Psa 90:13-17 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 13 Return, O Lord, how long? - Wilt thou continue angry with us for ever? Let it repent thee - הנחם hinnachem, be comforted, rejoice over them to do them good. Be glorified rather in our salvation than in our destruction.

Psalms 90:13-17

Verse 13

Return, O Lord, how long? - Wilt thou continue angry with us for ever?

Let it repent thee - הנחם hinnachem, be comforted, rejoice over them to do them good. Be glorified rather in our salvation than in our destruction. Verse 14

O satisfy us early - Let us have thy mercy soon, (literally, in the morning). Let it now shine upon us, and it shall seem as the morning of our days, and we shall exult in thee all the days of our life. Verse 15

Make us glad according to the days - Let thy people have as many years of prosperity as they have had of adversity. We have now suffered seventy years of a most distressful captivity. Verse 16

Let thy work appear unto thy servants - That thou art working for us we know; but O, let thy work appear! Let us now see, in our deliverance, that thy thoughts towards us were mercy and love.

And thy Glory - Thy pure worship be established among our children for ever. Verse 17

And let the beauty of the Lord - Let us have thy presence, blessing, and approbation, as our fathers had.

Establish thou the work of our hands - This is supposed, we have already seen, to relate to their rebuilding the temple, which the surrounding heathens and Samaritans wished to hinder. We have begun, do not let them demolish our work; let the top-stone be brought on with shouting, Grace, grace unto it.

Yea, the work of our hands - This repetition is wanting in three of Kennicott's MSS., in the Targum, in the Septuagint, and in the Ethiopic. If the repetition be genuine, it may be considered as marking great earnestness; and this earnestness was to get the temple of God rebuilt, and his pure worship restored. The pious Jews had this more at heart than their own restoration; it was their highest grief that the temple was destroyed and God's ordinances suspended; that his enemies insulted them, and blasphemed the worthy name by which they were called. Every truly pious man feels more for God's glory than his own temporal felicity, and rejoices more in the prosperity of God's work than in the increase of his own worldly goods.