Daily Meditations

Psalm 91:9-10 Make the Most High your dwelling These two verses form one sentence and I’m not sure why they have been divided! We have already relished the undeniable fact that the Lord will cover us with His feathers and that we will find shelter under His wings. He is our refuge and our fortress, and we need not fear the enemy’s arrows or the terrors of the night. The Psalm promises that as the wicked meet their end and fall around us, the Lord will keep us and guard us from all danger. Verses 9-10 seem to summarise the theme of the Psalm thus far but with a couple of important little twists. Firstly, we must make the Lord our refuge and speak it out! It’s no good hoping He might guard us, He literally asks that we enter into His fortress and pull up the drawbridge and rest safely beneath His protective wings. This takes faith, for it is one thing to say that you believe He will protect you and another to throw yourself literally on His mercy. It requires that we let go, that we walk

Psalm 91:8 Enough is enough! This verse is worthy of a moment’s pause. There are many today who preach and teach that the world is on the brink of disaster, even the ungodly predict that we cannot continue to live in this way. The human race is battling against “climate change”, natural disasters and world-wide plagues. Our economic strategy is on the brink of collapse, all the wealthy countries have borrowed far too much on the premise that their economies will continue to grow. Meanwhile, at least 9 nations have stockpiled nuclear weapons that are capable of destroying our planet, and no one knows the full extent of the chemical and biological weaponry that has been produced. The “ruler of this world” thinks that he is getting close to its final destruction although Psalm 2 reminds us that the Lord God scoffs at the kings and rulers that have banded themselves together against the Lord.  Hand in hand with the terrifying scenarios that are being predicted goes a world that is in denia

Psalm 91:7 It will not come near you Do you remember the chant of the people of Israel about a young man called David, after he had killed the Philistine giant, Goliath? It struck fear into the heart of the reigning King Saul.  “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”  There were certain Jewish writing conventions that meant that if you wanted to make a point, then one number was exaggerated by using another; so to emphasize the exploits of David, his ten thousands were compared to Saul’s one thousand. At that point David had not yet been involved in military action; he had not killed thousands of men!  In the same way, we will not be held responsible for thousands of deaths, at our side or at our right hand! But when the plagues and pestilences come and our enemy, the Satan, attacks, then we are promised protection. The devastation on all sides may be great, but we will be guarded and safe in the refuge and fortress that is our God. Scripture often points forwa

Psalm 91:5-6 You will not fear This verse lists the kind of threats that ancient people faced, especially when they were confronting the terrors of enemy armies, amassed on the border or infiltrating their land. These threats could loom over them at any time, day and night, and of course there was great fear amongst those who were in the way of any invading forces. I’m thinking right now of the citizens of some of the cities of the Ukraine who have laid in their cellars at night and heard the dull thuds or ground shaking explosions of Russian missiles landing nearby. For the people of Israel, especially the men who must fight, enemy arrows were also something to be feared, not so fast as a bullet maybe, but you still needed to get out of the way or you would be seriously injured or killed. There were many side-effects, and after-effects, of war in ancient times. Famine, food and water could easily be contaminated and for those who were fighting, there was little respite from the burnin

Psalm 91:4 Under His wings What a beautiful verse! The previous one has a fowler out on his business trapping wild birds. Here, by contrast, we have a large bird using its feathers to protect its young and covering them with the mighty span of its wings. For a visual analogy check out a mother swan with her young or watch a Videocam of an Osprey or Bird of Prey guarding young chicks. These larger birds completely cover the young beneath them; smaller mother birds do the same although they are often hidden away from prying eyes. We need to keep in mind here the enormity of our God and be aware that when His wings are outstretched, they can embrace the whole world. Sadly, there are many who defy His power and His protection and ridiculously prefer their own. Even worse are the godless who build massive armies and navies and air defences that threaten the security of millions because they have rejected the protection of the Creator God.  As we noted in verse 1, there is another way we can

