Psalms 90:13
Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
BSB
ASV
Return, O Jehovah; how long? And let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
KJV
Return, O Lord, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
Turn back, O Lord, how long? We have sinned much, you turn away your face, our sins are not worthy to be seen by your eyes, and therefore we pray: Turn back, O Lord, how long? Behold, now so many ages have flowed by: the prophets have always proclaimed to the nations that you would come, and still you have not come. And direct the sons of men. We who are crooked, may we be set straight by you. And direct the sons of men. Well did he say, direct the sons of men.
Return, O Lord - Come back to thy people; show mercy by sparing them. It would seem probable from this that the psalm was composed in a time of pestilence, or raging sickness, which threatened to sweep all the people away - a supposition by no means improbable, as such times occurred in the days of Moses, and in the rebellions of the people when he was leading them to the promised land. How long? - How long shall this continue? How long shall thy wrath rage? How long shall the people still fall under thy hand?
Return, O Lord, how long? Come in mercy, to us again. Do not leave us to perish. Suffer not our lives to be both brief and bitter. Thou hast said to us, "Return, ye children of men", and now we humbly cry to thee, "Return, thou preserver of men." Thy presence alone can reconcile us to this transient existence; turn thou unto us. As sin drives God from us, so repentance cries to the Lord to return to us. When men are under chastisement they are allowed to expostulate, and ask "how long?"
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 135:14For the LORD will vindicate His people and will have compassion on His servants.
leads to
For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
Through
Psalms 106:45And He remembered His covenant with them, and relented by the abundance of His loving devotion.
leads to
Whenever the LORD raised up a judge for the Israelites, He was with that judge and saved them from the hands of their enemies while the judge was still alive; for the LORD was…
Reached by 2 independent paths from here.
He remembers His covenant forever, the word He ordained for a thousand generations—
But the LORD was gracious to Israel and had compassion on them, and He turned toward them because of His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. And to this day, the LORD has been…
Even if He causes grief, He will show compassion according to His abundant loving devotion.
Through
Deuteronomy 32:36For the LORD will vindicate His people and have compassion on His servants when He sees that their strength is gone and no one remains, slave or free.
leads to
For the LORD will vindicate His people and will have compassion on His servants.
Through
Psalms 80:14Return, O God of Hosts, we pray! Look down from heaven and see! Attend to this vine—
leads to
Look down from heaven and see, from Your holy and glorious habitation. Where are Your zeal and might? Your yearning and compassion for me are restrained.
Through
Amos 7:3So the LORD relented from this plan. “It will not happen,” He said.
leads to
When God saw their actions—that they had turned from their evil ways—He relented from the disaster He had threatened to bring upon them.