Psalm 90:15

Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) A prayer that prosperity may follow, proportionate to the mercy that has been endured.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

90:12-17 Those who would learn true wisdom, must pray for Divine instruction, must beg to be taught by the Holy Spirit; and for comfort and joy in the returns of God's favour. They pray for the mercy of God, for they pretend not to plead any merit of their own. His favour would be a full fountain of future joys. It would be a sufficient balance to former griefs. Let the grace of God in us produce the light of good works. And let Divine consolations put gladness into our hearts, and a lustre upon our countenances. The work of our hands, establish thou it; and, in order to that, establish us in it. Instead of wasting our precious, fleeting days in pursuing fancies, which leave the possessors for ever poor, let us seek the forgiveness of sins, and an inheritance in heaven. Let us pray that the work of the Holy Spirit may appear in converting our hearts, and that the beauty of holiness may be seen in our conduct.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us - Let the one correspond with the other. Let our occasions of joy be measured by the sorrows which have come upon us. As our sufferings have been great, so let our joys and triumphs be.

And the years wherein we have seen evil - Affliction and sorrow. They have been continued through many wearisome years; so let the years of peace and joy be many also.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. As have been our sorrows, so let our joys be great and long.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Our afflictions have been sharp and long, let not our prosperity be small and short.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us,.... The days of affliction are times of sorrow; and days of prosperity make glad and joyful; and the psalmist here seems to desire an equal number of the one as of the other; not that an exact precise number of the one with the other is intended; but that there might be a proper proportion of the one to the other; and commonly God does "set the one over against the other": there is a mixture of both in the believer's life, which is like unto a chequer of black and white, in which there is a proper proportion of both colours; and so prosperity and adversity are had in turns, "and work together for good" to them that love the Lord: and when it is said "make us glad", that is, with thy favour and presence, it suggests, that these are a sufficient recompence for all affliction and trouble; and if so here, what must the enjoyment of these be in heaven! Between this and present afflictions there is no proportion, neither with respect to the things themselves, nor the duration of them; see Romans 8:18 and "the years" wherein "we have seen evil"; afflictions are evils; they flow from the evil of sin, and to some are the evil of punishment; and even chastisements are not joyous, but grievous: this may have respect to the forty years' travel in the wilderness, in which the Israelites saw or had an experience of much affliction and trouble; and even to the four hundred years in which the seed of Abraham were afflicted in a land not their's; see Numbers 14:33. Hence the Jews (i) make the times of the Messiah to last four hundred years, answerable to those years of evil, and which they take to be the sense of the text; and so Jarchi's note on it is,

"make us glad in the days of the Messiah, according to the number of the days in which thou hast afflicted us in the captivities, and according to the number of the years in which we have seen evil.''

(i) T. Bab. Sanhedrin, fol. 99. 1.

