Introduction: A Psalm of Prayer of Moses, the Man of God
This psalm is the prayer of Moshe Rabbeinu, in which he contemplates the brevity of human life and the passage of time. After opening with the realization that the Holy One, blessed be He, is the eternal dwelling place of souls - from Him we come and to Him we return - and after stating, "You bring man to dust, and You say, 'Return, O sons of men,'" the psalm continues by depicting just how fleeting, temporary, and transient human life in this world is. From here on, we will proceed verse by verse.
"Like Yesterday as It Passes" - Even a Thousand Years Pass in a Flash
כִּי אֶלֶף שָׁנִים בְּעֵינֶיךָ כְּיוֹם אֶתְמוֹל כִּי יַעֲבֹר וְאַשְׁמוּרָה בַלָּיְלָה׃ - For a thousand years in Your eyes are like yesterday as it passes, and like a watch in the night.
The Radak cites the words of Chazal in their plain meaning: The Holy One, blessed be He, says to man - do you think you still have many years ahead of you? Even if you live a thousand years, it will all seem in your eyes "like yesterday as it passes," for in the end you must die. What, then, do you have to be proud of in your life?
Proof of this can be seen from Adam HaRishon. Initially, he gifted seventy of his years to King David, but when he reached those final seventy years, he regretted it. Yet there are no refunds; it is not like PayPal where one can request a return. The opportunity was given and is gone. And see the remarkable point here: he lived nearly a thousand years, and he still missed those seventy years. Do you think that living longer will satisfy you? Look, even someone who lives a thousand years feels in the end that it was "like yesterday as it passes" - it flew by in an instant.
Ask elderly people and they will tell you how quickly life passes. The young, in contrast, feel that their whole life still lies ahead of them. An interesting study once found that for young people, time subjectively passes much slower: everything takes so long, until finishing sixth grade, until finishing seventh grade. For an adult, on the other hand - is it Thursday already? A year passed and I didn't even notice. What does this depend on? On how one fills the time. When one's time is full, it flies; when one's time is empty - "Two more hours? Wow." The same is true of an avrech in kollel: if he uses his time well, he suddenly looks up and cannot believe it is already Mincha; but if he sits and yawns - "It's only eleven o'clock, there are still two hours left." The more you utilize time, the less it feels dragged out. And this is the human condition: even someone who lives a thousand years will ultimately say, "I didn't feel it; it passed like a watch in the night."
A Day of the Holy One, Blessed Be He, Is a Thousand Years
There is a well-known exposition of Chazal on this verse: A day of the Holy One, blessed be He, is a thousand years. That is to say, when a thousand years pass, for Him it is only one day. From here the Gemara explains: when the Holy One, blessed be He, says He will do something "speedily" (meherah) - how fast is "speedily"? Eight hundred and fifty years. Where do we learn this? It says, "and you shall perish speedily from off the good land," and within eight hundred and fifty years they were exiled. Think about it: if a person tells you, "Don't worry, it will happen today" - that is precisely what the Holy One, blessed be He, is saying when He does it within eight hundred and fifty years, for with Him, a single day is a thousand years.
This offers a profound moral lesson for anyone who sees the wicked and sinful prospering and celebrating, while sometimes it is the tzaddik who suffers. All of this questioning stems from a lack of patience, because one assumes that the Holy One, blessed be He, operates according to our clock. Hashem has a different clock, and He has all the time in the world. What appears right now as a celebration - wait a little while and see who celebrates last.
How many years have passed since Ukraine shed our blood with unspeakable cruelty? Rabbi Lau describes in his book the deeds of the Nazis in Ukraine, noting that the Ukrainians possessed an eagerness, enthusiasm, and lust to slaughter Jews that surpassed even that of the Nazis - it is unbelievable. And how much time passed until "O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be that takes and dashes your little ones against the rock"? Seventy-four years. There is no need to be anxious: the Holy One, blessed be He, will exact retribution from everyone in due time. Russia will also pay its price, Syria is paying its price, and all those who harm us will ultimately pay a price.
