Domine, refugium.
A prayer for the mercy of God: recounting the shortness and miseries of
the days of man.
89:1. A prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our refuge
from generation to generation.
89:2. Before the mountains were made, or the earth and the world was
formed; from eternity and to eternity thou art God.
89:3. Turn not man away to be brought low: and thou hast said: Be
converted, O ye sons of men.
Turn not man away, etc... Suffer him not quite to perish from thee,
since thou art pleased to call upon him to be converted to thee.
89:4. For a thousand years in thy sight are as yesterday, which is past.
And as a watch in the night,
89:5. Things that are counted nothing, shall their years be.
89:6. In the morning man shall grow up like grass; in the morning he
shall flourish and pass away: in the evening he shall fall, grow dry,
and wither.
89:7. For in thy wrath we have fainted away: and are troubled in thy
indignation.
89:8. Thou hast set our iniquities before thy eyes: our life in the
light of thy countenance.
89:9. For all our days are spent; and in thy wrath we have fainted away.
Our years shall be considered as a spider:
As a spider... As frail and weak as a spider's web; and miserable
withal, whilst like a spider we spend our bowels in weaving webs to
catch flies.
89:10. The days of our years in them are threescore and ten years. But
if in the strong they be fourscore years: and what is more of them is
labour and sorrow. For mildness is come upon us: and we shall be
corrected.
Mildness is come upon us, etc... God's mildness corrects us; inasmuch as
he deals kindly with us, in shortening the days of this miserable life;
and so weaning our affections from all its transitory enjoyments, and
teaching us true wisdom.