thus, like the beauty of stars and rainbows, and flowers, and birds, and children, the beauty of God upon us, not in crescent fragments, but in full-orbed splendour, is invariably unconscious, until revealed to us by those who gaze upon it.
VI. Rare. It is rare as a few flowers amid a garden of weeds; rare as a few pebbles gleaming up out of an ocean of sand; rare as a few star clusters shining on the dark breast of night. It is rare and yet free, rare and yet attainable. Oh, it is wonderful that this beauty should be so uncommon when it is so free! It is universally attainable, for it is unto all and upon all them that believe. (John Dunlop.)
The privilege of believers in knowing Gods glory; and the effects of it upon their personal holiness
I. The privilege of Zions children.
II. The effects which the beauty of the Lord our God produces; it establishes the work of our hands; yea, most certainly the work of our hands shall be established. The privilege mentioned in our text consists of two parts: a vision of the beauty of the Lord, and an appropriation of Him as our God. The means of this vision and appropriation is usually called faith in the Word of God.
1. The work of our personal salvation is a great work, in which every one is concerned to be established. This is the one thing needful; and until we have some assurance of it, we can never be happy. Let us labour, then, to enter into this rest by faith.
2. Another great work every believer will wish to see carried on, and established, is the furtherance of Messiahs kingdom upon earth. Let Thy kingdom come, he will constantly pray, in the conversion of Jew and Gentile, in the progress of the Gospel at home and abroad. (R. Frew.)
Moral beauty
I. This beauty of the Lord our God was originally upon us,--was the primitive endowment of mankind, our highest and divinest excellence, described by our Creator Himself His own image.
1. Wisdom and knowledge.
2. Moral purity.
3. Vigour of moral purpose, or rectitude of will.
4. Supreme felicity in the Divine favour.
5. Immortal life.
II. This beauty, or moral perfection, has been lost.
1. By the fall, or the incipient act of human disobedience against God, moral evil has contaminated the whole of our nature. Sin entered, and in its train soon followed ignorance, error, weakness, guilt, misery and death.
2. The moral beauty of our original nature is utterly lost. If there exist any traces of mans former beauty, they resemble such only as are left behind in the fragments of an edifice, or a city, which a conflagration has destroyed, or an earthquake shaken into ruins.
3. Our moral beauty, so far as relates to ourselves, is irrecoverably lost.
III. What ground there is for hoping that this beauty of the Lord our God may yet be restored to us.
1. We now see this beauty actually restored, in the person of the Son of God in our nature. He is called the second man, the Lord from heaven,--the restorer of the ruins of the first Adam,--by the renovation of the moral nature of all who are in Him,--upon the principle of assimilation to His own moral beauty.
2. The ministry, or dispensation of the Spirit, furnishes another firm support to the hopes of those who are desirous of attaining to the beauty of the Lord their God. The souls whom the Spirit of God renews and adorns after the image of Jesus Christ, shall retain the freshness and the perfection of their new and spiritual beauty for ever; and neither grow old nor grow weary in the felicities of their heavenly state.
3. The promises of the Divine Word are also replete with assurances of the restoration of our fallen nature.
4. The Mediator, Jesus Christ, is now glorified at His Fathers right hand in our nature; and has received all power in heaven and on earth,--power directly official and mediatorial, for the purpose of completing those objects that brought Him into our world corporeally.
5. Our hope, if not founded upon the experience of the saints of God, is yet confirmed and illustrated by it; for what we read concerning those in distant ages, and what we have witnessed in our own days,--of the knowledge, holiness, obedience, spirituality, joy and triumph of the Lords people, that we know is attainable still. And since the attainment of a renewed mind depends upon no gifts of nature, no mysteries of art, no advantages of birth, no endowments of education, no privileges of station or rank, but entirely upon Divine grace, every anxious, humble, wrestling heart may indulge the joyous hope of receiving the blessing.
IV. What means might be used by us to promote this desirable and glorious consummation, the attainment of moral perfection, felicity, and immortality.
