Psalm 90:10

Hebrew Bible

8 You are aware of our sins; you even know about our hidden sins. 9 Yes, throughout all our days we experience your raging fury; the years of our lives pass quickly, like a sigh. 10 The days of our lives add up to 70 years, or 80, if one is especially strong. But even one’s best years are marred by trouble and oppression. Yes, they pass quickly and we fly away. 11 Who can really fathom the intensity of your anger? Your raging fury causes people to fear you.

Jubilees 23:15

Pseudepigrapha

14 All of this will happen to the evil generation which makes the earth commit sin through sexual impurity, contamination, and their detestable actions. 15 Then it will be said: ‘The days of the ancients were numerous — as many as 1000 years — and good. But now the days of our lives, if a man has lived for a long time, are 70 years, and, if he is strong, 80 years.’ All are evil, and there is no peace during the days of that evil generation. 16 During that generation the children will find fault with their fathers and elders because of sin and injustice, because of what they say and the great evils that they commit, and because of their abandoning the covenant which the Lord had made between them and himself so that they should observe and perform all his commands, ordinances, and all his laws without deviating to the left or right.

 Notes and References

"... The author of Jubilees is especially fond of Abraham, Jacob and Levi. He therefore expanded their narratives. Abraham’s death at a relative short age of 175 years, however, presented a problem to the author. Compared to the long lives of the ancestors in Genesis 5 (referred to in Jubilees 23:9 and 27) the short life of Abraham does not make sense. Psalm 90:10 presented the solution to the author’s problem. In Psalm 90 the brevity of man’s life is linked to his sin and to God’s wrath. Although his jubilees scheme indicated the order of history, the author has to amend his scheme by acknowledging the effect sin has on history. Psalm 90 links sin to longevity and Abraham’s relative short live must be understood in those terms. The antediluvian ancestors mostly lived for more than 900 years according to Genesis 5. This is recalculated in Jubilees 23:9 in heptadic terms as 19 jubilees of years (931 years). The age of the generations then started to decline ..."

Venter, Pieter M Intertextuality in the Book of Jubilees (pp. 463-480) HTS Teologiese Studies, Vol. 63, No. 2, 2007

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