For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
Parallel Translations
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For we are consumed in your anger. We are troubled in your wrath.
You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
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For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told.
Show all 3 translations
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For we are consumed in Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we hurried away.
Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance.
For all our days are passed away in Thy wrath; we bring our years to an end as a tale that is told.
Cross-references (31)
- Jeremiah 16:17 (v8) For my eyes are on all their ways. They are not hidden from my face. Their iniquity isn’t concealed from my eyes.
- Psalms 78:33 (v9) Therefore he consumed their days in vanity, and their years in terror.
- Ecclesiastes 12:14 (v8) For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.
- Psalms 19:12 (v8) Who can discern his errors? Forgive me from hidden errors.
- Jeremiah 23:24 (v8) Can anyone hide himself in secret places so that I can’t see him?” says Yahweh. “Don’t I fill heaven and earth?” says Yahweh.
Show all 31 cross-references
- Hebrews 4:12-13 (v8) For the word of God is living and active, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both…
- Psalms 39:11 (v7) When you rebuke and correct man for iniquity, you consume his wealth like a moth. Surely every man is but a breath.”
- Psalms 10:11 (v8) He says in his heart, “God has forgotten. He hides his face. He will never see it.”
- Psalms 39:5 (v9) Behold, you have made my days hand widths. My lifetime is as nothing before you. Surely every man stands as a breath.”
- Psalms 139:1-4 (v8) Yahweh, you have searched me, and you know me. You know my sitting down and my rising up. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You search…
- Jeremiah 9:13-16 (v8) Yahweh says, “Because they have forsaken my law which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice or walked in my ways, but have walked…
- 1 John 3:20 (v8) because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
- Revelation 20:12 (v8) I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and they opened books. Another book was opened, which is the book of…
- Exodus 14:24 (v7) In the morning watch, Yahweh looked out on the Egyptian army through the pillar of fire and of cloud, and confused the Egyptian army.
- Numbers 17:12-13 (v7) The children of Israel spoke to Moses, saying, “Behold, we perish! We are undone! We are all undone! Everyone who keeps approaching…
- Deuteronomy 2:14-16 (v7) The days in which we came from Kadesh Barnea until we had come over the brook Zered were thirty-eight years: until all the generation of…
- Job 34:21 (v8) “For his eyes are on the ways of a man. He sees all his goings.
- Psalms 50:21 (v8) You have done these things, and I kept silent. You thought that I was just like you. I will rebuke you, and accuse you in front of your…
- Psalms 59:13 (v7) Consume them in wrath. Consume them, and they will be no more. Let them know that God rules in Jacob, to the ends of the earth.
- Psalms 80:16 (v8) It’s burned with fire. It’s cut down. They perish at your rebuke.
- Psalms 90:4 (v9) For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night.
- Psalms 90:11 (v7) Who knows the power of your anger, your wrath according to the fear that is due to you?
- Proverbs 5:21 (v8) For the ways of man are before Yahweh’s eyes. He examines all his paths.
- Ezekiel 8:12 (v8) Then he said to me, “Son of man, have you seen what the elders of the house of Israel do in the dark, every man in his rooms of imagery?…
- Luke 12:1-2 (v8) Meanwhile, when a multitude of many thousands had gathered together, so much so that they trampled on each other, he began to tell his…
- Romans 2:8-9 (v7) but to those who are self-seeking, and don’t obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, will be wrath, indignation, oppression, and anguish…
- Romans 2:16 (v8) in the day when God will judge the secrets of men, according to my Good News, by Jesus Christ.
- 1 Corinthians 4:5 (v8) Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and reveal the…
- Hebrews 3:10-11 (v7) Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ As I swore in my…
- Hebrews 3:17–4:2 (v7) With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? To whom did he swear that…
- Psalms 90:9 (v7) For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this passage (18 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain On vv7–9 7 For we fail by thy anger. Moses makes…
7 For we fail by thy anger. Moses makes mention of the anger of God advisedly; for it is necessary that men be touched with the feeling of this, in order to their considering in good earnest, what experience constrains them to acknowledge, how soon they finish their course and pass away. He had, however, still another reason for joining together the brevity of human life and the anger of God. Whilst men are by nature so transitory, and, as it were, shadowy, the Israelites were afflicted by the hostile hand of God; and his anger is less supportable by our frail natures, which speedily vanish away, than it would be were we furnished with some tolerable degree of strength.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv7, 9 Thou callest us by thy rods to consider the…
Thou callest us by thy rods to consider the shortness of our life, and for our sins thou abridgest our days.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv7–9 Psa 90:7 For we are consumed by thine anger,…
Psa 90:7 For we are consumed by thine anger, and by thy wrath are we troubled.
