Reflections on Psalm 90 written by Lyssa Bode
The family home is more than a building with walls and a roof. It’s a picture of roots, stability, identity and relationship. Do you remember your grandparents living in the same house your entire life? Did your entire extended family gather there every summer for a barbecue, or at Christmas for games and a glorious Christmas dinner? Generations of memories have been made there, and no one would dare sell it to someone outside the family. It is known by all as the ______ family home.
But Moses, the writer of this Psalm, was a nomad. He was born in Egypt, a slave condemned by the Pharaoh, along with perhaps thousands of other Hebrew boys. Moses was hidden by his parents, and through a series of events, grew up in that same Pharaoh’s house. Forced to flee as a young man, he landed in Midian, where God eventually came to him in the famous burning bush incident. You know the history of how God raised up Moses to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt. And you know their years of nomadic wandering in the wilderness for 40 years.
But this 4th book of Psalms begins with the declaration of the powerful truth that God has been their home, their dwelling place, through every generation. All the emotions, ideas and longings that we might associate with ‘home’ come to fulfilment in God. In Him we find our roots, our stability, our identity, our most important relationship.
And who is this God? In v.2 Moses calls God the eternal Creator of the earth and the world. Through the enlightening lens of the New Testament, we now know that it is Jesus who created all things (read Colossians 1:16-17). Moses knew Jesus face-to-face during his life on earth and later visited Jesus on the mount of transfiguration.
Throughout the wilderness wandering (and beyond) we see God wanting to live among His people. God provided careful instructions through Moses on how this could happen, and we see God’s presence over and over through fire, cloud and light. The tabernacle and later temple were the physical, material representation of God’s dwelling. But the pinnacle of course was when God put on a human body and came into the world as Jesus, the Son of God and Son of Man. In John 15, Jesus expresses this eternal longing of God to dwell with His people by inviting us to abide in Him as He abides in us. In John 14 Jesus has already told His disciples that He would go and prepare an eternal place for them, so that they could always be together with Him.
Only God can bring this about. Only He is the Eternal. Psalm 90:3-12 reminds us of the difference between God and His human creation. It is only as we feel and understand the brevity of life in this body that we gain the wisdom to seek God. We know what it is to live under the weight of sin and brokenness, our own and that of the world we live in. In v. 8 Moses mentions that God sees our sins, even our secret sins. Moses knows firsthand that there is no such thing as secret sin. In Exodus 2:11-15 Moses kills an Egyptian and buries him in the sand, thinking no one has seen. But his sin quickly comes to light. And Moses knows that sin leads to separation: he had to flee. He lost his roots, stability, identity and relationship; he lost his home.
But in this Psalm, in v. 13, Moses knows who to cry out to: “O Lord, come back to us! How long will you delay? Take pity on your servants!” He wants to dwell with God, to make God his home: “Satisfy us each morning with your unfailing love, so we may sing for joy to the end of our lives” (v. 14).
Moses goes on to pray that God’s servants will see Him work again, that they will see His glory. When we find our home in God, when He dwells with us, we don’t want to keep this security and joy to ourselves. We want all our loved ones and friends to experience it with us, to see the glory of God, now and forever. Let this longing drive you to God in prayer like Moses prayed in this Psalm.
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