1. The text sets before you by example, the important, all-important exercise and means of prayer.
2. There must be diligent attention to the Word of God, and faith in it. This is the celestial mirror both of truth and beauty; the very exact, identical reflection or image of all that we are required both to be and to do; not a broken fragment, as the heathens fabled in their classic story of the natural mirror of truth, first given perfect into the hand of man, but afterwards dashed to the ground, and pieces only of which can now be gathered up and fitted together with much skill and infinite labour by the wisest of the sons of men; but that mirror of truth which we possess is perfect and entire,--the mirror of the Divine mind, most pure, perfect, and unsullied. Into this law of liberty we must daily look, not as a natural man beholding his face in a glass, but coming thereto and continuing therein, that we may be changed, and till we are changed, into the same image, from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. (G. Bedford, D.D.)
Beauty from Christ
Modern science teaches us that the crimson colour of a rose is not in the rose itself, but consists alone in the flowers property of picking out, and reflecting back the crimson ray that mingles in the suns white light. And this applies to flowers of every hue. Their beauty is not their own; it is wholly due to the colours which emanate from the sun itself. So it is equally true of the believer. He has no grace of beauty in himself, but all his purity of thought and life, like the beauty of the flowers, is drawn from the Sun of Righteousness. In Christ he is fair as the splendid, flower-embroidered hangings of Judahs royal palace. (R. Venting.)
Work made beautiful
A pathetic story is told of Professor Herkomer, the famous authority on art. His aged father, who lived with him in his beautiful home at Bushey, Hefts., used to model in clay in his early life. Later, when he had nothing definite to do, he took to it again; but his constant fear was that his work would show the marks of imperfection. At night he would go to rest early, and then his talented son would take up his fathers feeble attempts and make the work as beautiful as he well knows how. When the old man came clown in the morning he would go to see the work, and say, with evident satisfaction, Ha! I can do as well as ever I did! May we not believe that the hands of Divine Love will thus make beautiful our feeble work for God till it shall bear the light of day, and be perfect to all eternity!
Psa_91:1-16
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain
Psalms
THE CRY OF THE MORTAL TO THE UNDYING
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Psa 90:17.
If any reliance is to be placed upon the superscription of this psalm, it is one of the oldest, as it certainly is of the grandest, pieces of religious poetry in the world. It is said to be ‘A prayer of Moses, the man of God,’ and whether that be historically true or no, the tone of the psalm naturally suggests the great lawgiver, whose special task it was to write deep upon the conscience of the Jewish people the thought of the wages of sin as being death.
Hence the sombre magnificence and sad music of the psalm, which contemplates a thousand generations in succession as sliding away into the dreadful past, and sinking as beneath a flood. This thought of the fleeting years, dashed and troubled by many a sin, and by the righteous retribution of God, sent the Psalmist to his knees, and he found the only refuge from it in these prayers. These two petitions of our text, the closing words of the psalm, are the cry forced from a heart that has dared to look Death in the eyes, and has discovered that the world after all is a place of graves.
‘Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish Thou the work of our hands upon us.’ There are two thoughts there-the cry of the mortal for the beauty of the Eternal; and the cry of the worker in a perishable world for the perpetuity of his work. Look at these two thoughts briefly.
I. We have here, first, the yearning and longing cry of the mortal for the beauty of the Eternal.
The word translated ‘beauty’ in my text is, like the Greek equivalent in the New Testament, and like the English word ‘grace,’ which corresponds to them both susceptible of a double meaning. ‘Grace’ means both kindness and loveliness, or, as we might distinguish both graciousness and gracefulness. And that double idea is inherent in the word, as it is inherent in the attribute of God to which it refers. For that twofold meaning of the one word suggests the truth that God’s lovingkindness and communicating mercy is His beauty, and that the fairest thing about Him, notwithstanding the splendours that surround His character, and the flashing lights that come from His many-sided glory, is that He loves and pities and gives Himself. God is all fair, but the central and substantial beauty of the divine nature is that it is a stooping nature, which bows to weak and unworthy souls, and on them pours out the full abundance of its manifold gifts. So the ‘beauty of the Lord’ means, by no quibble or quirk, but by reason of the essential loveliness of His lovingkindness, both God’s loveliness and God’s goodness; God’s graciousness and God’s gracefulness {if I may use such a word}.