The Russians will receive their due for seventy years of eradicating Judaism, of persecution and oppression. How did immigrants from Russia arrive here devoid of any Jewish knowledge? Through the highly systematic persecution of Judaism by the KGB, and before it the NKVD. The Lubavitcher Rebbe spent a long period in prison, and more. Does one imagine that Hashem will not exact retribution from them? One explanation of the identity of "Tiras" is that it refers to Russia; some say Turkey, and some say Persia, but all mention Russia as part of the War of Gog and Magog. And this does not refer to contemporary books looking at who our present enemies are, but to works from a century or two centuries ago, which identify these nations in our era and state that Russia will fight against us, come here, and fall. The Vilna Gaon also said: When the Russians cross the Dardanelles Straits, put on your Yom Tov clothes, for Mashiach is at the doorstep.
Rashi's Commentary: A Day Plus a Watch
Rashi offers a very interesting explanation here. According to the Radak, the meaning is that a thousand years pass quickly, like a day or like a watch in the night (as the night is divided into three or four watches). But Rashi explains that a thousand years in the eyes of the Holy One, Blessed be He, are not merely a single day, but a day plus a watch of the night.
According to this, the decree pronounced upon Adam HaRishon is wonderfully resolved: "For on the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Seemingly, if a day of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is a thousand years, why was he not taken in year 999, which would still have been within that same day? Why was he taken at the age of nine hundred and thirty? While according to the Midrash of Chazal the answer is the seventy years he gifted to David, Rashi provides another approach: a day of the Holy One, Blessed be He, is not a full thousand years, but less, for a thousand years equal a day plus a watch. It is therefore possible that God's day is nine hundred and thirty years, and those remaining seventy years constitute the watch of the night. Thus, Adam was taken a moment before completing the day, before the night watch had even begun - dying literally "on the day that you eat of it." Had he lived to nine hundred and thirty-five, the day would have already ended and the watch begun. Rashi does not state this definitively, but phrases it cautiously: "And perhaps the duration of that watch corresponds to the time from the death of Adam HaRishon until a thousand years." A similar Midrash is also cited: "'For on the day you eat of it you shall surely die' - he lived nine hundred and thirty years, which means that a thousand years amount to a full day and a small portion of the night with it."
The Malbim's Explanation of the Verse
The Malbim explains this based on what was said earlier, "Return, O sons of men" - that man transitions from spiritual existence into this world, and from this world into the World to Come. And so You, Master of the Universe, say to man: The thousand years you lived here seem to you like yesterday when it is passed, and like a watch in the night. Now the verse elaborates on both of these metaphors.
זְרַמְתָּם שֵׁנָה יִהְיוּ בַּבֹּקֶר כֶּחָצִיר יַחֲלֹף׃ - You carry them away as a flood, they are like sleep; in the morning, like grass that passes away.
"You carry them away as a flood" corresponds to "like yesterday when it is passed." The Malbim explains that the rush of time is like the rush of a stream of water, like an ocean wave - called in the language of the ancients a shibolet, not meaning ears of grain, but a whirlpool or rush of water, a wave. And just as each wave washes over the one before it, wave chasing wave, so it is with every moment of time: minute chases minute, hour chases hour, day chases day. Therefore, it makes no difference whether the past was one day or a thousand years, for the past no longer exists; each moment erases its predecessor and creates a new moment, while the previous moment is gone and vanished from reality.
And corresponding to "and a watch in the night," it says, "they are like sleep." At night, a person performs no actions; he sleeps and rests. The state of rest is static, and he is inactive during sleep. (This refers, of course, to someone who is genuinely resting; some people thrash about as if boxing in their sleep. In time-lapse recordings of someone sleeping for six hours played back in just a few seconds, one can hardly believe how many movements a person makes.) Yet in essence, a sleeping person accomplishes nothing. Someone once asked Napoleon why he slept so little. He replied, "When I am asleep, I am not Napoleon." And rightly so - what is the difference between a ruler and a servant while asleep? Does he issue commands? Is he acting as king? The bed might be more comfortable, but he is not Napoleon.
How is one's stature or sovereignty expressed while asleep? Not at all. Therefore, great individuals have always minimized sleep: sleeping excessively clouds a person's intellect and clarity of mind, reducing him to the level of an animal, which also sleeps. This is the profound depth of the metaphor: all those thousand years are like sleep - "You carry them away as a flood, they are like sleep," as though one slept through them and accomplished nothing. Thus, those thousand years are considered as naught from two angles: on the one hand, they have washed away and no longer exist in reality; and on the other hand, even while they did exist, what was truly achieved during them?