Geneva Study Bible

Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. Make us glad according to the days &c.] Let the joy of restoration to Thy favour be proportioned to the depth of our humiliation. Cp. Isaiah 61:7. The form of the word for ‘days’ (y’môth) occurs elsewhere only in Deuteronomy 32:7; and the word for afflicted is the same as that rendered to humble thee in Deuteronomy 8:2-3; Deuteronomy 8:16.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us. Proportion our time of joy to our time of sorrow: as the one has lasted many long years, so let the other. And the years wherein we have seen evil; or, "suffered adversity." Psalm 90:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The prayer for a salutary knowledge, or discernment, of the appointment of divine wrath is now followed by the prayer for the return of favour, and the wish that God would carry out His work of salvation and bless Israel's undertakings to that end. We here recognise the well-known language of prayer of Moses in Exodus 32:12, according to which שׁוּבה is not intended as a prayer for God's return to Israel, but for the turning away of His anger; and the sigh עד־מתי that is blended with its asks how long this being angry, which threatens to blot Israel out, is still to last. והנּהם is explained according to this same parallel passage: May God feel remorse or sorrow (which in this case coincide) concerning His servants, i.e., concerning the affliction appointed to them. The naming of the church by עבדיך (as in Deuteronomy 9:27, cf. Exodus 32:13 of the patriarchs) reminds one of Deuteronomy 32:36 : concerning His servants He shall feel compassion (Hithpa. instead of the Niphal). The prayer for the turning of wrath is followed in Psalm 90:14 by the prayer for the turning towards them of favour. In בּבּקר there lies the thought that it has been night hitherto in Israel. "Morning" is therefore the beginning of a new season of favour. In שׂבּענוּ (to which הסדּך is a second accusative of the object) is implied the thought that Israel whilst under wrath has been hungering after favour; cf. the adjective שׂבע in the same tropical signification in Deuteronomy 33:23. The supplicatory imperatives are followed by two moods expressive of intention: then will we, or: in order that we may rejoice and be glad; for futures like these set forth the intention of attaining something as a result or aim of what has been expressed just before: Ew. 325, a. בּכל־ימינוּ is not governed by the verbs of rejoicing (Psalm 118:24), in which case it would have been בּחיּינוּ, but is an adverbial definition of time (Psalm 145:2; Psalm 35:8): within the term of life allotted to us. We see from Psalm 90:15 that the season of affliction has already lasted for a long time. The duration of the forty years of wrath, which in the midst of their course seemed to them as an eternity, is made the measure of the reviving again that is earnestly sought. The plural ימות instead of ימי is common only to our Psalm and Deuteronomy 32:7; it is not known elsewhere to Biblical Hebrew. And the poetical שׁנות instead of שׁני, which also occurs elsewhere, appears for the first time in Deuteronomy 32:7. The meaning of ענּיתנוּ, in which ימות hcihw is specialized after the manner of a genitive, is explained from Deuteronomy 8:2., according to which the forty years' wandering in the wilderness was designed to humble (ענּות) and to prove Israel through suffering. At the close of these forty years Israel stands on the threshold of the Promise Land. To Israel all final hopes were closely united with the taking possession of this land. We learn from Genesis 49 that it is the horizon of Jacob's prophetic benediction. This Psalm too, in Psalm 90:16-17, terminates in the prayer for the attainment of this goal. The psalmist has begun in Psalm 90:1 his adoration with the majestic divine name אדני; in Psalm 90:13 he began his prayer with the gracious divine name יהוה; and now, where he mentions God for the third time, he gives to Him the twofold name, so full of faith, אדני אלהינוּ. אל used once alternates with the thrice repeated על: salvation is not Israel's own work, but the work of Jahve; it therefore comes from above, it comes and meets Israel. It is worthy of remark that the noun פּעל occurs only in Deuteronomy in the whole Tra, and that here also of the gracious rule of Jahve, Psalm 32:4, cf. Psalm 33:11. The church calls the work of the Lord מעשׂה ידינוּ in so far as He executes it through them. This expression מעשׂה ידים as a designation of human undertakings runs through the whole of the Book of Deuteronomy: Deuteronomy 2:7; Deuteronomy 4:28; Deuteronomy 11:7; Deuteronomy 14:29; Deuteronomy 16:15; Deuteronomy 24:19; Deuteronomy 27:15; Deuteronomy 28:12; Deuteronomy 30:9. In the work of the Lord the bright side of His glory unveils itself, hence it is called הדר; this too is a word not alien at least to the language of Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy 33:17. Therein is made manifest נעם ה, His graciousness and condescension - an expression which David has borrowed from Moses in Psalm 27:4. יראה and יהי are optatives. כּוננה is an urgent request, imperat. obsecrantis as the old expositors say. With Waw the same thought is expressed over again (cf. Isaiah 55:1, וּלכוּ, yea come) - a simple, childlike anadiplosis which vividly reminds us of the Book of Deuteronomy, which revolves in thoughts that are ever the same, and by that very means speaks deeply to the heart. Thus the Deuteronomic impression of this Psalm accompanies us from beginning to end, from מעון to מעשׂה ידים. Nor will it now be merely accidental that the fondness for comparisons, which is a peculiarity of the Book of Deuteronomy (Deuteronomy 1:31, Deuteronomy 1:44; Deuteronomy 8:5; Deuteronomy 28:29, Deuteronomy 28:49, cf. Deuteronomy 28:13, Deuteronomy 28:44; Deuteronomy 29:17-18), is found again in this Psalm.