Does verse 10 set a universal lifespan of seventy or eighty years?
No. It describes typical longevity under ancient conditions. Moses and others live longer; many die younger. The point is brevity and difficulty, not a fixed prediction.
PSALM 90 — TEACH US TO NUMBER OUR DAYS
Does verse 10 set a universal lifespan of seventy or eighty years? Study Psalm 90 with context, apologetic analysis, and cross-references.
Psalm 903 questions
Source linked
Commentary provenance
Dr. Lucas D. Shallua Commentary · PSALM 90 — TEACH US TO NUMBER OUR DAYS
The precise difficulties
- Does verse 10 set a universal lifespan of seventy or eighty years?
- How can God exist “from everlasting”?
- Is all suffering a direct punishment for specific sins?
Verse and question study
How can God exist “from everlasting”?
The psalm distinguishes Creator from temporal creation. It does not explain eternity by comparison with longer time; it identifies God as without the created beginning and end that define mortal life.
Is all suffering a direct punishment for specific sins?
The prayer relates universal mortality to human sin and Israel's wilderness discipline, but it does not permit calculating each person's hardship from a particular offense. Biblical wisdom elsewhere rejects that simplification.
Historical and literary context
Genre: communal lament, wisdom meditation, and prayer. Psalm 90 opens Book IV and is titled “A Prayer of Moses, the man of God,” making it the Psalter's earliest attributed composition. Its wilderness themes fit a generation dying under judgment, though the prayer serves all humanity. Coming after Psalm 89's collapsed Davidic crown, it relocates security in God's eternity before monarchy existed. English Psalm 90 is Psalm 89 in Greek/Latin numbering.
Apologetic note
Psalm 90 faces death, aging, hidden guilt, toil, and apparent futility without euphemism. It avoids nihilism by grounding significance outside human duration: the eternal God can make brief work matter and carry testimony beyond one generation.
Chapter cross-references
- Genesis 3:19 Humanity returns to dust
- Numbers 14:26–35 The wilderness generation dies under judgment
- Deuteronomy 33:1, 27 Moses is God's man and God the eternal dwelling
- Psalm 39:4–6 David asks to know life's brevity
- Ecclesiastes 3:9–15 God gives enduring meaning to human work
- Isaiah 40:6–8 Grass withers but God's word stands
- 2 Peter 3:8 A thousand years are as a day with the Lord
- Luke 12:16–21 Mortality exposes foolish planning
- Ephesians 5:15–17 Wise people redeem limited time
- James 4:13–16 Human life is mist under God's will
- Hebrews 3:7–19 The wilderness generation warns against unbelief
- Revelation 21:3 God becomes the final dwelling of his people
Source and editorial status
Dr. Shallua’s Commentary
This study preserves the hard questions, explanations, context, apologetic note, and references from Dr. Shallua's Commentary.