The verse continues regarding this: "In the morning, like grass that passes away." Grass sprouts and withers almost immediately - it is not like a cedar tree, but here today and gone tomorrow, withering in a single instant. The Malbim adds that grass resembles a day in the manner of its reproduction as well: grass grows from a seed; the seed decays and perishes, the blade of grass forms, withers, and leaves seeds at its top; those seeds scatter, and new grass sprouts. Such is human life: day begets day, moment begets moment, and the preceding one is gone. It all demonstrates just how temporary and fleeting man's existence in this world truly is.
The Radak explains why Scripture specifically compared it to grass - to hint that sometimes a person dies while still in the days of his youth. Just as grass is moist today and withered tomorrow, like Jonah's gourd, so too there are individuals who pass away in their youth, like fleeting grass.
בַּבֹּקֶר יָצִיץ וְחָלָף לָעֶרֶב יְמוֹלֵל וְיָבֵשׁ׃ - In the morning it blossoms and passes away; by evening it is cut down and withers.
Radak explains ve-chalaf as an expression of cutting off, as in "they renew (yachalifu) their strength" - passing away and renewing. "In the morning it flourishes" refers to the days of youth, when a person is tranquil and serene; "by evening it is cut down and withers" refers to old age. It is like grass that still holds moisture in the morning, but by evening, having dried out in the heat of the sun, crumbles at the slightest touch; this is "it is cut down and withers" - so parched that it can be rubbed and crumbled.
Yemolel is an expression of excision and cutting down. Where do we see this? "Behold, I make [literally, cut] a covenant," and indeed circumcision is called bris milah because one cuts off the foreskin. Likewise, "in the Name of Hashem, I will cut them off (amilem)"; just as a mohel cuts, so will I cut down the hostile nations. Thus, yemolel means to rub something away and cut it down.
The Malbim explains that they are compared to morning itself: the morning emerges, appears into reality, and immediately passes away. So too with the plant - in the morning it merely sprouts and blossoms temporarily, and by evening it is cut down and withered.
Rav Mazuz offers an insightful explanation here: ve-chalaf is not an expression of being cut down as Radak interprets, but rather one of sprouting and growth. This smoothly aligns the verse's wording - "in the morning it blossoms and sprouts": in the morning it blooms and grows, and only "by evening it is cut down and withers," when night falls it is crumbled and cut down. And how do we know that chalaf denotes growth? From the Gemara which says "kadchu bei chilfei," meaning that weeds sprouted over them; and in Arabic, aftergrowth is called khalif. Metzudat David explains it this way as well, as does the verse in Iyov, "though it be cut down, it will sprout anew (ve'od yachalif)," and he also brings support from Targum Yonatan.
The Two Roots of Life's Brevity
כִּי כָלִינוּ בְאַפֶּךָ וּבַחֲמָתְךָ נִבְהָלְנוּ׃ - For we are consumed by Your anger, and by Your wrath we are terrified.
Radak explains that here he speaks of the exile: all mankind is vanity, even those who lived in tranquility - the days pass, man does not remain, and no one leaves a lasting imprint. How much more so is this true for us in exile, where "we are consumed by Your anger" - You grew angry with us for our sins, "and by Your wrath we are terrified" - the wrath brought upon us by our iniquities has thrown us into terror; all the more so are our days short and our existence fleeting.
The Malbim explains: having established that Hashem is the eternal dwelling place of souls - from Him we come and to Him we return - the psalmist now laments the brevity of human life, that man does not have enough time during his fleeting days to accomplish what he must. Two factors cause this brevity: first, individual punishment - man has sinned, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, shortens his days and takes him before his time. Second, collective decree - not due to personal sin, but because death was decreed upon the human race as a whole, and you too are human; this is what is known as dying "through the counsel of the primordial serpent." He laments over both of these. Against the individual punishment, he says "we are consumed by Your anger" - Hashem's wrath burns against us for the corrupted deeds we committed individually.
And what is the difference between af (anger) and cheimah (wrath)? The Malbim explains in many places that af is manifest fury, whereas cheimah is inward, seething in the heart. We find this with Achashverosh: at first he was angry, and then "his wrath burned within him" - and the term "burned" always indicates an internal fire. By contrast, "smoke rose in His nostril" shows that outward anger is visible in the nostrils, as the nose reddens and flares. Thus, in addition to "we are consumed by Your anger," which refers to manifest anger directed against us, he adds "and by Your wrath we are terrified" - the concealed wrath that has not yet even broken forth into action.
