Threescore and Ten

“The days of our years are [a]threescore years and ten (seventy years)--or even, if by reason of strength, fourscore years (eighty years); yet is their pride [in additional years] only labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away. Who knows the power of Your anger? [Who worthily connects this brevity of life with Your recognition of sin?] And Your wrath, who connects it with the reverent and worshipful fear that is due You?” Psalm 90:10-11.

I’ve often heard from others that three score and ten is the promised number of years for mankind, especially of those who serve the Lord. But as I got to thinking, I found this to be questionable. For this reason consider those who die young in the Lord never seeing that particular age. As one pastor pointed out recently, it does take much to undo traditional religion. Many impose their beliefs or what they think about the Bible onto their children rather than what the Holy Bible actually states. As you will see noted below from a few scriptures where those in the Old Testament lived well beyond those years, there was nothing that suggests this was a promise to mankind. Now, while I do consider it a blessing that people reach those ages and many who surpass it in great numbers, it does not degrade the life of a person who may have left the Earth at one score.

A Prayer of Moses the man of God.

“1LORD, YOU have been our dwelling place and our refuge in all generations [says Moses].

2Before the mountains were brought forth or ever You had formed and given birth to the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting You are God.

3You turn man back to dust and corruption, and say, Return, O sons of the earthborn [to the earth]!

4For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.(A)

5You carry away [these disobedient people, doomed to die within forty years] as with a flood; they are as a sleep [vague and forgotten as soon as they are gone]. In the morning they are like grass which grows up--

6In the morning it flourishes and springs up; in the evening it is mown down and withers.

7For we [the Israelites in the wilderness] are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath are we troubled, overwhelmed, and frightened away.

8Our iniquities, our secret heart and its sins [which we would so like to conceal even from ourselves], You have set in the [revealing] light of Your countenance.

9For all our days [out here in this wilderness, says Moses] pass away in Your wrath; we spend our years as a tale that is told [for we adults know we are doomed to die soon, without reaching Canaan].(B)

10The days of our years are [a]threescore years and ten (seventy years)--or even, if by reason of strength, fourscore years (eighty years); yet is their pride [in additional years] only labor and sorrow, for it is soon gone, and we fly away.”

I think it’s important to focus on the succeeding verse of Psalm 90:12, “So teach us to number our days, that we may get us a heart of wisdom.”