Psalm 90PSA 90
"All our days are passed away in thy wrath: we spend our years as a tale that is told. The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away. Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Even according to thy fear so is thy wrath. So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.”
Now that which I purpose to notice especially here is the expression the THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN."In this passage" the days of our years are threescore years and ten," or as we read in the margin," As for the days of our years, in them are seventy years.", This is commonly thought to apply to the lifetime of man as an individual; and while this, I allow, may in a restricted sense be perfectly true, I am strongly disposed to consider that we are warranted to' take this psalm in a much wider sense, the above passage especially, and to believe that, prophetically speaking, this is the language of Israel, not as individuals merely, but as a nation; and that in this way these words refer to what may be termed THE 'DISPENSATIONAL LIFETIME OF ISRAEL, in connection with the great cycle of weeks which we, are at present considering.
And now, as serving to show what I mean, let us look at Lev. 25 which treats of the law of the sabbatical year and the jubilee: "And thou shalt number seven Sabbaths of years unto thee, seven times, seven years; and the space of the seven Sabbaths of years shall be unto thee forty and nine years." Such was the mode in which time, according to the Levitical law, was measured in Israel, not by ordinary years merely, but also by Sabbaths; so that that which is spoken of here on the one hand as "forty and nine years," is treated as "seven Sabbaths of years" on the other; and this being the case with regard to the period, it must also be true with regard to our cycle, inasmuch as the cycle is nothing more than the above period TEN TIMES REPEATED. Hence, according to this, what is actually four hundred and ninety years on the one hand, may be viewed as seventy Sabbaths of years on the other; and in this way, I believe, the cycle is referred to in Psa. 90 There the Spirit of God, as it were, loses sight of the ordinary years (of all time, in fact), saving that which was peculiarly linked with the name of the Lord, and dwelling alone, on those years which were especially marked as memorials or signs between the God of Israel and His people—the SABBATHS, I mean—speaks of the great dispensational period neither as seventy, weeks, nor as four hundred and ninety years, but as threescore years and ten, thereby pointing alone to THE SEVENTY SABBATHS OF REST TO THE LAND INCLUDED THEREIN.
Why, let me ask, why were the Jews sent into captivity, there to spend their years "as a tale that is told?" Because they had polluted their Sabbaths. Why was the land, not in the way of grace, but of judgment, to rest, to keep Sabbath for seventy years? Because, as I have shown, the number of Sabbaths thus defiled within the course of seventy weeks had been seventy. The Lord, in fact, in this case was just measuring to Israel as they themselves had measured to Him. "According to thy fear," we here read, "so is thy wrath:" that is, as I take it, according to the allegiance, the service due by the creature to God, so was His wrath, seeing that such allegiance 'never was rendered. These words of this Psalm, then, I believe to have been put by the Spirit of God into the lips of the children of Judah in Babylon, who, while hanging their harps on the willows, and refusing to sing the Lord's song in the land of their captivity to please the children of strangers, are led by the same Spirit to muse on the sin of the nation from one dispensation to another, to remember that the days of their years had been threescore and ten, that this was their dispensational lifetime—the period allotted for Israel in which to do the will of the Lord, to honor His Sabbaths, to show that they had His "fear" in their hearts.; but that instead of all this, the land in none of these years had been suffered to, rest—that their Sabbaths had all been defiled—and hence to look on their seventyfold sorrow in Babylon as just the fruit of their seventyfold sin in despising His ordinance, the Sabbath, the sign of His goodwill to His people from the very beginning, even from the time of their redemption from Egypt. And there, before leaving this part of our subject, I take occasion again to refer to the margin, which gives, as I have said, the passage in question as follows: "As for the days of our years, in them are seventy years." This, which I am informed is more correct than the text, seems to me at the same time more clearly and definitely to express what the Spirit means, to convey. This reading, perhaps, may be paraphrased thus: " Within the circle of days which make up the four hundred and ninety years of "Israel's national' lifetime, there are seventy years which the Lord especially claims as his own, namely, seventy Sabbaths—all which, profaned as they have been, tell of only labor and sorrow, instead of gladness and rest, as they ought to have done.”
Then there is another point, which will be better, understood when we remember what has been already said of the jubilee, "The days of our years are threescore years and ten." Of this, we believe, we have given the meaning already. Then, in continuation, we read, "And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away." What does this mean? This points, I believe, to Israel's chief ordinance, THE JUBILEE. Within the cycle of seventy weeks there are ten years of jubilee, which added to the seventy Sabbaths above-named make up fourscore -years. So that according to this, the dispensational lifetime of Israel is to be viewed, on the one hand, as" THREESCORE YEARS AND TEN," on the other, reckoning the jubilees, as" FOURSCORE YEARS." But, however we view it, it tells of failure. View man in whatever aspect you will, in weakness or strength—in his meanest estate, in his best estate—and what is he? A creature of vanity—a being whose years are spent as a tale that is told. Of this, Israel, through the whole of their history, whether we mark it as linked with the Sabbath akin, or with the jubilee also, was once the living memorial.
Then further we read, "Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. O satisfy us early with thy mercy; that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil." Such is the cry of these captives. His wrath had been according to the dishonor done to His name; and, having accepted the punishment due to their sin, they pray to the Lord for deliverance; they look for blessing, moreover, according to the years of their sorrow. And not only so, but they ask for power so to number their days, that they may apply their hearts unto wisdom; so to mark the times and seasons, which from one age to another spoke only of race, so as to enter by faith into the joy of that rest of which the Sabbath in Israel was :ever the pledge. And all this the Lord will at last do for Israel, as we gather from this beautiful psalm, which surely passes beyond the Babylonian captivity, to glance at their present dispersion and sorrow. Already he has turned man, even Israel, to destruction. But a thousand years in His sight are but as yesterday—even as a watch in the night. And though Israel has been cut off from His hand now for nearly two thousand years, with the God of resurrection these years are nothing. He has only to speak, to say, "Return, ye children of men"—" Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in dust," and Israel at once will revive. The beauty of the Lord will at length be upon them, and the work of their hands will in the end be established. All this the Lord will do for His people, so that their years will no longer be spent as a tale that is told, but in delighting themselves in His goodness—in owning His mercy through all their past failure, in singing His praises, and saying, in the words of this Psalm, " Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."