Ver. 7. For we are consumed by thine anger] Justly conceived for our sins, Psa 90:8. This is a cause of death that philosophy discovereth not, as being blind, and not able to see far off, and therefore cannot prescribe any sufficient remedy against the tear of death, such as is here set down, Psa 90:12, but such as made Cicero complain, that the disease was too hard for the medicine, and such as left men either doubtful (Socrates, for instance) or desperate, and devoid of sense, as Petronius in Tacitus, Qui in ipsis atriis morris delicias quaesivit, solaced himself with singing such light sonnets as this;
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Vivamus men Lesbia atque amemus,
Rumoresque senum severiorum
Onmes unius aestimemus assis.
And by thy wrath are we troubled] Consternati sumus, Death stings us and sticks us; the motion and mention of it is terrible to us, through sense of sin and fear of wrath, Heb 2:15. Symmachus et Aquila transtulerant acceleravimus.
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 On vv7–9 We; either,
We; either,
1. We men; or rather,
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2. We Israelites in this wilderness.
Consumed; either naturally, by the frame of our bodies; or violently, by extraordinary judgments. Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might by the course of nature.
Thine anger, caused by our sinful state and lives.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v7 Moses had, in the foregoing verses, lamented the frailty…
Moses had, in the foregoing verses, lamented the frailty of human life in general; the children of men are as a sleep and as the grass. But here he teaches the people of Israel to confess before God that righteous sentence of death which they were under in a special manner, and which by their sins they had brought upon themselves. Their share in the common lot of mortality was not enough, but they are, and must live and die, under peculiar tokens of God's displeasure. Here they speak of themselves: We Israelites are consumed and troubled, and our days have passed away.
I. They are here taught to acknowledge the wrath of God to be the cause of all their miseries. We are consumed, we are troubled, and it is by thy anger, by thy wrath (Psa 90:7); our days have passed away in thy wrath, Psa 90:9. The afflictions of the saints often come purely from God's love, as Job's; but the rebukes of sinners, and of good men for their sins, must be seen coming from the anger of God, who takes notice of, and is much displeased with, the sins of Israel. We are too apt to look upon death as no more than a debt owing to nature; whereas it is not so; if the nature of man had continued in its primitive purity and rectitude, there would have been no such debt owing to it. It is a debt to the justice of God, a debt to the law. Sin entered into the world, and death by sin. Are we consumed by decays of nature, the infirmities of age, or any chronic disease? We must ascribe it to God's anger. Are we troubled by any sudden or surprising stroke? That also is the fruit of God's wrath, which is thus revealed from heaven against the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men.
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II. They are taught to confess their sins, which had provoked the wrath of God against them (Psa 90:8): Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, even our secret sins. It was not without cause that God was angry with them. He had said, Provoke me not, and I will do you no hurt; but they had provoked him, and will own that, in passing this severe sentence upon them, he justly punished them, 1. For their open contempts of him and the daring affronts they had given him: Thou hast set our iniquities before thee. God had herein an eye to their unbelief and murmuring, their distrusting his power and their despising the pleasant land: these he set before them when he passed that sentence on them; these kindled the fire of God's wrath against them and kept good things from them. 2. For their more secret departures from him: "Thou hast set our secret sins (those which go no further than the heart, and which are at the bottom of all the overt acts) in the light of thy countenance; that is, thou hast discovered these, and brought these also to the account, and made us to see them, who before overlooked them." Secret sins are known to God and shall be reckoned for. Those who in heart return into Egypt, who set up idols in their heart, shall be dealt with as revolters or idolaters. See the folly of those who go about to cover their sins, for they cannot cover them.
