Psalms 90:17

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,.... Either the grace and favour of God, his gracious presence vouchsafed in his ordinances, which makes his tabernacles amiable and lovely, and his

Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants. -The Second division of the Second part. Prayer for God's mercy as the source to us of joy, and of the establishment of our work. Verse 13.

The beauty of the Lord, i.e. his favourable countenance, and gracious influence, and glorious presence. Upon us; or, in us. Do not only work for us, but in us. And because the glorious work of thy hands is hindered by the evil works of our hands, be thou pleased by thy Holy Spirit to direct or establish (for this Hebrew word signifies both) the works of our hands, that we may cease to do evil, and learn to do well, and turn and constantly cleave unto thee, and not revolt and draw back from thee, as we have frequently done to our own undoing.

Psalms 90:17 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.Ver. 17. And let the beauty of the Lord, &c.] i.e. The bounty; the Italian rendereth it, La Giocondita, jucunditas Domini sit in nos. And establish thou the work, &c.] Thus we had all need to pray; for, Nullius est felix conatus et utilis unquam, Consilium si non detque iuvetque Deus.

(17) Beauty.—Or, pleasantness. The Hebrew word, like the Greek ÷Üñéò, and our “grace,” seems to combine the ideas of “beauty” and “favour.”

Verse 17. And let the beauty of the Lord] Let us have thy presence, blessing, and approbation, as our fathers had. Establish thou the work of our hands] This is supposed, we have already seen, to relate to their rebuilding the temple, which the surrounding heathens and Samaritans wished to hinder. We have begun, do not let them demolish our work; let the top-stone be brought on with shouting, Grace, grace unto it. Yea, the work of our hands] This repetition is wanting in three of Kennicott's MSS., in the Targum, in the Septuagint, and in the AEthiopic. If the repetition be genuine, it may be considered as marking great earnestness; and this earnestness was to get the temple of God rebuilt, and his pure worship restored. The pious Jews had this more at heart than their own restoration; it was their highest grief that the temple was destroyed and God's ordinances suspended; that his enemies insulted them, and blasphemed the worthy name by which they were called. Every truly pious man feels more for God's glory than his own temporal felicity, and rejoices more in the prosperity of God's work than in the increase of his own worldly goods. A FEW INSTANCES OF MODERN LONGEVITY In the year 1790 I knew a woman in the city of Bristol, Mrs. Somerhill, then in the 106th year of her age. She read the smallest print without spectacles, and never had used any helps to decayed sight. When she could not go any longer to a place of worship, through the weakness of her limbs, she was accustomed to read over the whole service of the Church for each day of the year as it occurred, with all the Lessons, Psalms, c. She had been from its commencement a member of the Methodist Society heard Mr. John Wesley the first sermon he preached when he visited Bristol in 1739; and was so struck with his clear manner of preaching the doctrine of justification through faith, that, for the benefit of hearing one more sermon from this apostolic man, she followed him on foot to Portsmouth, a journey of one hundred and twenty-five miles! On my last visit to her in the above year, I was admitted by a very old decrepit woman, then a widow of seventy-five years of age, and the youngest daughter of Mrs. Somerhill. I found the aged woman's faculties strong and vigorous, and her eyesight unimpaired, though she was then confined to her bed, and was hard of hearing. She died rejoicing in God, the following year. Agnes Shuner is another instance. She lived at Camberwell in Surrey; her husband, Richard Shuner, died in 1407, whom she survived ninety-two years. She died in 1499, aged one hundred and nineteen years. The Countess of Desmond in Ireland. On the ruin of the house of Desmond, she was obliged at the age of one hundred and forty to travel from Bristol to London, to solicit relief from the court, being then reduced to poverty.

17. the beauty] Or, pleasantness: the gracious kindliness of Jehovah. Cp. Psalms 27:4; Proverbs 3:17. the work of our hands] A phrase characteristic of Deuteronomy, where it occurs seven times. All the ordinary undertakings of daily life are meant, not necessarily any particular enterprise. The Psalmist’s prayer is for the restoration of Israel. In the renewed life of the nation (Lamentations 5:21) the servants of God will recover the gladness of their individual lives, now quenched and dead. The time had not yet come when the hope of personal immortality could be appealed to as the consolation of sorrow and the consecration of effort (1 Corinthians 15:58).

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us - The word translated “beauty” - נעם nô‛am - means properly “pleasantness;” then, beauty, splendor; then grace or layout.

17. Beauty—Understand the word in the sense of grace, favour. Compare Psalms 27:4; Zechariah 11:7; Zechariah 11:10.