Adam Clarke's Bible Commentary Verse 4. For a thousand years in thy sight ] As if he had said, Though the resurrection of the body may be a thousand (or any indefinite number of) years distant; yet, when these are past, they are but as yesterday, or a single thatch of the night. They pass through the mind in a moment, and appear no longer in their duration than the time required by the mind to reflect them by thought. But, short as they appear to the eye of the mind, they are nothing when compared with the eternity of God! The author probably has in view also that economy of Divine justice and providence by which the life of man has been shortened from one thousand years to threescore years and ten, or fourscore.
Matthew Henry Commentary
Verses 1-6 - It is supposed that this psalm refers to the sentence passed on Israe in the wilderness, Nu 14. The favour and protection of God are the onl sure rest and comfort of the soul in this evil world. Christ Jesus is the refuge and dwelling-place to which we may repair. We are dyin creatures, all our comforts in the world are dying comforts, but God is an ever-living God, and believers find him so. When God, by sickness or other afflictions, turns men to destruction, he thereby calls men to return unto him to repent of their sins, and live a new life. thousand years are nothing to God's eternity: between a minute and million of years there is some proportion; between time and eternit there is none. All the events of a thousand years, whether past or to come, are more present to the Eternal Mind, than what was done in the last hour is to us. And in the resurrection, the body and soul shal both return and be united again. Time passes unobserved by us, as with men asleep; and when it is past, it is as nothing. It is a short an quickly-passing life, as the waters of a flood. Man does but flouris as the grass, which, when the winter of old age comes, will wither; but he may be mown down by disease or disaster.
Original Hebrew כי3588 אלף505 שׁנים8141 בעיניך5869 כיום3117 אתמול865 כי3588 יעבר5674 ואשׁמורה821 בלילה׃3915