Psalm 91:3 The fowler's snare A fowler is a bird trapper who uses snares to capture wild birds for food or to remove them as pests. This used to be an honest occupation especially for trapping game, ducks, geese and other edible sources like pigeons.  The fowler is still about his business, I’m not taking about bird catchers but about the Satan. As fowler’s methods have changed over the centuries, so has our enemy’s tactics. His greatest weapons today are deceit, the internet, entrapment through images and false teaching. He uses the beguiling attractions of the world to distract us from the walk of faith. He is still the wily serpent who awaits and attacks with a poisonous  “Did God really say?”  Fowlers work quietly and secretly, they cover their trails and do not leave their traps in the open and the greatest tests for us all are the secret ones. Additionally, good fowlers know how to adapt their methods for the different kinds of prey and our enemy is very good at this, he know

Psalm 91:2 He is my fortress How can the Lord be our refuge if we cannot see Him and He is not a physical presence? In 2 Samuel 22:2-3 David uses a collection of words to describe the Lord God that are all metaphors for Him; “ The Lord is my rock, my fortress, my deliverer, my rock in whom I take refuge, my shield and the horn of my salvation. He is my stronghold, my refuge and my saviour.”  These words obviously describe the ways in which David had experienced the protection, love, care and guidance of the Lord. Instead of physical locations and constructions, he finds that in depending on the Lord God He is able to find equivalent support and help, when he needs it. So, when we are afraid and powerless and being pursued by our enemies, we need somewhere to hide up. The Lord says, “Come to me. I will hide you and protect you and keep you safe.” When we are embattled and surrounded by fearsome forces, the Lord says, “Come to me, take cover in my battlements and you will be safe. Regain

Psalm 91:1 The shelter off the Most High Psalm 89 was woeful and Psalm 90, not a lot better. Poor Moses became increasingly dismal as he pondered the temporary pointlessness of human existence and the effects of the wrath of God on all mankind. At the time Moses was only too aware of the threat of death that cut short human life far too soon. He pleads for God’s love upon the people so that they might have some purpose and something to show their children. Psalm 91 is written by an anonymous author, but it is a feast of delights and a complete contrast to the woes of its predecessor. In this Psalm the godly are promised safety and protection and even though thousands may fall in the battles, the one who trusts in the Lord will be kept safe. There are no terrors to be afraid of, for the Lord God is with those who love Him.   V1        There are a number of ways in which God’s people have dwelt in the shelter of the Most High. (The Creator of Heaven and Earth). During the time of the Isr

Psalm 90:17 Establish the work of our hands for us The word “favour” in this verse is sometimes translated pleasantness, some translators go further and substitute beauty. In other words, such is the purity, holiness, glory and splendour of our heavenly King that He shines as a dazzling star against the background of evil and darkness that surrounds us on earth. When we look at His holiness and see how lovely He is, unblemished and untouched by the pollution of sin, then we must be in awe of His perfection and His righteousness. David exclaims in Psalm 24:4,  “One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek; that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord and to seek Him in His Temple.”   May that glory rest upon us. May His purity shine from us. May His splendour be revealed to us. May we forever dwell in the beauty of His holiness. Remember that this Psalm is composed by Moses at a time of crisis when he can only see despair and

Psalm 90:16 Deeds of splendour It does us good sometimes to just stop and try to catalogue the righteous deeds of our God – the deeds of His splendour. I hardly know where to start, do you?  Take Creation – the deeds of splendour in the created world are limitless and we don’t even know the half of it.  Take God’s dealings with the patriarchs and the saints of old, Abraham, Isaac, Moses, Joshua, David and the rest, the deeds of splendour are timeless, although time barred some of them from realising this. Take Israel. He provided for them in innumerable, miraculous ways and still does. God delivered them through mighty waters, from brutal slavery and overwhelming military threats. He kept His covenant promises and showed that He is faithful and trustworthy.  Take the coming of Messiah. His miracles alone put any other human power into the shade of history and then there are the immense pronouncements of truth that came from His lips. There is the power of His death and resurrection and

