For in Your sight a thousand years are but a day that passes, or a watch of the night.
Parallel translations
- WEB For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night.
- KJV For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.
- NKJV For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it is past, And like a watch in the night.
- NASB For a thousand years in Your sight Are like yesterday when it passes by, Or like a watch in the night.
- NLT For you, a thousand years are as a passing day, as brief as a few night hours.
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
To God a thousand years pass like a single day; His perspective on time is utterly unlike ours.
Overview
God's eternity dwarfs human reckoning: vast spans are to Him like yesterday or a brief night-watch. This frames human brevity against divine timelessness. Peter applies this verse to God's patience and the timing of Christ's return (2 Pet. 3:8-9), assuring believers that God is never slow.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 7
- 2 Pet 3:8Beloved, do not let this one thing escape your notice: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.
- Ps 39:5You, indeed, have made my days as handbreadths, and my lifetime as nothing before You. Truly each man at his best exists as but a breath. Selah
- Matt 24:43But understand this: If the homeowner had known in which watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.
- Luke 12:38Even if he comes in the second or third watch of the night and finds them alert, those servants will be blessed.
- Matt 14:25During the fourth watch of the night, Jesus went out to them, walking on the sea.
- Exod 14:24At morning watch, however, the LORD looked down on the army of the Egyptians from the pillar of fire and cloud, and He threw their camp into confusion.
- Judg 7:19Gideon and the hundred men with him reached the outskirts of the camp at the beginning of the middle watch, just after the changing of the guard. They blew their horns and broke the jars that were in their hands.
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 90:4 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.