The prayer of the Psalmist that this beauty may be upon us conceives of it as given to us from above and as coming floating down from heaven, like that white Dove that fell upon Christ’s head, fair and meek, gentle and lovely, and resting on our anointed heads, like a diadem and an aureole of glory.
Now that communicating graciousness, with its large gifts and its resulting beauty, is the one thing that we need in view of mortality and sorrow and change and trouble. The psalm speaks about ‘all our years’ being ‘passed away in Thy wrath,’ about the very inmost recesses of our secret unworthiness being turned inside out, and made to look blacker than ever when the bright sunshine of His face falls upon them. From that thought of God’s wrath and omniscience the poet turns, as we must turn, to the other thought of His gentle longsuffering, of His forbearing love, of His infinite pity, of His communicating mercy. As a support in view both of our dreary and yet short years, and our certain mortality, and in the contemplation of the evils within and suffering from without, that harass us all, there is but one thing for us to do-namely, to fling ourselves into the arms of God, and in the spirit of this great petition, to ask that upon us there may fall the dewy benediction of His gentle beauty.
That longing is meant to be kindled in our hearts by all the discipline of life. Life is not worth living unless it does that for us; and there is no value nor meaning either in our joys or in our sorrows, unless both the one and the other send us to Him. Our gladness and our disappointments, our hopes fulfilled and our hopes dissipated and unanswered are but, as it were, the two wings by which, on either side, our spirits are to be lifted to God. The solemn pathos of the earlier portion of this psalm-the funeral march of generations-leads up to the prayerful confidence of these closing petitions, in which the sadness of the minor key in which it began has passed into a brighter strain. The thought of the fleeting years swept away as with a flood, and of the generations that blossom for a day and are mown down and wither when their swift night falls, is saddening and paralysing unless it suggests by contrast the thought of Him who, Himself unmoved, moves the rolling years, and is the dwelling-place of each succeeding generation. Such contemplations are wholesome and religious only when they drive us to the eternal God, that in Him we may find the stable foundation which imparts its own perpetuity to every life built upon it. We have experienced so many things in vain, and we are of the ‘fools’ that, being ‘brayed in a mortar,’ are only brayed fools after all, unless life, with its sorrows and its changes, has blown us, as with a hurricane, right into the centre of rest, and unless its sorrows and changes have taught us this as the one aspiration of our souls: ‘Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,’ and then, let what may come, come, let what can pass, pass, we shall have all that we need for life and peace.
And then, note further, that this gracious gentleness and long-suffering, giving mercy of God, when it comes down upon a man, makes him, too, beautiful with a reflected beauty. If the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us, it will cover over our foulness and deformity. For whosoever possesses in any real fashion God’s great mercy will have his spirit moulded into the likeness of that mercy. We cannot have it without reflecting it, we cannot possess it without being assimilated to it. Therefore, to have the grace of God makes us both gracious and graceful. And the true refining influence for a character is that into it there shall come the gift of that endless pity and patient love, which will transfigure us into some faint likeness of itself, so that we shall walk among men, able, in some poor measure, after the manner of our Master, to say, ‘He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father.’ He said it in a sense and in a measure which we cannot reach, but the assimilation to and reflection of the divine character is our aim, or ought to be, if we are Christians. ‘Let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,’ and ‘change us into the same image from glory to glory.’
II. We have here the cry of the worker in a fleeting world for the perpetuity of his work.
‘Establish,’ or make firm, ‘the work of our hands upon us, yea the work of our hands establish Thou it.’ The thought that everything is passing away so swiftly and inevitably, as the earlier part of the psalm suggests, might lead a man to say, ‘What is the use of my doing anything? I may just as well sit down here, and let things slide, if they are all going to be swallowed up in the black bottomless gulf of forgetfulness.’ The contemplation has actually produced two opposite effects, ‘Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die,’ is quite as fair an inference from the fact as is ‘Awake to righteousness and sin not,’ if the fact itself only be taken into account. There is nothing religious in the clearest conviction of mortality, if it stands alone. It may be the ally of profligate and cynical sensuality quite as easily as it may be the preacher of asceticism. It may make men inactive, from their sense of the insignificant and fleeting nature of all human works, or it may stimulate to intensest effort, from the thought, ‘I must work the works of Him that sent me while it is day. The night cometh.’ All depends on whether we link the conviction of mortality with that of eternity, and think of our perishable selves as in relationship with the unchanging God.
