Commentary on Psalms - Volume 3 - Bible Study Guides

Comm on Psalms (V3)John CalvinPsalm 90:14-1714. Satiate us early 574 with thy goodness, and we will be glad and rejoice all our days. 15.Make us joyful according to the days of our affliction; according to the years in which we haveseen evil. 16. Let thy work appear towards thy servants, and thy glory upon their children. 17. Andlet the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us; and direct the work of our hands upon us; yea,direct thou the work of our hands.16 Let thy work appear towards thy servants. As God, when he forsakes his Church, puts onas it were a character different from his own, Moses, with much propriety, calls the blessing ofprotection which had been divinely promised to the children of Abraham God’s proper work.Although, therefore, God’s work was manifest in all the instances in which he had punished theperfidiousness, ingratitude, obstinacy, unruly lusts, and unhallowed desires of his people, yet Moses,by way of eminence, prefers before all other proofs of God’s power, that care which he exercisedin maintaining the welfare of the people, by which it was his will that he should be principallyknown. This is the reason why Paul, in Romans 9:23, especially applies to the Divine goodness thehonorable title of “glory.” God indeed maintains his glory by judging the world; but as nothing ismore natural to him than to show himself gracious, his glory on that account is said to shine forthchiefly in his benefits. With respect to the present passage, God had then only begun to deliver hispeople; for they had still to be put in possession of the land of Canaan. Accordingly, had they goneno farther than the wilderness, the lustre of their deliverance would have been obscured. Besides,Moses estimates the work of God according to the Divine promise; and doing this he affirms thatit will be imperfect and incomplete, unless he continue his grace even to the end. This is expressedstill more plainly in the second clause of the verse, in which he prays not only for the welfare ofhis own age, but also for the welfare of the generation yet unborn. His exercise thus correspondswith the form of the covenant,“And I will establish my covenant between me and thee, and thy seed after thee, in theirgenerations, for an everlasting covenants to be a God unto thee, and to thy seed after thee,”(Genesis 17:7.)By this example we are taught, that in our prayers we ought to extend our care to those whoare to come after us. As God has promised that the Church will be perpetuated even to the end ofthe world, — a subject which was brought under our notice in the preceding psalm, — this ought,in a special manner, to lead us in all the prayers by which we commend the welfare of the Churchto him, to include, at the same time, our posterity who are yet unborn. Farther, the words glory andbeauty are to be particularly noticed: from which we learn that the love which God bears towardsus is unparalleled. Although, in enriching us with his gifts he gains nothing for himself; yet hewould have the splendor and beauty of his character manifested in dealing bountifully with us, asif his beauty were obscured when he ceases to do us good. In the clause immediately succeeding,Direct the work of our hands upon us, Moses intimates that we cannot undertake or attempt anythingwith the prospect of success, unless God become our guide and counsellor, and govern us by hisSpirit. Whence it follows, that the reason why the enterprises and efforts of worldly men have a574 The great mortality constantly taking place among them could not but remind them of this oath. Dimock calculates that thenumber of persons who died in the wilderness, from twenty years old and upwards, was one year with another near 15,000.286