Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Moses opens by anchoring the people to God's covenant favor before he addresses their misery and judgment. He means to say: yes, you die like all men, yes, God punishes sin, but He has adopted you, and that peculiar grace is your true dwelling place through all generations.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 90:1-17
Make us glad according to the days wherein thou hast afflicted us, and the years wherein we have seen evil. None can gladden the heart as thou canst, O Lord, therefore as thou hast made us sad be pleased to make us glad. Fill the other scale. Proportion thy dispensations. Give us the lamb, since thou has sent us the bitter herbs. Make our days as long as our nights.
Numbering our days rightly is an art we must learn from God: we must live under constant weight of death's nearness, compare our work to our time, and mind it with double diligence. True wisdom is serious godliness, and frequent thoughts of our swift removal hence will stir us mightily toward it.
AI summary
Commenting on Psalm 90:12-17