Psalm 90:15 Make us glad It’s good to stop and remind ourselves that troubles come and go, that sorrow passes, that ill health and pain are only temporary, that depression and gloom are destined to end. It is not so for the wicked, their travails are timeless and will stretch into eternity but, for the children of God, there will inevitably be an end to their trials. Life in this world is governed by a timetable, held by the hands of the Master Planner, every day is pre-ordained for us and subject to a greater plan that embraces many people besides ourselves. God weaves an intricate tapestry, and our life is an integral part of it, without us the picture would be incomplete. For some, the colours they add are gaudy and bright, others are the greys and the blacks, but leave them out and the picture will be unfinished and unbalanced.  God will not allow anyone to remain in the darkness for too long, His purpose is always redemption, freedom and deliverance. With His help, it is possible

Psalm 90:14 Unfailing love For Moses, there had been a long night of God’s anger and wrath. The darkness of the night had been a time of oppressive deliberation when death had beckoned, and the pointlessness of life had overwhelmed him. In this time Moses had seen the futility of his days and realised that little that he had accomplished counted for anything, it was all over in a flash and accompanied by trouble and sorrow. I wonder if Moses could ever have guessed how significant his time really was and that he would be held up as a great man of God thousands of years later? And now, as morning breaks, he cries out with a renewed sense of purpose; instead of wrath and anger he can plead that the Lord’s unfailing love will satisfy him. Have we had nights like this, when we are overwhelmed with despair and dread but, when morning breaks, life seems to have a renewed purpose and the light of God’s love eclipses His anger? Why, there’s even a possibility that we might sing a song of joy.

Psalm 90:13 How long will it be? Moses, the writer of this Psalm, enjoyed a lengthy life. As we have seen, his principal purpose for being on this planet did not kick in until he was 80, and the next 40 years were to be a time of incredible productivity and purpose, but also of despair and trouble. As he pens this song, Moses is deeply troubled by the power of death that hangs over the Israelites and we have pondered the probability that this could have been attributed to an event like the plague of snakes that infested the camp. In such circumstances it is not difficult to understand why Moses pleads with the Lord, “ Relent, Lord! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants .”  It might seem impatient to demand of the Lord God, “How long” or to reproach Him for a lack of compassion! However, such language is frequently found in the Psalms. It tells us that the psalmists did not question that relief would come, it was not so much a matter of “if” but of “when”. If we are conv

Psalm 90:12 Number your days “Teach us to number our days.”  Modern society does not exactly relish this idea! We prefer to keep plodding on, to ignore the obvious, to place our trust in a Health Service that we hope will produce some kind of eternal cure. We turn a blind eye to the daily obituaries in the newspapers, and also to our own declining health as we stumble into old age. Death is rarely the subject of conversations, documentaries, or best-selling books! It’s the taboo subject, the one that is averted because no one wants to face the inevitability of their own mortality. Few are prepared for it and even fewer embrace it. And yet, the Bible offers us a different perspective, it advises that we should ask God to help us to number our days. We should pay careful attention to the lifespan we have been given and prepare ourselves to leave this world. We need to be aware that old age and sickness will eventually overtake us and our schemes and plans will be thwarted.  Even as I wri

Psalm 90:11 God’s wrath is as great as the fear that He is due Presumably, most people would not want to know the full power and extent of the anger of the Lord! Psalm 10 relates the stupidity of the wicked who give no thought to God and live evil lives oppressing others and looking after themselves. They use any means to accumulate worldly wealth and prestige, and in so doing make the lives of the poor and the downtrodden, utterly miserable. In God’s eyes all men are equal, why should some use their few years on this planet to promote themselves at the expense of others?  Why should they live in luxury whilst others grovel for crumbs? This has nothing to do with politics, it is a great injustice in God’s eyes, and it kindles His anger. The wicked are labelled as arrogant and foolish and they will feel the full extent of the wrath of our God.And how do we measure this anger? Well, Moses the psalm-writer has come up with an equation, God’s wrath is as great as the fear that He is due! T

