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Verse of the day Wisdom

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So teach us to number our days, that we may present a heart of wisdom.

Psalm 90:12 Berean Standard Bible

In Moses' prayer, counting the days does not end in gloom; it turns straight into asking God for mornings.

Psalm 90 is the only psalm that carries Moses’ name, and it reads like an old man’s prayer. It begins with God, who has been our dwelling place through all generations, before the mountains were born. Then it turns to us, and the contrast is hard to bear. You return man to dust. A thousand years in God’s sight are like a day that passes, a watch of the night. We are like new grass: in the morning it springs up new, but by evening it fades and withers.

Verse 10 does the arithmetic. Seventy years, or eighty if we are strong, yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.

Then the request. So teach us to number our days, that we may present a heart of wisdom.

It is striking that Moses has to ask to be taught this. Anyone can do the sum. What we cannot manage on our own is to let the sum change us, to live as people whose days can be counted. The prayer is for a heart that knows its limits and brings that knowledge to God.

What surprises me is where the psalm goes next. The counting does not end in gloom. It opens straight into asking. Return, O LORD! Satisfy us in the morning with Your loving devotion, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us. And the last line: establish the work of our hands.

Someone who knows the days are few does not stop working, and does not stop hoping. They ask God to fill the short mornings with his love, and to let something of what their hands made outlast them. That is what wisdom looks like in this psalm. The number is small. The request is large, and Moses makes it anyway.

Why this passage

Context checked: Psalm 90 is headed "A prayer of Moses the man of God," the only psalm attributed to him, and it opens Book IV of the Psalter. Verses 1-6 set God, the dwelling place of every generation, beside human beings who return to dust and fade like grass between morning and evening. Verses 7-11 tie that frailty to God's anger at sin; verse 10 speaks of seventy years, or eighty for the strong. The request in verse 12 is for a heart of wisdom; "present" renders a Hebrew verb meaning to bring or bring in. Verses 13-17 turn to petition: return, have compassion, satisfy us in the morning with loving devotion, and establish the work of our hands.

Scripture in English is from the Berean Standard Bible, which its publisher placed in the public domain on 30 April 2023.