III. They are taught to look upon themselves as dying and passing away, and not to think either of a long life or of a pleasant one; for the decree gone forth against them was irreversible (Psa 90:9): All our days are likely to be passed away in thy wrath, under the tokens of thy displeasure; and, though we are not quite deprived of the residue of our years, yet we are likely to spend them as a tale that is told. The thirty-eight years which, after this, they wore away in the wilderness, were not the subject of the sacred history; for little or nothing is recorded of that which happened to them from the second year to the fortieth. After they came out of Egypt their time was perfectly trifled away, and was not worthy to be the subject of a history, but only of a tale that is told; for it was only to pass away time, like telling stories, that they spent those years in the wilderness; all that while they were in the consuming, and another generation was in the raising. When they came out of Egypt there was not one feeble person among their tribes (Psa 105:37); but now they were feeble. Their joyful prospect of a prosperous glorious life in Canaan was turned into the melancholy prospect of a tedious inglorious death in the wilderness; so that their whole life was now as impertinent a thing as ever any winter-tale was. That is applicable to the state of every one of us in the wilderness of this world: We spend our years, we bring them to an end, each year, and all at last, as a tale that is told - as the breath of our mouth in winter (so some), which soon disappears - as a thought (so some), than which nothing more quick - as a word, which is soon spoken, and then vanishes into air - or as a tale that is told. The spending of our years is like the telling of a tale. A year, when it past, is like a tale when it is told. Some of our years are a pleasant story, others as a tragical one, most mixed, but all short and transient: that which was long in the doing may be told in a short time. Our years, when they are gone, can no more be recalled than the word that we have spoken can. The loss and waste of our time, which are our fault and folly, may be thus complained of: we should spend our years like the despatch of business, with care and industry; but, alas! we do spend them like the telling of a tale, idle, and to little purpose, carelessly, and without regard. Every year passed as a tale that is told; but what was the number of them? As they were vain, so they were few (Psa 90:10), seventy or eighty at most, which may be understood either, 1. Of the lives of the Israelites in the wilderness; all those that were numbered when they came out of Egypt, above twenty years old, were to die within thirty-eight years; they numbered those only that were able to go forth to war, most of whom, we may suppose, were between twenty and forty, who therefore must have all died before eighty years old, and many before sixty, and perhaps much sooner, which was far short of the years of the lives of their fathers. And those that lived to seventy or eighty, yet, being under a sentence of consumption and a melancholy despair of ever seeing through this wilderness-state, their strength, their life, was nothing but labour and sorrow, which otherwise would have been made a new life by the joys of Canaan. See what work sin made. Or, 2. Of the lives of men in general, ever since the days of Moses. Before the time of Moses it was usual for men to live about 100 years, or nearly 150; but, since, seventy or eighty is the common stint, which few exceed and multitudes never come near. We reckon those to have lived to the age of man, and to have had as large a share of life as they had reason to expect, who live to be seventy years old; and how short a time is that compared with eternity! Moses was the first that committed divine revelation to writing, which, before, had been transmitted by tradition; now also both the world and the church were pretty well peopled, and therefore there were not now the same reasons for men's living long that there had been. If, by reason of a strong constitution, some reach to eighty years, yet their strength then is what they have little joy of; it does but serve to prolong their misery, and make their death the more tedious; for even their strength then is labour and sorrow, much more their weakness; for the years have come which they have no pleasure in. Or it may be taken thus: Our years are seventy, and the years of some, by reason of strength, are eighty; but the breadth of our years (for so the latter word signifies, rather than strength), the whole extent of them, from infancy to old age, is but labour and sorrow. In the sweat of our face we must eat bread; our whole life is toilsome and troublesome; and perhaps, in the midst of the years we count upon, it is soon cut off, and we fly away, and do not live out half our days.