Psalm 90:10b Come fly to me We would have to agree with Moses that one thing has not changed since his Psalm was written, even the best years of our lives are tempered by trouble and sorrow. Rarely is there a month that goes by without problems caused by financial, health, work, family, relationship, national and international or spiritual problems that cause stress or anguish. And yes, we can also agree that life absolutely flies by and before we know it, the 70th year has arrived!  The last phrase of this verse is unusual, we are used to the idea of our bodies returning to the dust, but I do not recall any other verse that describes us “ flying away .” In fact, it was beyond the understanding of men like Moses to imagine men taking flight, they all believed that they would go down to the dust. It could be that the words here just mean that we disappear. Some scholars interpret the term to refer to the death rattle! However, and this is just my theory, we read in Deuteronomy 34 that, 

  Psalm 90:10a   70-80 years In ancient times, the span of a king’s life was deemed to be 70 years although David was the only king to have exceeded this age. Thus, the captivity of Israel in Babylon spanned the same period, God effectively took one king out of the order of succession and a gaping hole was left in David’s line.  The ability to live a further 10 years, until 80, was quite rare and regarded as a special gift from God. Few men had sufficient health and strength to live to such an age. Just for the record, the average life expectancy for both sexes in the Far East world today, where there is little obesity, is in the mid-eighties.  As of 2023, the life expectancy in the UK is approximately 81 years, with   women living around 83 years and men living about 79 years .   As we have noted, Moses is credited with the writing of this Psalm; he had miraculously survived at birth and been raised in the household of Pharaoh. At the age of 40 he had to flee Egypt and he became a she

Psalm 90:8-9 It ends with a moan  is no sin that is not known to God. Christian friends of mine talk about “being with the Lord in the secret place” but for too many of us, the secret place has not been where we have met with the Lord at all! It’s the place where our greatest battles are won and lost, where the conflict with sin and temptation rages most fiercely, where desires, lusts and dark schemes pound our flimsy battlements and where Satan’s powers are at their most insidious. Meanwhile, in the corridors of heaven, all is noted and recorded, nothing sneaks under the radar, there are no secrets with Almighty God, He sees and knows all things. Sadly, the darkness and wickedness of all men brings exclusion, the Lord cannot tolerate sin and disobedience, and no one may enter His presence stained by evil and treachery. Such is the beauty and glory of the light of His presence that we could not approach Him, even if we tried. Light and dark cannot dwell together. That is why God is ang

Psalm 90:7 Consumed by Your anger To say that God was angry in the Garden of Eden would be understating it. He was furious, He was consumed with wrath and a few hundred years later that wrath was expressed in the Flood, when the entire population of the earth was wiped out and all humanity consigned to destruction. God was angry in Eden because Adam and Eve succumbed to evil so easily. He gave them heaven and they chose hell, or at least, Eve did. The enemy, in the form of a serpent, slithered easily into the divine relationship that had formed between the Lord God and His newly appointed representatives, and free will give way to free disobedience and straightaway the delights of the Garden were ruined beyond repair. Only Eve escaped with some small consolation, she would be saved through childbirth! The wrath and justice of God are still being conveyed through the inevitability of death. No one escapes it and no one escapes Him.  “We are consumed by Your anger and terrified by Your i

Psalm 90:5-6 Here this morning, gone tonight It’s difficult to think of a more scathing indictment of human life than this! Some might say that the Bible is full of good news, it’s a revelation of God’s eternal plans and an encouragement to enjoy a fulfilled life. Then we read verse 4 of this Psalm and discover that the plans and timing of our God are way outside our comprehension and now we are told why. God is eternal, He has no need to measure time, things will happen when He says so and not before. A thousand years may pass like a day with Him, or a major twist to the plan may come upon us all tomorrow. Who knows? Who knows the mind of God?  Added to this we now have a reminder of the temporary nature of human life. We all hang by a thread, even if we live to be a hundred our lifespan is nothing, it is no more than the grass that looks fresh and new in the morning but is faded and bare by nightfall. Man is nothing! Our time here on this planet is nothing! Our influence is nothing!

