Psalm 90 — The eternal God and our numbered days — Hebrew and Greek compared
Disparate in this chapter: 90:3, 90:5, 90:8, 90:9, 90:10, 90:12, 90:16
Each card keeps the independently rendered source readings above their shared comparison and reception notes. The badge records the source’s governing classification; disparate readings are marked in red. Each reading retains its original reference.
Psalm 90 — The eternal God and our numbered days
Verse 90:1 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:1] A prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, You have been our dwelling place through every generation.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:1] A prayer of Moses, the man of God.
Lord, You became our refuge through every generation.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew dwelling place becomes Greek refuge; both titles identify Moses as the man of God. Hebrew uses Lord as a title here rather than the divine name YHWH.
Verse 90:2 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:2] Before the mountains were born,
and You brought forth earth and the world,
from everlasting to everlasting You are God.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:2] Before the mountains came to be
and the earth and inhabited world were formed,
from age to age You are.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Hebrew explicitly says God at the end; Greek does not. Hebrew divine bringing forth and mountain birth become passive formation and coming to be in Greek. Saints reception: Augustine, Exposition on Psalm90 §3, understands the present You are as divine immutability, distinct from creatures coming into existence. This is his theological reading, not an additional Greek word. [AUG-PS90-ROOT]
Verse 90:3 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:3] You turn mortals back to crushing,
and say, Return, children of humankind.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:3] Do not turn a human toward humiliation;
and You said, Return, children of humankind.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew affirmatively describes divine turning back; Greek instead petitions that it not happen. Hebrew crushing is kept rather than silently inserting dust; Greek specifies humiliation. Rabbinic reception: Rashi reads the crushing as affliction that weakens a person near death and calls for repentance. [RASHI-PS90-ROOT] Saints reception: Augustine §4 reads the negative petition as protection from attachment to temporal things and relates it to the prayer against temptation. These interpretations follow the different affirmative and negative bases. [AUG-PS90-ROOT]
Verse 90:4 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:4] For a thousand years in Your eyes
are like yesterday when it passes,
like a watch in the night.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:4] For a thousand years in Your eyes
are like yesterday, which passed,
and a watch in the night.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: The thousand-year comparison and night watch agree. Neither text presents a formula for converting prophetic days into calendar dates.
Verse 90:5 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:5] You sweep them away; they become a sleep.
In the morning, like grass, it springs up.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:5] Their things counted as nothing will be years.
In the morning, like green grass, may it pass away;
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew sweeping and sleep differ sharply from the difficult Greek nothingness-and-years clause. Greek wording is preserved provisionally with its precise semantic relationship of subject and predicate unresolved; no sleep is supplied to Greek. Hebrew springing up and Greek passing away differ. The shifts between plural and singular remain visible.
Verse 90:6 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:6] In the morning it blossoms and springs up;
by evening it is cut down and dries up.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:6] in the morning may it blossom and pass away;
in the evening may it fall, grow hard and dry up.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Greek adds falling and hardening alongside drying; Hebrew has being cut down. Greek optative forms remain wishes or possibilities rather than being silently replaced by ordinary indicative narration.
Verse 90:7 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:7] For we are consumed by Your anger,
and terrified by Your wrath.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:7] For we failed in Your anger
and were troubled in Your wrath.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both describe a community overcome by divine anger; consumed or failing and terror or disturbance retain source nuance.
Verse 90:8 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:8] You have set our iniquities before You,
our hidden things in the light of Your face.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:8] You set our lawless deeds before You;
our age is in the illumination of Your face.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew hidden things becomes Greek our age. The Greek second clause is nominal; neither secrets nor sins is inserted as its subject.
Verse 90:9 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:9] For all our days pass away under Your fury;
we finish our years like a sigh.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:9] For all our days failed,
and in Your anger we failed;
I pondered our years like a spider.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew sigh or murmur becomes Greek spider, without an explicit web noun. Greek introduces an additional we-failed clause and a difficult final verb that can be first-singular or third-plural; I pondered is provisional, with they pondered a grammatical alternative. No Hebrew-like we finish is substituted.
Verse 90:10 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:10] The days of our years are seventy years,
or, with strength, eighty years;
their pride is toil and trouble,
for it passes swiftly, and we fly away.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:10] The days of our years—in them are seventy years,
or, with strength, eighty years;
the greater part of them is toil and pain,
for gentleness came upon us, and we shall be disciplined.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: The ages agree, but Hebrew swift passing and flight become Greek gentleness and discipline. Hebrew their pride or best part and Greek the greater part differ. The Greek concluding clause is retained even where its connection seems unexpected.
Verse 90:11 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:11] Who knows the strength of Your anger,
and Your fury according to the fear due You?
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:11] Who knows the might of Your anger,
and Your wrath from the fear of You?
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew according to and Greek from differ in the relation of fear to wrath. The elliptical clauses are not expanded into an unprinted theory of punishment.
Verse 90:12 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:12] So teach us to number our days,
that we may bring in a heart of wisdom.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:12] So make known how to number Your right hand,
and those bound in heart in wisdom.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew our days becomes Greek Your right hand; Hebrew bringing a wise heart becomes Greek those bound in heart. Greek coordination and infinitive attachment are difficult and remain provisional; neither days nor teach us is silently restored into that column. Saints reception: Augustine §§12–13 interprets the right hand as Christ or divine separation of the saints, and the bound heart through wisdom’s chains; he also reports an instructed/bound variant. That report is reception evidence, not our independent manuscript collation. [AUG-PS90-ROOT]
Verse 90:13 Similar
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:13] Return, YHWH—how long?
Relent concerning Your servants.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:13] Return, Lord—how long?
Be moved concerning Your servants.
Classification & Notes
Similar. Text: Both plead for divine return and a changed response to servants. Greek parakletheti may express being entreated or comforted; be moved preserves the appeal without claiming a single settled emotional nuance.
Verse 90:14 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:14] Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love,
that we may sing joyfully and rejoice all our days.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:14] We were filled in the morning with Your mercy,
and we exulted and rejoiced all our days.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Hebrew petition with its desired result becomes Greek completed experience. The distinction is retained instead of making both columns requests.
Verse 90:15 Different
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:15] Make us glad according to the days You afflicted us,
the years when we saw evil.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:15] We were glad in return for the days You humbled us,
the years when we saw evils.
Classification & Notes
Different. Text: Again Hebrew petitions while Greek recounts gladness. According to becomes in exchange for, with Hebrew evil collective and Greek evils plural.
Verse 90:16 Disparate
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:16] Let Your work appear to Your servants,
and Your splendor upon their children.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:16] Look upon Your servants and Your works,
and guide their children.
Classification & Notes
Disparate. Text: Hebrew asks for manifestation of divine work and splendor; Greek asks God to look on servants and works and guide the children. The different objects and second action are not harmonized.
Verse 90:17 Divergent
Hebrew–English: Literal-Smooth (Rabbinic Priority)
[90:17] Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.
Greek–English: Literal-Smooth (Saints Priority)
[89:17] Let the splendor of the Lord our God be upon us,
and direct the works of our hands for us.
Classification & Notes
Divergent. Text: Hebrew repeats the final work-of-hands petition, absent in Greek. Favor or pleasantness becomes splendor, and establishing becomes directing. The repeated Hebrew line is retained in full.