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.)

8995. 'If she is bad in the eyes of her master' means if the affection for truth springing from natural delight is not in agreement with spiritual truth. This is clear from the meaning of 'female slave', to whom the word 'bad' refers, as an affection springing from natural delight, dealt with in 8993, 8994, and from the meaning of 'bad', when it refers to that affection and its relationship with spiritual truth, as being not in agreement with, dealt with below; from the meaning of 'in the eyes of' as in the perception of, dealt with in 2789, 2829, 4083, 4339; and from the meaning of 'master' as spiritual truth, dealt with in 8981.

[2] The implications of all this must be stated. 'A female slave' is an affection for truth springing from the delights that belong to self-love and love of the world, as stated above in 8993, 8994; and this affection is able to be joined to spiritual truth. This may be recognized from the consideration that an affection for spiritual truth is an internal affection or one that resides in the internal man, whereas an affection for truth springing from natural delight resides in the external man. The internal affection that belongs to the spiritual man is joined unceasingly to the external affection that belongs to the natural man, yet in such a way that the internal affection for truth acts as master and the external affection as slave. For it is in keeping with Divine order that the spiritual man should be master over the natural man, 8961, 8967. When the spiritual man is master the person is looking upwards; this is represented by having the head in heaven. But when the natural man is master the person is looking downwards, which is represented by having the head in hell.

[3] To make this transparently clear something more must be stated. By the truths they learn and the good deeds they perform most people hope to acquire some gain from their country, or some important position. If these are regarded as the end in view, the natural man is the master and the spiritual man the slave. But if they are regarded not as the end, only as the means to the end, the spiritual man is the master and the natural man the slave, as accords exactly with the things stated in 7819, 7820. For when people consider gain or position as the means to an end and not the end itself, they are not considering gain or position but the end, which is useful service. A person for example who desires wealth, and acquires it for the sake of useful service which he loves above all things, does not delight in wealth for its own sake; he delights in it for the sake of useful service. The spirit of useful service itself constitutes spiritual life in a person, and the wealth merely serves him as means, see 6933-6938. From this one may also see what the natural man must be like if it is to be joined to the spiritual - it must regard gain and important positions, that is, wealth and eminence, as the means and not the end. What a person regards as the end constitutes the actual life within him, since he loves it more than all things. For what a person loves, that is his end in view.

[4] Anyone who does not know that a person's end in view, or what amounts to the same thing, his love, constitutes the person's spiritual life, consequently that a person is where his love is - in heaven if that love is heavenly, in hell if it is hellish - cannot grasp the situation in these matters. He may suppose that the delight belonging to natural kinds of love - self-love and love of the world - cannot be in agreement with spiritual truth and good. He may suppose this because he does not know that when a person is being regenerated he must be turned upside down, and that when he has been turned upside down he is positioned with his head in heaven, whereas before being turned upside down he was positioned with his head in hell. He was positioned with it in hell when he had the delights of self-love or love of the world as his end in view; but he is positioned with his head in heaven when he has those delights as the means to his end. For the person's end or love, and this alone, has life. The means to the end however have no life of their own but receive life from the end; therefore the means in relation to the final end are called intermediate ends, which have life in the measure that they look to the final end, which is the chief one. So it is that, when a person has been regenerated, consequently when he has loving the neighbour and loving the Lord as his end, he has loving self and the world as the means. When a person is like this, when he looks to the Lord, he rates himself and also the world as nothing. If he does rate himself as something, it is in order that he may be able to serve the Lord. Before this however his attitude had been the opposite. Then he had been full of self-regard and had rated the Lord as nothing; or if had rated Him as something, it had been in order that gain or position might consequently come his way.

[5] All this makes clear the nature of the arcanum concealed in these regulations regarding female slaves from among the daughters of Israel, that is to say, the regulations that although they were slaves they were, if 'good', betrothed to their master who had bought them, or to his son; but if they were 'bad' they were not betrothed but either redeemed or sold, according to the contents of these verses. Betrothing even female slaves, or having them as concubines, was permitted in the representative Church, particularly in the Jewish and Israelite, because a wife represented the affection for spiritual truth, whereas a female slave represented the affection for natural truth, so that a wife represented the internal aspect of the Church with a person, but a female slave the external aspect. The latter was represented by Hagar who was betrothed to Abraham, and also by the two female slaves betrothed to Jacob.

[6] All this now shows what is meant in the internal representative sense by the regulation that 'if she is bad' a female slave cannot be betrothed. That is to say, 'if she is bad' means if the affection springing from natural delight - 'a female slave' - is not in agreement with the spiritual man. This lack of agreement is brought about primarily because that affection wishes to be the master and is of a disposition and mind that cannot be bent towards a love of the Lord. Furthermore the agreement or disagreement of the affection springing from natural delight with the spiritual is determined by the essential nature of them both; but a division of them into their numerous categories would be too long and tedious. A female slave or servant-girl may also mean an affirmative means that serves to join together the external man and the internal man, see 3913, 3917, 3931.