שַׁתָּ עֲוֺנֹתֵינוּ לְנֶגְדֶּךָ עֲלֻמֵנוּ לִמְאוֹר פָּנֶיךָ׃ - You have set our iniquities before You, our secret sins in the light of Your countenance.
On a simple level, "You have set our iniquities before You" means that our sins stand opposite You, and similarly "our secrets in the light of Your countenance" means they stand before the light of Hashem's face. Rashi explains alumeinu as the sins of our youth, what we committed while an elem (youth). Radak explains alumeinu from the root of ne'elam (hidden) - our concealed sins. Incidentally, why is an adolescent boy called an elem? Because he is at a stage where he conceals everything: you do not know when he came in, when he left, where he was, or with whom he spoke; and sometimes things around the house start disappearing too. In short, he conceals his actions and remains obscure. On a deeper level, it is because his potential has not yet emerged into actuality; his powers are still held in reserve, and thus he is in a state of hiddenness.
Yet the Malbim explains le-negdecha ("before You") not merely in the sense of standing opposite You, but that the severity of a sin is measured relative to the One against Whom it was committed. Disobeying a low-level clerk is not comparable to disobeying a government minister, and disobeying a minister is not comparable to disobeying the king; the higher someone stands in the hierarchy, the more severe the infraction. This is the meaning of "You have set our iniquities before You" - You calculate the gravity of the sin according to the boundless greatness of the One sinned against. And since Hashem is infinite and without limit, it follows that an unimaginably severe punishment is warranted for sinning against the Creator, blessed be He.
And corresponding to "and in Your wrath we are terrified," it says "our youthful sins to the light of Your countenance": even the sins of youth, which we have already managed to forget, are also before Your face. With us there is forgetfulness, but with the Holy One, blessed be He, there is no forgetfulness, and everything is always revealed and visible before Him. Nothing is erased on its own - erasure comes only through teshuvah.
And here is an important distinction: when we are told to emulate the attributes of the Holy One, blessed be He, this does not refer to the attributes through which He exacts retribution. For if so, you might say: Hashem is a zealous God, and it is written, "The Lord is a God of vengeance" - so I too will take vengeance and bear a grudge. Rather, this was said regarding merciful, gracious, and slow to anger. Regarding sins, however, the opposite is true: whoever says that the Holy One, blessed be He, waives justice - his innards will be surrendered; rather, the Holy One, blessed be He, is patient and collects His due. And there is an escape route through teshuvah, but one should never think, "This happened long ago, there is a statute of limitations."
We have already mentioned regarding "for You remember all forgotten things," as written in the holy books: the Holy One, blessed be He, remembers what is forgotten and forgets what is remembered. How so? If we have an iniquity and we have managed to forget it, Hashem will remember it against us, for the very forgetting shows our flaw, that one committed sins and acted as if they were forgotten. But if we remember the sin - "and my sin is ever before me" - that the Holy One, blessed be He, forgets and forgives. Thus, if we remember, Hashem will forget for us; and if we forget, He will remind us. And this is what is stated here: there is still hidden wrath over the sins of youth, for our sins are still in the light of Hashem's countenance, and these matters still require atonement and rectification.
Rav Mazuz also explains "our hidden sins to the light of Your countenance" along these lines: just as "You have set our iniquities before You" - sin is measured according to the One against Whom you rebelled, and Hashem is boundless, so the sin is immensely great - so too "our hidden sins to the light of Your countenance": the iniquities that are hidden and concealed from our eyes are scrutinized in the light of Your countenance. When searching for something in the dark you cannot find it, but under powerful floodlights you see even a speck of dust. Look on a sunny day when a ray of sunlight enters through the window - you see a beam of dust particles floating in the air. The dust exists right now as well, but there is no spotlight shining upon it. In this way, sins are examined in the spotlight of the Holy One, blessed be He, and the examination is infinitely minute. Do not think that the examination is according to our perspective - "it's not so bad, I didn't mean it that way, it wasn't like that"; all these explanations can be offered here, but before the Holy One, blessed be He, everything is revealed to the light of His countenance, and He sees things in all their dimensions with the most exacting precision.
