Psalms 90:5
in Psalms 90You whisk them away in their sleep; they are like the new grass of the morning—
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: In the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
KJV
Thou carriest them away as with a flood; they are as a sleep: in the morning they are like grass which groweth up.
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This verse in Psalms 90
Commentary
12 notes on this verseIn the morning let it pass like grass, in the morning let it flower and pass away: in the evening let it fall, harden, and wither. O the mysteries of the Scriptures! In the morning let it pass like grass. Our Lord and Savior also speaks in the Gospel about the hay, which springs up in one day and withers in one day.
This site's exposition
You return man to dust
on Psalms 90:3-6
Verse 3 sends man back to dust, and Genesis 3:19 says the same, to dust you shall return. A thousand years measure out as one day in verse 4, and 2 Peter 3:8 says it both ways round. The grass is up at dawn and withered by evening.
This site's exposition
You whisk them away
Whisk them away is one Hebrew verb, zaram, which Albert Barnes glossed as to pour or wash away like a torrent. Death, he said, takes no account of rank or age. Charles Spurgeon took the sleep as a picture of how brief a life looks before God, like a dream.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers3 voices
Their years shall be counted as nothing. What he says is this: since man from the beginning of the world lived nearly a thousand years, and a thousand years before God are as a watch in the night. Nay, I have said enough: the ages of men are as nothing in comparison with the divine eternity. Do you wish to know more fully how human life is nothing? Hear what follows. In the morning let it pass like grass. As the morning dew passes swiftly, so is the life of men. Our morning is youth. In the morning let it flower and pass. In youth and full age we flowered, but in old age we fall down, and the flower of our strength has withered. For which of us knows how our age passes by? While we scarcely know it, old age steals up on us from behind. In the evening let it fall, harden, and grow dry. Our evening is old age, which, when the flower of youth has been shaken off, is hardened by the manifold horror of diseases. "For all flesh indeed is grass, and its glory is as the flower of grass: it withered and fell; but the word of the Lord abides forever." We still live, and part of us has already perished in old age: though the mind is the same, yet we who feel that we have lost the vigor of our former youth are in a manner become other men.
Next, the man of God, or rather the Prophetic spirit, seems to be reciting some law written in the secret wisdom of God, in which He has fixed a limit to the sinful life of mortals, and determined the troubles of mortality, in the following words: "Their years are as things which are nothing worth: in the morning let it fade away like the grass" [Psalm 90:5]. The happiness therefore of the heirs of the old covenant, which they asked of the Lord their God as a great boon, attained to receive this Law in His mysterious Providence. Moses seems to be reciting it: "Their years shall be things which are esteemed as nothing." Such are those things which are not before they are come: and when come, shall soon not be: for they do not come to be here, but to be gone. "In the morning," that is, before they come, "as a heat let it pass by;" but "in the evening," it means after they come, "let it fall, and be dried up, and withered" [Psalm 90:6]. It is "to fall" in death, be "dried up" in the corpse, "withered" in the dust. What is this but flesh, wherein is the accursed lust of fleshly things? "For all flesh is grass, and all the goodliness of man as the flower of the field; the grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of the Lord abideth for ever."
Whatever is in the world fades away, passes away. What is this life, except what the Psalm says: "In the morning it passes away like grass, in the morning it blooms and passes: in the evening it falls, hardens, and withers?" This is all flesh. Therefore Christ, therefore a new life, therefore the hope of eternity, therefore the promised consolation of immortality, and already given in the flesh of the Lord. For that flesh was assumed by us, which is now immortal, and he has shown us in himself what he fulfilled in himself. For he had flesh for us. For he: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Seek flesh and blood: where is it in the Word? Because he truly willed to suffer with us, and to redeem us, he assumed the form of a servant, and descended who was here, that he might appear who was not absent; and he willed to become man who made man, to be created from a mother, who created a mother. He ascended to the cross, died, and showed us what we knew, to be born and to die. He fulfilled in himself these old humble things of ours, known and familiar. We knew to be born and to die: we did not know to rise again and live forever. Therefore he assumed our two old things humbly: he fulfilled two other great and new things exaltedly. He raised the flesh, lifted the flesh into heaven, sits at the right hand of the Father. He willed to be our Head, the Head cried out for the members: because even when he was here, he said: "Father, I desire that where I am, they also may be with me." Let us hope this also for our flesh, for the resurrection, the change, the incorruption, the immortality, the eternal abode: and let us act so that we may attain this.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Thou carriest them away as with a flood,....
