30:5 For his anger lasts only a brief moment,
and his good favor restores one’s life. 1
One may experience sorrow during the night,
but joy arrives in the morning. 2
90:10 The days of our lives add up to seventy years, 3
or eighty, if one is especially strong. 4
But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. 5
Yes, 6 they pass quickly 7 and we fly away. 8
1 tn Heb “for [there is] a moment in his anger, [but] life in his favor.” Because of the parallelism with “moment,” some understand חַיִּים (khayyim) in a quantitative sense: “lifetime” (cf. NIV, NRSV). However, the immediate context, which emphasizes deliverance from death (see v. 3), suggests that חַיִּים has a qualitative sense: “physical life” or even “prosperous life” (cf. NEB “in his favour there is life”).
2 tn Heb “in the evening weeping comes to lodge, but at morning a shout of joy.” “Weeping” is personified here as a traveler who lodges with one temporarily.
3 tn Heb “the days of our years, in them [are] seventy years.”
4 tn Heb “or if [there is] strength, eighty years.”
5 tn Heb “and their pride [is] destruction and wickedness.” The Hebrew noun רֹהַב (rohav) occurs only here. BDB 923 s.v. assigns the meaning “pride,” deriving the noun from the verbal root רהב (“to act stormily [boisterously, arrogantly]”). Here the “pride” of one’s days (see v. 9) probably refers to one’s most productive years in the prime of life. The words translated “destruction and wickedness” are also paired in Ps 10:7. They also appear in proximity in Pss 7:14 and 55:10. The oppressive and abusive actions of evil men are probably in view (see Job 4:8; 5:6; 15:35; Isa 10:1; 59:4).
6 tn or “for.”
7 tn Heb “it passes quickly.” The subject of the verb is probably “their pride” (see the preceding line). The verb גּוּז (guz) means “to pass” here; it occurs only here and in Num 11:31.
8 sn We fly away. The psalmist compares life to a bird that quickly flies off (see Job 20:8).