Why read Psalm 89?
Read Psalm 89 to reflect on how you use your time and to ask for blessing on your work. Human frailty is set against God's eternity, while the prayer to number our days encourages a wise use of life.
You can read this psalm when its themes speak to your circumstances, or as part of your regular reading of the Psalter. This explanation draws on the text itself; the psalm is not reserved for one particular need.
In Kathisma 12 of the Psalter, Psalm 89 awaits its reader with 19 verses of prayer arising from a real experience. It begins with “Lord, You have become our refuge from...” — and from there onwards everything is a dialogue between the human being and God. The Orthodox Septuagint numbering is retained: this Psalm 89 corresponds to Psalm 90 in the Hebrew numbering.
The text of Psalm 89
1. O Lord, Thou hast become our refuge from generation to generation.
2. Before the mountains came to be, and the earth was formed and the world was made, even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art.
3. Turn not man back unto lowliness, Thou who hast said: "Turn again, ye sons of men",
4. For a thousand years in Thine eyes are as the day of yesterday which is past, and as a watch in the night.
5. Their years shall be as nothingness; as the grass of morning shall they pass.
6. In the morning it flourisheth and passeth; in the evening it falleth, is hardened and withereth.
7. For we have fainted in Thine anger, and in Thy wrath have we been troubled.
8. Thou hast set our transgressions before Thee, our hidden errors, in the light of Thy countenance.
9. For all our days have diminished, and in Thy wrath we have faded away.
10. Our years are counted as a spider's web; the days of our years are threescore and ten;
11. And if they be in strength fourscore years, and what is more than these is labour and sorrow;
12. For our life passeth away, and we shall depart.
13. Who knoweth the power of Thine anger, and who reckoneth Thy wrath according to the fear of Thee?
14. Teach us to count our days well, that we may turn our hearts towards wisdom.
15. Return, O Lord! How long wilt Thou remain far away? Comfort Thy servants!
16. We have been filled in the morning with Thy mercy, and we have rejoiced and been glad all our days.
17. We have rejoiced for the days in which Thou hast humbled us, for the years in which we have seen evils.
18. Look upon Thy servants and upon Thy works, and guide their sons.
19. And let the light of the Lord our God be upon us, and guide the works of our hands.
When Psalm 89 is read
- in the face of passing time — “thousands of years before You”.
- At the end of each psalm, tradition adds: «Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.».
Adjacent psalms
The numbering follows the Orthodox Psalter (Septuagint). The same psalm may have a different number in other Bible editions.