IV. They are taught by all this to stand in awe of the wrath of God (Psa 90:11): Who knows the power of thy anger? 1. None can perfectly comprehend it. The psalmist speaks as one afraid of God's anger, and amazed at the greatness of the power of it; who knows how far the power of God's anger can reach and how deeply it can wound? The angels that sinned knew experimentally the power of God's anger; damned sinners in hell know it; but which of us can fully comprehend or describe it? 2. Few do seriously consider it as they ought. Who knows it, so as to improve the knowledge of it? Those who make a mock at sin, and make light of Christ, surely do not know the power of God's anger. For, according to thy fear, so is thy wrath; God's wrath is equal to the apprehensions which the most thoughtful serious people have of it; let men have ever so great a dread upon them of the wrath of God, it is not greater than there is cause for and than the nature of the thing deserves. God has not in his word represented his wrath as more terrible than really it is; nay, what is felt in the other world is infinitely worse than what is feared in this world. Who among us can dwell with that devouring fire?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv7–9 For we are consumed by thine anger,.... Kimchi applies…
For we are consumed by thine anger,.... Kimchi applies this to the Jews in captivity; but it is to be understood of the Israelites in the wilderness, who are here introduced by Moses as owning and acknowledging that they were wasting and consuming there, as it was threatened they should; and that as an effect of the divine anger and displeasure occasioned by their sins; see Num 14:33. Death is a consumption of the body; in the grave worms destroy the flesh and skin, and the reins of a man are consumed within him; hell is a consumption or destruction of the soul and body, though both always continue: saints, though consumed in body by death, yet not in anger; for
when flesh and heart fail, or "is consumed", "God is the strength of their hearts, and their portion for ever", Psa 73:26, their souls are saved in the day of the Lord Jesus, and their bodies will rise glorious and incorruptible; but the wicked are consumed at death, and in hell, in anger and hot displeasure:
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and by thy wrath are we troubled; the wrath of God produces trouble of mind, whenever it is apprehended, and especially in the views of death and eternity; and it is this which makes death the king of terrors, and men subject to bondage in life through fear of it, even the wrath to come, which follows upon it; nothing indeed, either in life or at death, or death itself, comes in wrath to the saints; nor is there any after it to them, though they have sometimes fearful apprehensions of it, and are troubled at it.
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 On vv7–8 Are consumed - Thou dost not suffer us to…
Are consumed - Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might by the course of nature.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv7–9 Verse 7. We are consumed by thine anger] Death…
Verse 7. We are consumed by thine anger] Death had not entered into the world, if men had not fallen from God.
By thy wrath are we troubled] Pain, disease, and sickness are so many proofs of our defection from original rectitude. The anger and wrath of God are moved against all sinners. Even in protracted life we consume away, and only seem to live in order to die.
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"Our wasting lives grow shorter still,
As days and months increase;
And every beating pulse we tell
Leaves but the number less."
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On v7 Psa 90:7-9. We are consumed by thine anger —…
Psa 90:7-9. We are consumed by thine anger — Caused by our sinful state and lives. Thou dost not suffer us to live so long as we might do by the course of nature. And by thy wrath are we troubled — The generations of men are troubled and consumed by divers diseases, and sundry kinds of death, through the displeasure of God, occasioned by their sins. The provocations and chastisements of Israel are here alluded to. But their case in the wilderness is the case of mankind in the world, and the same thing is true in them and in us. Thou hast set our iniquities before thee — Thou observest them as a righteous judge, and art calling us to an account for them. Our secret sins, &c. — Which, though hidden from the eyes of men, thou hast set before thine eyes, and brought to light by thy judgments. For all our days are passed away in thy wrath — That is, under the tokens of thy displeasure. We spend our years as a tale that is told — Which may a little affect us for the present, but is quickly ended, and gone out of mind. Hebrew, כמי הגה, chemo hege, as a sound, as the expression is rendered Job 32:2; or as a word, which is but air and breath, and vanishes into nothing as soon as spoken. Or, as the word more properly signifies, a meditation or thought, which is of a nature still more fleeting and transient.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv7–9 For we are consumed by thine anger - That…
For we are consumed by thine anger - That is, Death - the cutting off of the race of man - may be regarded as an expression of thy displeasure against mankind as a race of sinners. The death of man would not have occurred but for sin Gen 3:3, Gen 3:19; Rom 5:12; and all the circumstances connected with it - the fact of death, the dread of death, the pain that precedes death, the paleness and coldness and rigidity of the dead, and the slow and offensive returning to dust in the grave - all are adapted to be, and seem designed to be, illustrations of the anger of God against sin. We cannot, indeed, always say that death in a specific case is proof of the direct and special anger of God “in that case;” but we can say that death always, and death in its general features, may and should be regarded as an evidence of the divine displeasure against the sins of people.
