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Psalm 90:10
The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away.
8You have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9For all our days have passed away in your wrath. We bring our years to an end as a sigh.
10The days of our years are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty years; yet their pride is but labor and sorrow, for it passes quickly, and we fly away.
11Who knows the power of your anger, your wrath according to the fear that is due to you?
12So teach us to count our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
Notice
Seventy or eighty years can sound like a long time, yet the verse measures even a strong life against sorrow and the speed of its passing.
Questions to write on. Each one opens a new entry with this verse already attached.
What do the numbers seventy and eighty bring to mind about your own lifespan?
Write on thisWhere, if anywhere, do you recognize the verse’s pairing of strength with labor and sorrow?
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Where else Scripture says this
12 passages readers most often link with this verse, and the thread each one shares with it.
This verse's connections, by chapterThe Bible's strongest chapter linksHover or tap a book to trace it
James 4:14Yet you don’t know what your life will be like tomorrow. For what is your life? For you are a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.James pictures life as a vanishing vapor; Psalm 90 describes years passing fast before people fly away.
Ecclesiastes 12:1Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come, and the years draw near, when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them;”Both passages acknowledge the hardship that years can carry, with Ecclesiastes urging remembrance of the Creator while young.
Psalm 78:39He remembered that they were but flesh, a wind that passes away, and doesn’t come again.Psalm 78 compares mortal flesh to a passing wind; Psalm 90 describes human years passing before people fly away.
2 Samuel 19:35I am eighty years old, today. Can I discern between good and bad? Can your servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear the voice of singing men and …Eighty years appears in both passages, alongside an account of the burdens that can accompany a long life.
Job 42:16After this Job lived one hundred forty years, and saw his sons, and his sons’ sons, to four generations.Both passages count a lifespan in years, though Job’s additional hundred forty years exceed Psalm 90’s seventy or eighty.
Psalm 71:9Don’t reject me in my old age. Don’t forsake me when my strength fails.Strength and advancing years appear in both psalms; Psalm 71 turns failing strength into a plea against abandonment.
Genesis 47:9Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are one hundred thirty years. The days of the years of my life have been few and evil. They have not …Jacob calls his hundred thirty years few and evil, sharing Psalm 90’s sober reckoning of life’s length and hardship.
Deuteronomy 34:7Moses was one hundred twenty years old when he died. His eye was not dim, nor his strength gone.Both passages connect years with strength, though Moses reaches one hundred twenty with his strength still intact.
1 Kings 1:1Now King David was old and advanced in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he couldn’t keep warm.Psalm 90 considers strength and sorrow across a long life; David’s old age includes the burden of being unable to keep warm.
Job 24:24They are exalted; yet a little while, and they are gone. Yes, they are brought low, they are taken out of the way as all others, and are cut off as the tops of …Both passages set human prominence against its brief duration, ending with people passing away.
Job 14:10But man dies, and is laid low. Yes, man gives up the spirit, and where is he?Both passages face human death: Psalm 90 speaks of flying away, while Job describes dying and being laid low.
2 Samuel 14:14For we must die, and are like water spilled on the ground, which can’t be gathered up again; neither does God take away life, but devises means, that he who is …Both passages describe death as a shared human end, using images of departure and water that cannot be gathered again.
Where this verse fits
Aging. death and what comes after. retirement or purpose.
One step
Something small to carry out of this verse
Encouragement
You do not have to make a long life sound easy when you pray to God; this psalm names the labor and sorrow that strength cannot prevent.
Now put it in your words.
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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).