Verse 10. “The days of our years are threescore years and ten.” It may at first, seem surprising that Moses should describe the days of man as “threescore years and ten.” But when it is remembered that in the second year of the pilgrimage in the wilderness God declared that all those who had been recently numbered at Sinai should die in the desert before the completion of forty years the lamentation of Moses on the brevity of human life becomes very intelligible and appropriate. It also serves as a penitential confession of the sins which had brought such a melancholy state of affairs on Israel, and as a solemn funeral dirge upon those whose death had been pre-announced by the awful voice of God.
Verse 11. “Who knoweth the power of thine anger?” Wicked men will hereafter feel the full weight of God’s wrath. In this world they have the wrath of God abiding on them, but then, it will be executed upon them. Now they are the objects of it, but then they will be the subjects of it. Now, it hangs over them, but then it shall fall upon them.
Verse 12. “So, teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Even he that is best in arithmetic and can most precisely and accurately understand and investigate millions of millions, is nevertheless to seek to count fourscore years in his own life. Surely it is a monstrous thing that men should measure all distances outwith themselves – know how many feet the moon is distant from the centre of the earth, how much space is between planet and planet, and finally to comprehend all the dimensions both of heaven and earth, and yet cannot number threescore and ten years in their own case.
Of all the rules of arithmetic this is the hardest – to number our days. Men can number their herds, and droves of oxen and sheep; thy can estimate the revenues of their manors and farms; they can, without very much effort, number and tell their coins, and yet they are persuaded that their days are infinite and innumerable, and therefore, do never begin to number them. Do men not often say, when they see another man, Surely that man looks as though he is not long for this world; or, Yonder woman is old, she cannot have many days left. Thus, we can number other men’s days and years, and utterly forget our own. Therefore, this is the true wisdom of mortal men, to number their own days.
Verse 12. “… that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.” Sir Thomas Smith, secretary to Queen Elizabeth, some months before his death said, that it was a great pity that men didn’t realise the purpose for which they had been born into this world, until they were ready to go out of it.
For all Time is no time, when the Time is past.”
Verse 14. “O satisfy us early with thy mercy …” We pass now to the particular prayer, and those limbs that make up the body of it. They are many – as many as the words in it: satisfy, satisfy us, do that early, do it with that which is thine, and let that which is thine be thy mercy. So the first word is a prayer for fulness and satisfaction – “satisfy.” And then it is a prayer, not only for ourselves, but to be extended to others – all thy servants in all thy church – “Satisfy us.” Then it is a prayer whose answer might come by express – “Satisfy us early.” The thing that is prayed for is mercy, but such mercy as can be readily seen to be “thy” mercy – “O satisfy us early with thy mercy.”
Verses 16-17. “Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea the work of our hands establish thou it.” It is worthy of notice that this prayer was answered. Though the first generation fell in the wilderness, yet the labour of Moses and his companions were blessed to the second. It was of them that God said, “I remember thee, the kindness of thy youth etc.” It was them that Balaam could not curse. Let us labour and look.