This is the one and only psalm attributed to Moses — yes, that Moses, the really old one known for the Bulrushers and for parting the Red Sea, not Moses Malone or Woody Allen’s son, Moses Farrow, or even Grandma Moses, although she was sharp enough to create something like this.
Some folks say this is the oldest psalm of all 150, but then why is it No. 90, the first in the fourth book of the Psalter? (So I’m three-fifths of the way done with this project — only 60 more poems to go — and I will finish the whole kit and caboodle on Good Friday 2024, with a little good luck.)
This is an oft-quoted psalm, because Moses — or whoever wrote it — was a better writer and a lot more quotable than whiny-ass David: “For a thousand years in Your sight / Are like yesterday when it is past, / And like a watch in the night.” David would have made this song about himself.
Then Moses compares the days of our lives, no, not to sand in an hourglass, but to green grass that springs up and thrives in the sun by day, then in the cool of the evening is mown down and left to fade and blow away. I’m thinking Uncle Walt had this psalm in mind with Leaves of Grass.
This particular psalm also discusses the average man’s lifespan — “threescore years and ten … [or] fourscore years,” in the King James Version (no, not Lebron James); that’s 70 or 80 years in other bibles. Maybe Honest Abe read this psalm on his way to Gettysburg in November of 1863.
Keep in mind that Moses lived almost 4,000 years ago. Some things never change, except that the average man’s life expectancy is closer to 70 while the average woman’s is almost 80, says Dr. Google. No psalmists — not even Moses — have differentiated between the genders so far.
Be that as it may, the famous prophet asks YHWH: “So teach us to number our days, / That we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Whatever our gender or religion or place in life, that’s a lesson we all should internalize — to know exactly where we stand before we see that lawnmower coming.