10. The days of our years are threescore years and ten. It is nothing when contrasted with eternity. Yet is life long enough
for virtue and piety, and all too long for vice and blasphemy. Moses here in
the original writes in a disconnected manner, as if he would set forth the
utter insignificance of hurried human existence. His words may be rendered, “The days of our years! In them seventy years”; as much as to say, “The days
of our years? What about them? Are they worth mentioning? The account is
utterly insignificant; their full tale is but seventy.” And if by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their strength labor and sorrow. The strength of old age, its very prime and
pride, is a weariness and sorrow; what must its weakness be? Yet mellowed by
hallowed experience, and solaced by immortal hopes, the latter days of aged
Christians are not so much to be pitied as envied. The mortal fades to make
room for the immortal; the old man falls asleep to wake up in the region of
perennial youth. For it is soon cut off, and we fly away. The chain is
snapped, and the eagle mounts to its native air above the clouds. Moses mourned
for people as he thus sang; and well he might, as all his comrades fell at his
side. His words are more nearly rendered, “He drives us fast and we fly away.” As the quails were blown along by the strong west wind, so are people
hurried before the tempests of death. To us, however, as believers, the winds
are favorable. Who wishes it otherwise? Wherefore should we linger here? What
has this poor world to offer us that we should tarry on its shores? This is not
our rest. Let the Lord’s winds drive fast if so he ordains, for they waft us
the more swiftly to himself.
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