¶Do return, Lord; how long will it be? And be sorry for Your servants.
Parallel translations
- WEB Relent, Yahweh! How long? Have compassion on your servants!
- KJV Return, O LORD, how long? and let it repent thee concerning thy servants.
- BSB Return, O LORD! How long will it be? Have compassion on Your servants.
- NKJV Return, O Lord! How long? And have compassion on Your servants.
- NLT O Lord, come back to us! How long will you delay? Take pity on your servants!
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
Moses pleads for God to turn from His anger and show compassion to His servants.
Overview
The psalm shifts from sober reflection to earnest petition: "Relent, how long?" Moses appeals to God's mercy to replace wrath with compassion. This cry for God to relent is answered in the gospel, where mercy triumphs through Christ's atoning work (Titus 3:5).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 16
- Deut 32:36For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants, when he sees that their power is gone; that there is no one remaining, shut up or left at large.
- Ps 106:45He remembered for them his covenant, and repented according to the multitude of his loving kindnesses.
- Ps 135:14For Yahweh will judge his people, and have compassion on his servants.
- Ps 80:14Turn again, we beg you, God of Armies. Look down from heaven, and see, and visit this vine,
- Amos 7:3Yahweh relented concerning this. “It shall not be,” says Yahweh.
- Hos 11:8“How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I make you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within me, my compassion is aroused.
- Jonah 3:9Who knows whether God will not turn and relent, and turn away from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”
- Joel 2:13–14Tear your heart, and not your garments, and turn to Yahweh, your God; for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness, and relents from sending calamity.
- Ps 89:46How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?
- Amos 7:6Yahweh relented concerning this. “This also shall not be,” says the Lord Yahweh.
- Ps 74:10How long, God, shall the adversary reproach? Shall the enemy blaspheme your name forever?
- Ps 6:3–4My soul is also in great anguish. But you, Yahweh — how long?
- Exod 32:12Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, ‘He brought them out for evil, to kill them in the mountains, and to consume them from the surface of the earth?’ Turn from your fierce wrath, and repent of this evil against your people.
- Exod 32:14Yahweh repented of the evil which he said he would do to his people.
- Jer 12:15It shall happen, after that I have plucked them up, I will return and have compassion on them; and I will bring them again, every man to his heritage, and every man to his land.
- Zech 1:16Therefore Yahweh says: “I have returned to Jerusalem with mercy. My house shall be built in it,” says Yahweh of Armies, “and a line shall be stretched out over Jerusalem.”’
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 90:13 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.