Psalm 90 speaks of time, permanence and impermanence, and the span of human life. It upholds the eternal nature of the Lord: "Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God."

A secondary but connected theme, especially from verses 7-12, is the Lord's apparent anger with us, and his affliction of our lives with troubles. The reason given for this is that we can then learn the true nature of our lives and of our dependence on Him.

The psalm ends with a prayer for the Lord's compassion on us, and for us to be glad all our days, according to the days of our affliction. We wish to know the work of the Lord. We hope that the work of our hands - our purpose and use - will be established.

This is a relatively profound psalm, covering many questions we have about life. It links our sense of our own frailty with the Lord's greater purposes. In the same way that 'time' is basically only an appearance to us, so our unthinking view of life is generally illusory. It can bring us to think of God as angry, and against us. But, nothing could be further from the truth. (See Heaven and Hell 165)

It's important to see that the first two verses are unambiguously true: First, "Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations", and second, "even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God". Spiritually, for us, holding this opening statement in our minds allows us to explore our whole relationship with the Lord. (See Arcana Caelestia 3913)

The next four verses bring out the frailty of our existence, that in a sense we are made from the dust of the earth. Spiritually, this is not said to condemn us, but to remind us that without the Lord, we are nothing. (See Arcana Caelestia 8995)

This humility allows us to come into spiritually positive territory. This is brought out in the context of time being as nothing - "a thousand years in God's sight are like yesterday" - they are carried away and temporary. (See Divine Providence 218-219)

From verse 7 onward come descriptions of the Lord's anger and wrath, along with the brevity and futility of our days in life. "We finish our years like a sigh." All of this is said in the language of appearance - of how it can seem to us - when we consider life only from our viewpoint and not from the Lord's purpose in it. (See Arcana Caelestia 1093 and Sacred Scripture 94.) In reality, the Lord does not ever have or hold anger and wrath.

Verse 12 provides a helpful clue to the verses which come before it. It is a prayer from us to the Lord to teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom. This is a lesson learned from our experience in life, with its pitfalls and its speedy passing, when we realise our folly too late.

The last five verses are clearer and brighter, asking the Lord to gladden us in our lives, and for us to see the work of God in all that we go through, and finally for the Lord our God to establish the work of our hands. Note that this positive ending comes from having endured confusion and negative states which we have now worked through, and that they have gone from us. (See Apocalypse Explained 897.)

10133. 'A continual [offering]' means within all Divine worship. This is clear from the meaning of 'continual', when it refers to such things as belong to Divine worship, as all and within all. For the subject is purification from evils and falsities by means of the good of innocence, this good being meant by 'lambs' and purification from evils and consequent falsities by a burnt offering of them. This is called 'continual' because it must be present in all Divine worship. Therefore also the offering was presented twice each day, in the morning and in the evening; and offerings made morning and evening served in general to represent all worship and what must be present within all worship. The good of innocence must be in all good, and consequently in all truth, if they are to be goodness and truth that have life from the Divine within them, and so it must be within all worship. For all worship, to be worship, must spring from the good of love and from the truths of faith.

All of the Church's and of heaven's good has innocence within it, and without that innocence good is not good, nor therefore is worship worship, see 2736, 2780, 6013, 7840, 7887, 9262.

What innocence is, 3994, 4001, 4797, 5236, 6107, 6765, 7902, 9262, 9936, and the places referred to in 10021 (end).

[2] 'Continual' means all and within all - that is to say, the all of worship, and within all worship - because it is a term that has a temporal connotation and in heaven, where the Word is understood not in the natural but in the spiritual sense, people have no notions of time. Instead of periods of time they perceive the kinds of things that are states. By 'continual' at this point therefore they perceive a perpetual state within worship, thus the all of worship and within all worship. The same applies to all other terms in the Word which have temporal connotations, such as yesterday, today, tomorrow, two days, three days, daily, a week, a month, a year, also times of day and seasons of the year - morning, midday, evening, night, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Therefore if the spiritual sense of the Word is to be understood, any idea of a period of time acquired from its natural sense, any idea of a place as well, indeed any idea of an actual person must be set aside, and states of things must be conceived of instead. From this it may be seen how perfect the Word is in its internal sense, and so how perfect is the perception of it by the angels in heaven, consequently how much more excellent angels' wisdom and understanding are than the understanding and wisdom of people in the world, who think with solely natural vision focused on the completely finite things of this world and planet. Regarding periods of time in heaven, that they are states, see 1274, 1382, 2625, 2788, 2837, 3254, 3356, 3404, 3827, 4814, 4882, 4901, 4916, 6110, 7218, 7381, 8070; and regarding what states are, 4850.

[3] From all this it is evident what the continual burnt offering of lambs means, and so what 'continual' and 'continually' mean elsewhere, as in the commands that 'the fire shall burn continually on the altar', Leviticus 6:13, and that 'the continual bread shall be on the table', Numbers 4:7. 'The fire' there and 'the bread' mean the good of love received from the Lord and offered back to Him. For 'the fire', that it has this meaning, see 4906, 5215, 6314, 6832, 6834, 6849, 7324, 7852, 10055; and also for 'the bread', 2165, 2177, 3478, 3735, 3813, 4211, 4217, 4735, 4976, 9323, 9545. In those places as well 'continual' means in addition that this good must be present in all worship; and the fact that the same good is the source from which the truth of faith must shine, as if from its fire, is meant by the decree that they were to cause a lamp to go up ¹ continually, Exodus 27:20, 'a lamp' being the truth and good of faith, see 9548, 9783.

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