"We have consumed our years like a fleeting utterance"
כִּי כָל יָמֵינוּ פָּנוּ בְעֶבְרָתֶךָ כִּלִּינוּ שָׁנֵינוּ כְמוֹ הֶגֶה׃ - For all our days have declined in Your wrath; we have consumed our years like a fleeting utterance.
Radak explains: throughout all our days there were no good days; they all turned and passed away in Your wrath (evratecha) - an expression of anger. And "like an utterance" (kemo hegeh), Rashi explains, is like speech that quickly dissipates; this is not a steering wheel of a car, but from the word hagayah, an utterance that a person articulates. Just as speech leaves the mouth and vanishes immediately, so our years vanished in a single instant. And note the precision: the verse does not say "our years ended" (kalu), but "we consumed our years" (kileenu) - as if we ourselves rapidly bring about the end of our years through our sins.
The Malbim explains that this verse addresses the second root - the natural mortality decreed upon mankind due to the sin of Adam Harishon. What is evrah? The Malbim explains in several places that there is a distinction between ka'as (anger) and evrah: ka'as is ordinary anger, while evrah is fury that oversteps (over) what is necessary, beyond what is deserved according to strict justice. This is the meaning of "all our days have declined in Your wrath": as though the fury crossed the boundary and fell even upon those who did not sin - upon all of mankind and all generations, who did not personally commit the sin of Adam Harishon and yet are punished on account of it. And "we have consumed our years like an utterance" - not as an expression of speed as in Radak's commentary, but like an utterance and decree that the Holy One, blessed be He, uttered and decreed; just as Hashem uttered and decreed, so our years came to an end.
"Evrah" - and Yet Absolute Justice
Here, however, one must be careful not to err: Heaven forbid that one should say that the concept of evrah means the Holy One, blessed be He, punishes beyond what is deserved or strikes disproportionately. Would He "execute judgment without justice"? Certainly not. In the inner depths, everything is always precisely according to what is deserved. Here too, when we understand who Adam Harishon was, we understand why the punishment we bear on his account - dying from this world - is absolute justice: Adam Harishon was the aggregate of all souls, and all of us were contained within him. When he sinned and all the souls descended into the depths of the kelipot, it was not he alone, but we ourselves.
This is comparable to a person asking why he must pay for sins committed by "that guy" in a previous reincarnation (gilgul). It is an absurd question: that is not "someone else", that is you! Only the body was replaced, but the soul is the very same soul. So too, when we pay for the sin of Adam Harishon, it is not him, but us. What then happened? What Adam Harishon could have achieved on his own in a short time, rectifying the entire world - meaning all of us together within him - and failed to do, must now be broken down into thousands of souls. This subject is elaborated in Mishnat HaGilgulim: how this division splits initially into three branches, from them into twelve, from them into seventy, and from them into six hundred thousand; and there are no more than six hundred thousand souls of Israel, and whatever exists beyond that is sparks of those same root sources.
You learn from this that it is not a case of "he sinned and we are punished"; it is not "Tuvyah sinned and Zigud is flogged." Rather, he is us, and we are paying the price for our own actions. Why, then, does Scripture refer to this as evrah, as the punishment of the non-sinner? Because that is how it appears to an observer looking through mortal eyes: he sinned and we pay, Chavah sinned and all women suffer. But the truth is not so - they themselves were part of Chavah.
In summary:
The verses we have studied lay before us the brevity of human life and the fleeting nature of time: even a thousand years in the eyes of the Holy One, Blessed is He, are like yesterday and like a watch in the night, and according to Rashi, a day and a night watch are literally a thousand years - hence Adam HaRishon died "on the day that you eat of it." The Malbim explains that time flows like wave after wave, each moment erasing the one before it; a person who does not act during it is like a sleeper who accomplishes nothing, and like grass that sprouts in the morning and withers by evening. From here, the psalm moves to lament the two root causes of life's brevity: an individual punishment for our sins - "we are consumed by Your anger," and concealed wrath over iniquities we have already forgotten, which nevertheless stand before the light of His countenance and are examined in minute detail; and a universal punishment of death decreed upon the human race - "all our days pass away in Your wrath," which is likewise absolute justice, since all of us were included in Adam HaRishon. The message emerging from all this is twofold: to make use of every moment of the brief time granted to us, and to remember that the Holy One, Blessed is He, keeps His own clock - He will exact retribution from every evildoer when the time comes, and our avenue of escape is teshuvah, through which we remember our sins and He forgets them for our sake.