Teach Us to Number Our Days
Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen evil. Psalm 90:15 · Berean Standard Bible
Balance our suffering with joy—give us as many good days and peaceful years as we've endured hardship and evil, so we know Your kindness matches Your severity.
The people have suffered. They want acknowledgment of that suffering and compensation—not in a petulant way, but in the way a child might reasonably ask a parent to make things better. They're asking God to restore what's been taken.
Moses, asking for equity and healing
This theme of restoration runs through the entire biblical story—every exile followed by return, every death followed by new life, culminating in Christ's resurrection reversing the curse of mortality itself.
Grant us joy for as many days as You have afflicted us, and happiness proportionate to the years of suffering we have endured.
This verse establishes reciprocal justice—not retributive but restorative. The principle of correspondence (suffering matched by proportionate joy) reflects what biblical scholars call the 'measure-for-measure' principle evident in covenant language. The Psalmist appeals to God's sense of proportionality, asking that the scales be balanced. This became important in later theodicy discussions: Augustine and later theologians argued that God's ultimate justice necessarily involves proportionate compensation for innocent suffering.
The psalmist, still in petition, now framing the request in terms of divine equity.
This anticipates Paul's assertion in 2 Corinthians 4:17 that 'momentary afflictions produce an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison,' establishing the pattern where temporal suffering finds ultimate satisfaction in eschatological redemption.
13Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
14Satisfy us in the morning with Your loving devotion, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15Make us glad for as many days as You have afflicted us, for as many years as we have seen evil.
16May Your work be shown to Your servants, and Your splendor to their children.
17May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish for us the work of our hands— yes, establish the work of our hands!
Read all of Psalm 90 — The oldest psalm, attributed to Moses. A meditation on time and what makes every day precious.
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