And by thy wrath - As expressed in death.
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Are we troubled - Are our plans confounded and broken up; our minds made sad and sorrowful; our habitations made abodes of grief.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv7–9 7. For we are consumed by thine anger—We are…
7. For we are consumed by thine anger—We are wasting away under the effect of thy death-sentence. As applied by Moses to the Israelites, compare Num_14:28-35; as applied to the human race, compare Gen_3:19.
By thy wrath are we troubled—We are terrified. Comp. Psa_104:29. Hab_3:2; Heb_10:31
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 On vv7–9 7. For &c.] This is the Psalmist’s reason for…
7. For &c.] This is the Psalmist’s reason for reminding God of the frailty of human life. We—Israel—have been consumed through thine anger, and through thy wrath have we been dismayed. He speaks of it not as a general truth but as an actual experience. Dismayed is a word specially used of the consternation inspired by Divine judgements. Cp. Psa_6:2-3; Psa_48:5; and the cognate subst. terror, Lev_26:16.
7–12. Human life is at best brief and uncertain; and Israel’s life is being spent under the cloud of God’s wrath for the punishment of its sins.
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 On vv7–9 (7) We.—The change to the first person plural shows…
(7) We.—The change to the first person plural shows that the poet was not merely moralising on the brevity of human life, but uttering a dirge over the departed glory of Israel. Instead of proving superior to vicissitude the covenant race had shared it.
Troubled.—Comp. Psa_48:6. Better here, frightened away.
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 On vv7–9 For we are consumed by thine anger. From the…
For we are consumed by thine anger. From the general reflections, and the general consideration of human weakness, which have hitherto occupied him, the psalmist proceeds to speak particularly of the weakness and sin of himself and his own people, which have brought upon them a painful visitation. God"s anger is hot upon them, and has "consumed" them not utterly, but so that they are greatly "troubled" and cast down. By thy wrath are we troubled. The expressions used suit the time of the later wanderings in the wilderness, when the generation that had especially sinned was being gradually "consumed," that it might not eater the Holy land.
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 On vv7–9 Ver. 7. This mortality is not accidental, neither was…
Ver. 7. This mortality is not accidental, neither was it inevitable in the original of our nature, but sin has provoked the Lord to anger, and therefore thus we die.
For we are consumed by thine anger. This is the scythe which mows and the scorching heat which withers. This was specially the case in reference to the people in the wilderness, whose lives were cut short by justice on account of their waywardness; they failed, not by a natural decline, but through the blast of the well deserved judgments of God. It must have been a very mournful sight to Moses to see the whole nation melt away during the forty years of their pilgrimage, till none remained of all that came out of Egypt. As God's favour is life, so his anger is death; as well might grass grow in an oven as men flourish when the Lord is wroth with them. "And by thy wrath are we troubled", or terror stricken. A sense of divine anger confounded them, so that they lived as men who knew that they were doomed. This is true of us in a measure, but not altogether, for now that immortality and life are brought to light by the gospel, death has changed its aspect, and, to believers in Jesus, it is no more a judicial execution. Anger and wrath are the sting of death, and in these believers have no share; love and mercy now conduct us to glory by the way of the tomb. It is not seemly to read these words at a Christian's funeral without words of explanation, and a distinct endeavour to shew how little they belong to believers in Jesus, and how far we are privileged beyond those with whom he was not well pleased, "whose carcasses fell in the wilderness." To apply an ode, written by the leader of the legal dispensation under circumstances of peculiar judgment, in reference to a people under penal censure, to those who fall asleep in Jesus, seems to be the height of blundering. We may learn much from it, but we ought not to misapply it by taking to ourselves, as the beloved of the Lord, that which was chiefly true of those to whom God had sworn in his wrath that they should not enter into his rest. When, however, a soul is under conviction of sin, the language of this Psalm is highly appropriate to his case, and will naturally suggest itself to the distracted mind. No fire consumes like God's anger, and no anguish so troubles the heart as his wrath. Blessed be that dear substitute,
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"Who bore that we might never
His Father's righteous ire."
