MIF 6:1 (Jan-Feb 1974)
Editorial
It has been suggested that Moses was the author of both Psalm 90 and Psalm 91. The idea is that Psalm 90 may have been composed while he was surveying the wilderness and thinking of the many of Israel’s manhood who had been buried under its sands. Psalm 91, so it has been intimated, might have been composed as Moses was contemplating the tabernacle with its benign cloud providing a shadow for the pilgrim people, and with the wings of the cherubim woven into the curtains of its sanctuary.
In writing Psalm 90, he must have been very conscious of time. He wrote of morning and evening, of days and years and even of generations. He implied that all these passed away quickly, and that each brought its disappointments, trials and sorrows. The Psalm might have been written as a funeral dirge. The only light that penetrates its gloom appears in the words, “Lord Thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations.”
No matter what the past had been with all its problems and perplexities, God has always been the shelter, the hiding place for His people. He had been their protection in every circumstance, even when they did not realize it.
From his new perspective Moses did not write of what God had been, but of what He then was. He did not write of those who lay buried under the sands of the desert, he pictured those who dwelt in the sanctuary, those that abode under the shadow of the Almighty. Moreover he assured all of God’s people “He shall cover thee with His feathers, and under His wings shalt thou trust.”
As we face another year, let us not be appalled by the conditions in the wilderness; God is even there; let us rather abide in the sanctuary, in the warm, calm, holy intimacy of God’s presence, for there, and there alone, are found the shadow from the scorching rays of trouble and the tender protection from all evil.