Psalms 90:1

Lord, you have become a refuge for us. A refuge is never spoken of unless there has been persecution: for unless someone else persecutes us, we have no need to flee to another for refuge. Lord, you have become a refuge for us. Since a great swelter of tribulations and heat wearies us, we take refuge under the shadow of your wings. Lord, you have become a refuge for us. Therefore we flee to your help, because a great beast persecutes us; and since we have many adversaries and enemies, be you at least our one refuge.

Therefore, "God is our refuge and strength." To him who is able to say, "I can do all things in him," Christ, "who strengthens me," God is strength. Now, it is the privilege of many to say, "God is our refuge," and "Lord, you have been our refuge." But to say it with the same feelings as the prophet is the privilege of few. For there are few who do not admire human interests but depend wholly on God and breathe him and have all hope and trust in him. And our actions convict us whenever in our afflictions we run to everything else rather than to God. Is a child sick? You look around for an enchanter or one who puts superstitious marks on the necks of the innocent children; or finally, you go to a doctor and to medicines, having neglected him who is able to save. If a dream troubles you, you run to the interpreter of dreams. And, if you fear an enemy, you cunningly secure some man as a patron. In short, in every need you contradict yourself in word, naming God as your refuge; in act, drawing on aid from useless and vain things. God is the true aid for the righteous person. Just as a certain general, equipped with a noble heavy-armed force, is always ready to give help to an oppressed district, so God is our helper and an ally to everyone who is waging war against the wiliness of the devil, and he sends out ministering spirits for the safety of those who are in need.

"Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to another" [Psalm 90:1]: either in every generation, or in two generations, the old and new: because, as I said, he was the Minister of the Testament that related to the old generation, and the Prophet of the Testament which appertained to the new. Jesus Himself, the Surety of that covenant, and the Bridegroom in the marriage which He entered into in that generation, saith, "Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me." [John 5:46] Now it is not to be believed that this Psalm was entirely the composition of that Moses, as it is not distinguished by any of those of his expressions which are used in his songs: but the name of the great servant of God is used for the sake of some intimation, which should direct the attention of the reader or listener. "Lord," he saith, "Thou hast been our refuge from one generation to the other."

Note, True believers are at home in God, and that is their comfort in reference to all the toils and tribulations they meet with in this world. In him we may repose and shelter ourselves as in our dwelling-place. To give God the glory of his eternity (

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — unbalanced-parens

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations,....

Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. We must consider the whole Psalm as written for the tribes in the desert, and then we shall see the primary meaning of each verse. Moses, in effect, says—wanderers though we be in the howling wilderness, yet we find a home in thee, even as our forefathers did when they came out of Ur of the Chaldees and dwelt in tents among the Canaanites. To the saints the Lord Jehovah, the self existent God, stands instead of mansion and rooftree; he shelters, comforts, protects, preserves, and cherishes all his own. Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have nests, but the saints dwell in their God, and have always done so in all ages. Not in the tabernacle or the temple do we dwell, but in God himself; and this we have always done since there was a church in the world. We have not shifted our abode. Kings' palaces have vanished beneath the crumbling hand of time—they have been burned with fire and buried beneath mountains of ruins, but the imperial race of heaven has never lost its regal habitation. Go to the Palatine and see how the Caesars are forgotten of the halls which echoed to their despotic mandates, and resounded with the plaudits of the nations over which they ruled, and then look upward and see in the ever living Jehovah the divine home of the faithful, untouched by so much as the finger of decay. Where dwelt our fathers a hundred generations since, there dwell we still. It is of New Testament saints that the Holy Ghost has said, "He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in God and God in him!" It was a divine mouth which said, "Abide in me", and then added, "he that abideth in me and I in him the same bringeth forth much fruit."

Moses was the inspired author of three devotional compositions. We first of all find him as Moses the poet, singing the song which is aptly joined with that of Jesus, in the Revelation, where it says, “The song of Moses and of the Lamb.” He was a poet on the occasion when Pharaoh and his hosts were cast into the Red Sea, “his chosen captains also were drowned in the Red Sea.” Further on in his life we discover him in the character of a preacher; and then his doctrine distilled as the dew, and his speech dropped like the rain, in those chapters which are full of glorious imagery, and rich with poetry, which you will find in the book of Deuteronomy. And now in the Psalms, we find him the author of a prayer: “A prayer of Moses, the man of God.” Happy combination of the poet, the preacher, and the man of prayer! Where three such things are found together, the man becomes a very giant above his fellows. It often happens that the man who preaches has but little poetry; and the man who is the poet would not be able to preach and utter his poems before immense assemblies, but would be only fit to write them by himself. It is a rare combination when true devotion and the spirit of poetry and eloquence meet in the same man. You will see in this Psalm a wondrous depth of spirituality; you will mark how the poet subsides into the man of God; and how, lost in himself, he sings his own frailty, declared the glory of God, and asks that he may have the blessing of his heavenly Father always resting on his head. This first verse will derive peculiar interest if you remember the place where Moses was when he thus prayed. He was in the wilderness; not in some of the halls of Pharaoh, nor yet in a habitation in the land of Goshen; but in a wilderness.

Moses was the inspired author of three devotional compositions. We first of all find him as Moses the poet, singing the song which is aptly joined with that of Jesus, in the Revelation, where it says, “The song of Moses and of the Lamb.” He was a poet on the occasion when Pharaoh and his hosts were cast into the Red Sea, “his chosen captains also were drowned in the Red Sea.”

Lord, thou hast been our dwellingplace - מעון maon; but instead of this several MSS. have מעוז maoz, “place of defense,” or “refuge,” which is the reading of the Vulgate, Septuagint, Arabic, and Anglo-Saxon. Ever since thy covenant with Abraham thou hast been the Resting-place, Refuge, and Defence of thy people Israel. Thy mercy has been lengthened out from generation to generation.

Lord - Not יהוה Yahweh here, but אדני 'Adonāy. The word is properly rendered “Lord,” but it is a term which is often applied to God. It indicates, however, nothing in regard to his character or attributes except that he is a “Ruler or Governor.” Thou hast been our dwelling-place - The Septuagint renders this, “refuge” - καταφυγἡ kataphugē. So the Latin Vulgate, “refugium;” and Luther, “Zuflucht.” The Hebrew word - מעון mâ‛ôn - means properly a habitation, a dwelling, as of God in his temple, Psa 26:8; heaven, Psa 68:5; Deu 26:15. It also means a den or lair for wild beasts, Nah 2:12; Jer 9:11. But here the idea seems to be, as in the Septuagint, Vulgate, and Luther, “a refuge”; a place to which one may come as to his home, as one does from a journey; from wandering; from toil; from danger: a place to which such a one naturally resorts, which he loves, and where he feels that he may rest secure. The idea is, that a friend of God has that feeling in respect to Him, which one has toward his own home - his abode - the place which he loves and calls his own. In all generations - Margin, “generation and generation.” That is, A succeeding generation has found him to be the same as the previous generation had. He was unchanged, though the successive generations of men passed away.