This prayer expresses a deep longing, natural to all men, and which yet seems incompatible with the stern facts of mortality and decay. We should all like to have our work exempted from the common lot. What pathetically futile attempts to secure this are pyramids, and rock-inscriptions, and storied tombs, and posthumous memoirs, and rich men’s wills! Why should any of us expect that the laws of nature should be suspended for our benefit, and our work made lasting while everything beside changes like the shadows of the clouds? Is there any way by which such exceptional permanence can be secured for our poor deeds? Yes, certainly. Let us commit them to God, praying this prayer, ‘Establish Thou the work of our hands upon us.’
Our work will be established if it is His work. This prayer in our text follows another prayer {Psa 90:16}-namely, ‘Let Thy work appear unto Thy servants.’ That is to say, My work will be perpetual when the work of my hands is God’s work done through me. When you bring your wills into harmony with God’s will, and so all your effort, even about the little things of daily life, is in consonance with His will, and in the line of His purpose, then your work will stand. If otherwise, it will be like some slow-moving and frail carriage going in the one direction and meeting an express train thundering in the other. When the crash comes, the opposing motion of the weaker will be stopped, reversed, and the frail thing will be smashed to atoms. So, all work which is man’s and not God’s will sooner or later be reduced to impotence and either annihilated or reversed, and made to run in the opposite direction. But if our work runs parallel with God’s, then the rushing impetus of His work will catch up our little deeds into the swiftness of its own motion, and will carry them along with itself, as a railway train will lift straws and bits of paper that are lying by the rails, and give them motion for a while. If my will runs in the line of His, and if the work of my hands is ‘Thy work,’ it is not in vain that we shall cry ‘Establish it upon us,’ for it will last as long as He does.
In like manner, all work will be perpetual that is done with ‘the beauty of the Lord our God’ upon the doers of it. Whosoever has that grace in his heart, whosoever is in contact with the communicating mercy of God, and has had his character in some measure refined and ennobled and beautified by possession thereof, will do work that has in it the element of perpetuity.
And our work will stand if we quietly leave it in His hands. Quietly do it to Him, never mind about results, but look after motives. You cannot influence results, let God look after them; you can influence motives. Be sure that they are right, and if they are, the work will be eternal.
‘Eternal? What do you mean by eternal? how can a man’s work be that?’ Part of the answer is that it may be made permanent in its issues by being taken up into the great whole of God’s working through His servants, which results at last in the establishment of His eternal kingdom. Just as a drop of water that falls upon the moor finds its way into the brook, and goes down the glen and on into the river, and then into the sea, and is there, though undistinguishable, so in the great summing up of everything at the end, the tiniest deed that was done for God, though it was done far away up amongst the mountain solitudes where no eye saw, shall live and be represented, in its effects on others and in its glad issues to the doer.
In the highest fashion the Psalmist’s cry for the perpetuity of the fleeting deeds of dying generations will be answered in that region in which his dimmer eye saw little but the sullen flood that swept away youth and strength and wisdom, but in which we can see the solid land beyond the river, and the happy company who rejoice with the joy of harvest, and bear with them the sheaves, whereof the seed was sown on this bank, in tears and fears. ‘Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord. Their works do follow them.’ ‘The world passeth away, and the fashion thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.’
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 May the favor of the Lord our God be…
May the favor of the Lord our God be ours
The abstract noun "favor" can be stated as "be kind." AT: "May the Lord our God be kind to us" (See: Abstract Nouns)
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prosper the work of our hands
Here "hands" represents the whole person. AT: "cause us to be successful" (See: Synecdoche)
translationWords
favor
lord
prosper
hand
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 90:17 Humans waste their efforts unless the Lord makes…
90:17 Humans waste their efforts unless the Lord makes them successful (44:3).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.