The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
All Commentaries on Psalms 90:10 Go To Psalms 90
George Leo Haydock
AD 1849
In them. Years, (Calmet) "in the world. "Chaldean, "altogether. "Symmachus, years. This was the usual term of man's life in David's time, (Haydock) and about the captivity, when this was written. Many lived above one hundred years when Moses wrote. (Calmet)
Yet this proves nothing, as there are still instances of equal longevity, though it is true, that people in general seldom live above seventy, or eighty, or if they do, their days are a burden to them. The same might be the case under Moses. He probably here alludes to those warriors, who were cut off in the wilderness, few of whom would survive 80. (Berthier)
The author of Ecclesiasticus, (xviii. 8.) gives one hundred, for the utmost limits of life. The pagan sages speak in the same style as the psalmist. (Calmet)
Strong. Septuagint, "in dominion. "But here it means in a vigorous constitution. (Bellarmine)
Princes lived no longer than others. Hebrew and Vulgate may be "the prime, or most of them "as even a great part of the time before seventy, as well as after, (Haydock) is usually spent in misery, Genesis xlvii. 9. (Calmet)
Mildness. God's mildness corrects us: in as much as he deals kindly with us, in shortening the days of this miserable life; and so weaning our affections from all its transitory enjoyments, and teaching us true wisdom. (Challoner)
Hebrew, "we pass quickly and fly away, (St. Jerome) like birds of passage, (Calmet) or "it is cut down soon "(Montanus) "in silence "(Drusius) tacitisque senescimus annis. (Haydock)
St. Jerome wonders, that the Septuagint should have translated as they have done: But they are followed by Theodotion, and the Sext. edition, who may have had different copies, equally good. (Berthier)
Corrected (corripiemur) or "hurried away "Genebrard.
But this is not the sense of the Septuagint. (Amama)
"We grow tired. "(Houbigant)
It is a mercy of God to shorten men's lives, (Menochius) as many would sin more, if they had a probability of continuing upon earth. (Worthington)