But here he teaches the people of Israel to confess before God that righteous sentence of death which they were under in a special manner, and which by their sins they had brought upon themselves. Their share in the common lot of mortality was not enough, but they are, and must live and die, under peculiar tokens of God's displeasure.
4 more voices on this verse
The Nineteenth Century4 voices
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Thou carriest them away as with a flood - The original here is a single verb with the suffix - זרמתם zerametâm. The verb - זרם zâram - means, to flow, to pour; then, to pour upon, to overwhelm, to wash away. The idea is, that they were swept off as if a torrent bore them from the earth, carrying them away without regard to order, rank, age, or condition. So death makes no discrimination.
Thou carriest them away as with a flood. As when a torrent rushes down the river bed and bears all before it, so does the Lord bear away by death the succeeding generations of men. As the hurricane sweeps the clouds from the sky, so time removes the children of men. They are as a sleep. Before God men must appear as unreal as the dreams of the night, the phantoms of sleep. Not only are our plans and devices like a sleep, but we ourselves are such. "We are such stuff as dreams are made of."
Thou carriest them away as with a flood. As when a torrent rushes down the river bed and bears all before it, so does the Lord bear away by death the succeeding generations of men. As the hurricane sweeps the clouds from the sky, so time removes the children of men. They are as a sleep. Before God men must appear as unreal as the dreams of the night, the phantoms of sleep. Not only are our plans and devices like a sleep, but we ourselves are such. "We are such stuff as dreams are made of." In the morning they are like grass which groweth up. As grass is green in the morning and hay at night, so men are changed from health to corruption in a few hours. We are not cedars, or oaks, but only poor grass, which is vigorous in the spring, but lasts not a summer through. What is there upon earth more frail than we!
Thou carriest them away as with a flood - Life is compared to a stream, ever gliding away; but sometimes it is as a mighty torrent, when by reason of plague, famine, or war, thousands are swept away daily. In particular cases it is a rapid stream, when the young are suddenly carried off by consumptions, fevers, etc.; this is the flower that flourisheth in the morning, and in the evening is cut down and withered. The whole of life is like a sleep or as a dream. The eternal world is real; all here is either shadowy or representative. On the whole, life is represented as a stream; youth, as morning; decline of life, or old age, as evening, death, as sleep; and the resurrection as the return of the flowers in spring. All these images appear in these curious and striking verses, Psa 90:3-6.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| זְ֭רַמְתָּם | zeramtom | you flood them | H2229 → | |
| שֵׁנָ֣ה | shenah | sleep | H8142 → | 23 times |
| יִהְי֑וּ | yihyu | they are | H1961 → | 3559 times |
| בַּ֝בֹּ֗קֶר | baboker | in the morning | H1242 → | 214 times |
| כֶּחָצִ֥יר | kechatzir | like <the> grass | H2682 → | 21 times |
| יַחֲלֹֽף׃ | yachalof | [which] it sprouts up | H2498 → | 28 times |
זְ֭רַמְתָּםyou flood them
zeramtomH2229 →
שֵׁנָ֣הsleep
shenahH8142 →23 times
יִהְי֑וּthey are
yihyuH1961 →3559 times
בַּ֝בֹּ֗קֶרin the morning
babokerH1242 →214 times
כֶּחָצִ֥ירlike <the> grass
kechatzirH2682 →21 times
יַחֲלֹֽף׃[which] it sprouts up
yachalofH2498 →28 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
1 Peter 1:24For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
it leads to
- Isaiah 40:6–8
A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
- James 1:10–11
But the one who is rich should exult in his low position, because he will pass away like a flower of the field.
Reached by 2 separate paths from here.
- Psalms 103:15
As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field;
- James 4:14
You do not even know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
- Psalms 37:2
For they wither quickly like grass and wilt like tender plants.
- Isaiah 40:6–8
Through
Isaiah 40:6A voice says, “Cry out!” And I asked, “What should I cry out?” “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field.
it leads to
- Psalms 103:15–16
As for man, his days are like grass— he blooms like a flower of the field;
- 1 Peter 1:24–25
For, “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall,
- Psalms 102:11
My days are like lengthening shadows, and I wither away like grass.
- Psalms 103:15–16
About Psalms
This page draws on 11 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Book of Psalms; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 90; Augustine of Hippo, Sermon 359; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David; Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, Vol. 4; Jerome, Homily 19, on Psalm 89; Jerome, Homily 67, on Psalm 89 (Alternate Series); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763) and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.