Psalm 90:4 It's all about time - His time It is easy to forget that God does not measure time as we do. However, our human system of counting minutes, hours, days, months and years is very much based on God’s predetermined measurements! He has put us in orbit around the sun spinning on a planet that goes through 180 degrees every 24 hours and that circles the sun every 365 days. (366 in a Leap Year!) There are many significant measures of time in the Scriptures including the 7-day week, the use of 40 days to measure certain periods, the 50 th  year of Jubilee and so on, that’s without going into circadian rhythms! All of these periods are God ordained but He stands above them all and so when the Bible talks about eternity, we humans are completely out of our depth. We love to measure everything, but how do you measure something that has no beginning or end? How can we even begin to grasp what that means?  With God, an age can be whittled down to a day and a day can represent an age

Psalm 90:3 Back to the dust! This reads a bit like a death sentence and provokes images of a wrathful God glowering over us as He turns us all back to dust. In truth, it is simply a statement of fact, we all die, to dust we shall return and this because God ordered it to be so. In the judgements poured out upon those who defied the Lord in the Garden of Eden, the fateful words are pronounced over Adam,  “Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return.”  Genesis 3:17-19. It is important that we stop at times and take stock, this body of ours is mortal, it does not last forever, it grows old, it decays, and it eventually stops working. The inevitability of death hangs over every living

Psalm 90:2 The everlasting God This puts a few things into perspective, doesn’t it? In a way this verse is a summary of the whole of the Bible, a review of all of creation and an infinite description of the awesomeness of our God. To ancient minds, mountains were both fearsome and awe-inspiring creations, a man could climb a mountain to draw nearer to God, a mountain was a permanent feature of any landscape, a mountain spoke of longevity and stability, but God was there when the mountains were born. God is more permanent, more stable, more durable and more inspiring than the greatest objects on the surface of the earth. In fact, it’s not just the mountains that declare His awesome, creative power! God brought the whole earth into being. The world is His, its land masses, its oceans and its skies are all part of an incredible creative effort by the living God, His handiwork surrounds us and is the reason for our being. At conception, the earth was the outcome of the creative impulses of

Psalm 90:1 A prayer of Moses Psalm 90 is another prayer to the Lord God to show compassion to His people and to withdraw His anger from them. The good news is that Psalm 90 and 91 form a couplet, and the later song is a celebration of what it means to be close to the Lord and protected and guided by Him. Psalm 90 is attributed to Moses and thus it is the oldest of all the Psalm. There were certainly occasions when he tried to deflect the wrath of the Lord from the Israelites and he also experienced that wrath first hand, not least when a plague of venomous snakes threatened to run riot amongst the community. Perhaps, as we journey through this Psalm, we will get some clues about specific events but for now, it is enough to know that the great servants of old, like Moses and David and others, all experienced the anger of the eternal God as well as His love and compassion.    V1        The first thing that strikes anyone reading this verse is that it clearly states that the Lord does mor

Psalm 89:52 Amen and Amen! It’s been a bit of a roller coaster ride hasn’t it, Psalm 89? And there is one more surprise from the pen of Ethan the Ezrahite, just when we thought he might give final vent to his frustrations, he does the opposite. He ends on a note of praise! He started by affirming that he would sing of the Lord’s great love forever and he ends in anticipation that the Lord will be praised - forever! We need to remember that these Psalms were publicly used and sung, the words were memorised and retained by countless generations and whenever Psalm 89 was put into the civic domain it was to end on a note of praise with loud “Amens!” Amen means certainly and truly. Whatever might happen, whatever might befall the future house of David, the Lord was to be praised – forever.  As we have seen, Ethan had only a human grasp of events, deep down he knew that if God was in control there must be a plan. He had whinged and moaned and laid all of his complaints at heaven’s door but w