Ver. 7. For we are consumed by thine anger. This is a point disputed by philosophers. They seek for the cause of death, since indeed proofs of immortality that cannot be despised exist in nature. The prophet replies, that the chief cause must not be sought in the material, either in a defect of the fluids, or in a failure of the natural heat; but that God being offended at the sins of men, hath subjected this nature to death and other infinite calamities. Therefore, our sins are the causes which have brought down this destruction. Henee he says, In thine anger we vanish away. —Mollerus.
Ver. 7. For we are consumed by thine anger, etc. Whence we may first of all observe, how they compare their present estate in the wilderness, with the estate of other nations and people, and shew that their estate was far worse than theirs: for others died now one, and then one, and so they were diminished; but for them, they were hastily consumed and suddenly swept away by the plague and pestilence which raged amongst them. Hence we may observe, first of all—That it is a ground of humiliation to God's people when their estate is worse than God's enemies'.Moses gathers this as an argument to humble them, and to move them to repentance and to seek unto God; viz., that because of their sins they were in a far worse case and condition than the very enemies of God were. For though their lives were short, yet they confess that theirs was far worse than the very heathen themselves, for they were suddenly consumed by his anger. When God is worse to his own church and people than he is to his enemies; when the Lord sends wars in a nation called by his name, and peace in other kingdoms that are anti Christian; sends famine in his church, and plenty to the wicked; sends the plague and pestilence in his church, and health and prosperity to the wicked; oh, here is matter of mourning and humiliation; and it is that which hath touched God's people to the quick, and wounded them to the heart, to see the enemies of the church in better condition than the church itself. —Samuel Smith.
Ver. 7. By thy wrath are we troubled. The word used by Moses is much stronger than merely "troubled." It implies being cut off, destroyed—in forms moreover of overwhelming terror. —Henry Cowles, in "The Psalms; with Notes." New York, 1872.
Ver. 7.
1. Man's chief troubles are the effect of death. (a) His own death. (b) The death of others.
2. Death is the effect of Divine anger: "We are consumed by", etc.
3. Divine anger is the effect of sin. Death by sin.
—G.R.
Psalms 90:8*
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 On vv7–9 For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by…
Psa_90:7-11
For we are consumed by Thine anger, and by Thy wrath are we troubled.
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Man under a consciousness of Divine displeasure
I. It arose from a sense of moral wrong. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee, etc. True it is that all our iniquities, even the most secret, those wrought in the deepest concealment, stand out clearly evermore to the eye of God. Thus a sin-convicted conscience profoundly feels that man is consumed by His anger, and by His wrath is he troubled. When a sinful spirit becomes conscious of its sinfulness, it invests the Almighty with the most terrible attributes of vengeance.
II. It solved the unhappiness of life.
1. Life is sad. We are consumed by Thy wrath. The same trials of life which are regarded by the man who has a sense of Divine forgiveness as the disciplines of a loving Father, are regarded by the man who is impressed with a sense of guilt as the inflictions of an incensed Judge. Hence Providence is different to different men. One feels it a system of grace, another a system of rigorous severity.
2. Life is empty. We spend our years as a tale that is told. Some translate tale thought, and some, sound that dieth away. How soon the loudest sound, even the crash of thunder, dies away in the atmosphere!
3. Life is brief. The days of our years are threescore years and ten. (Homilist.)
A conception of Gods anger
Gods anger is His love thrown back upon itself from unreceptive and unloving hearts; just as a wave that would roll in smooth and unbroken green beauty into the open door of some sea cave is dashed back in spray and foam from some grim rock. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 9 we are consumed in your anger
we are consumed in your anger
God destroying people in his anger is spoken of as if God's anger were a fire that completely burns up the people. This can be stated in active form. AT: "You destroy us in your anger" (See: Metaphor and Active or Passive)
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in your wrath we are terrified
"when you are angry we are greatly afraid"
You have set our iniquities before you, our hidden sins in the light of your presence
God considering people's sins is spoken of as if sins were an objects he could place in front of himself and look at them. AT: "You see every sinful thing we do, even the sinful things we do in secret" (See: Metaphor)
translationWords
consume
anger
wrath
terror
iniquity
sin
light
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 On vv7, 9 90:7-10 Sinners cannot escape God’s wrath because the Lord…
90:7-10 Sinners cannot escape God’s wrath because the Lord sees their sins. Their fleeting lives are filled with afflictions.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.