Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John CalvinWhen they have made a lengthened calculation of the days, this is the sum in which the processultimately results. He who has reached the age of fourscore years hastens to the grave. Moseshimself lived longer, (Deuteronomy 34:7,) 571 and so perhaps did others in his time; but he speakshere of the ordinary term. And even then, those were accounted old men, and in a manner decrepit,who attained to the age of fourscore years; so that he justly declares that it is the robust only whoarrive at that age. He puts pride for the strength or excellence of which men boast so highly. Thesense is, that before men decline and come to old age, even in the very bloom of youth they areinvolved in many troubles, and that they cannot escape from the cares, weariness, sorrows, fears,griefs, inconveniences, and anxieties, to which this mortal life is subject. Moreover, this is to bereferred to the whole course of our existence in the present state. And assuredly, he who considerswhat is the condition of our life from our infancy until we descend into the grave, will find troublesand turmoil in every part of it. The two Hebrew words , amal, and , aven, which are joinedtogether, are taken passively for inconveniences and afflictions; implying that the life of man isfull of labor, and fraught with many torments, and that even at the time when men are in the heightof their pride. The reason which is added, for it swiftly passes by, and we fly away, seems hardlyto suit the scope of the passage; for felicity may be brief, and yet on that account it does not ceaseto be felicity. But Moses means that men foolishly glory in their excellence, since, whether theywill or no, they are constrained to look to the time to come. And as soon as they open their eyes,they see that they are dragged and carried forward to death with rapid haste, and that their excellenceis every moment vanishing away.Psalm 90:11-1311. Who knoweth the power of thy anger? and according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. 12. Teachus so 572 to number our days, and we shall apply our hearts to wisdom. 13. Return, O Jehovah! howlong? Be pacified towards thy servants.571 In the Latin version it is, “multa annorum millia;” “many thousand years.” But this is evidently a mistake, which the Frenchversion corrects, reading “beaucoup de milliers de jours.”572 Moses, as we learn from the passage to which Calvin refers, “was an hundred and twenty years old when he died, his eyewas not dim, nor his natural force abated.” He was eighty years old when God made him captain of the chosen people; and Aaronwas eighty-three years old before he was made High Priest, Exodus 7:7. These, and a few other similar cases, have led many toconclude that the age of eighty was not considered at that time the age of decrepitude; and consequently that this psalm, whichlimits the average length of human life to seventy or eighty years, must be of a later date than the time of Moses. But this is novalid argument against his being its penman. According to Calvin, seventy or eighty years was at that time, in general, the utmostlimits of human life; and the longevity of Moses and some others who exceeded that limit was an exception to the general rule.If this should be called in question, it might be observed that this psalm treats of the afflictions and brevity of life, not in referenceto all men absolutely, but with respect to the Israelites in particular, who, on account of their murmuring at the report of the spieswho had been sent to spy out the land of Canaan, and other sins, provoked God to swear in his wrath that the carcases of all thatwere numbered of them according to their whole number, from twenty years old and upwards, with the exception of Caleb andJoshua, should fall in the wilderness during the forty years of their wandering in it, (Numbers 14:27-29.) Few of them, therefore,could have exceeded or even reached the age of fourscore years. It has been thought by some that at that time human life allover the world was reduced to the measure here specified, as its average standard. “The decree which abbreviated the life ofman as a general rule to seventy or eighty years,” observes Dr J. M. Good, “was given as a chastisement upon the whole raceof Israelites in the wilderness. It does not appear that the term of life was lengthened afterwards. Samuel died about seventyyears old, David under seventy-one, and Solomon under sixty; and the history of the world shows that the abbreviation of lifein other countries was nearly in the same proportion.”283