Psalm 89:50-51 He never forgets When we call upon the Lord to remember it is not because He has forgotten! He never forgets! What we may need to do at times is to ask the Lord to recall events, promises, requests and past conversations because they have a bearing on what is happening in the here and now. If you think about it, every time we refer to the Scriptures and what God has said, it’s a trip down memory lane. What is extraordinary is that so often He points out new things that we never saw or heard before. When He remembers, we are taught. The Psalm, here in these verses, is still speaking in the first person singular, it is Ethan speaking but he speaks on behalf of David and his descendants. There has also been more than one occasion in the Psalm when we have noted that it speaks on behalf of Messiah, our Lord Jesus, David’s greatest successor. The Psalm speaks for us too and all that have been mocked and taunted by enemies of God. The nations continue to sneer and ridicule the

Psalm 89:49 You will be heard Do you remember how this Psalm began?  “I will sing of the Lord’s great love forever; with my mouth I will make Your faithfulness known through all generations.”  We asked the question, d are we proclaim that we will sing of the Lord’s great love forever and that we will make His faithfulness known to all generations, regardless of what may be happening to us and around us? I feel for Ethan, the psalm writer, I don’t think he is questioning the integrity or the intensity of God’s love and faithfulness for His people here, what he is simply asking is, “Where is it? If You are a loving and faithful God, if You keep Your covenant promises, then show us the evidence.”  The dark night of the soul is a painful time for any of us. It’s a time when the deepest demands are made of our faith, when we feel deserted by the Lord and question the very point of our existence. When everything points to abandonment, faith demands that we still cry out and plead for a respo

Psalm 89:48 The inevitability of death Despite all our technical advances as humans, no one has been able to find a way of cheating death. The only people I can think of who left this world without dying are Enoch and Elijah.  “Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”  Genesis 5:24. Elijah was taken to heaven in a whirlwind. 2 Kings 2:11. All others have suffered the fate of returning to the dust, of being buried in a grave. It is the inevitability of this that the psalmist wants us to grasp. Life is not permanent. Death is a given. Time is short and our lives are but a breath of wind. That is why the heart of God has always been to win us to believe in Him and obey Him so that we might have hope beyond the grave. At the heart of all the Scriptures is the truth that His greatest act of compassion was to send His Son to free us from eternal death and guarantee the promise of eternal life.  This Biblical view of our future is far removed from tha

Psalm 89:47 Time is short There is a rich vein of truth that underlies this verse for it helps us to gain a right perspective of our lives and also of the Lord God. David captured the heart cry here when he wrote, in Psalm 39:4-6,  “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is. You have made my days a mere handsbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Everyone is but a breath, even those who seem secure. Surely everyone goes around like a mere phantom; in vain they rush about, heaping up wealth without knowing whose it will finally be.” How many plans do we have that can never be fulfilled? How many dreams that will lie dormant because we ran out of time? How many “things” have we accumulated around us that will one day lie useless and unused, ready to be dumped on the scrapheap? As I grow older, I have a growing realisation that in every area of life the clock is ticking, there may not be time, even to complete the Bible st

Psalm 89:46 How long? It is quite normal for us humans to cry out, “How long” when we are in the midst of trials of any kind. Yes, it is an impatient cry and yes, in this context it is a complaint against the Lord. Ethan still feels that an injustice has been done, that the circumstances could be very different if the Lord God took control. There is deep anguish behind this cry but also a sense of hope, as we saw in verse 45. When we cry, “how long” we are assuming that eventually help will come.  I have to say that I have been surprised by the boldness of the psalm writers at times, they tend to shout at the Lord the way a truculent child will demand a response from its parents! I don’t know about you, but I’ve been through some pretty horrendous trials in my life and I never dared to demand “how long” of the Lord nor did a dare accuse Him of hiding Himself away! This has overtones of Him being cowardly or of not wanting to get involved! How dare men speak to God in such ways? Well, E