¶You turn mortals back into dust And say, “Return, you sons of mankind.”
Parallel translations
- WEB You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”
- KJV Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men.
- BSB You return man to dust, saying, “Return, O sons of mortals.”
- NKJV You turn man to destruction, And say, “Return, O children of men.”
- NLT You turn people back to dust, saying, “Return to dust, you mortals!”
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
God sovereignly returns mortals to dust at His word, underscoring human frailty.
Overview
Echoing Genesis 3:19, God commands humanity back to the dust from which it came. Death is under God's sovereign appointment, marking the limit of human life. This sober reality magnifies the grace of God, who in Christ reverses the sentence of death through resurrection (1 Cor. 15:21-22).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Eccl 12:7and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
- Gen 3:19By the sweat of your face will you eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
- Ps 104:29You hide your face: they are troubled; you take away their breath: they die, and return to the dust.
- Job 34:14–15If he set his heart on himself, If he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath,
- Ps 146:4His spirit departs, and he returns to the earth. In that very day, his thoughts perish.
- Num 14:35I, Yahweh, have spoken. I will surely do this to all this evil congregation, who are gathered together against me. In this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die.”
- Job 12:10in whose hand is the life of every living thing, and the breath of all mankind?
- Gen 6:6–7Yahweh was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him in his heart.
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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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 90:3 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.