Psalm 90:4

Hebrew Bible

1 A prayer of Moses, the man of God. O Lord, you have been our protector through all generations. 2 Even before the mountains came into existence, or you brought the world into being, you were the eternal God. 3 You make mankind return to the dust, and say, “Return, O people.” 4 Yes, in your eyes a thousand years are like yesterday that quickly passes, or like one of the divisions of the nighttime. 5 You bring their lives to an end and they “fall asleep.” In the morning they are like the grass that sprouts up:

Jubilees 4:30

Pseudepigrapha

29 And at the close of the nineteenth jubilee, in the seventh week in the sixth year [930 A.M.] thereof, Adam died, and all his sons buried him in the land of his creation, and he was the first to be buried in the earth. 30 And he lacked seventy years of one thousand years; for one thousand years are as one day in the testimony of the heavens and therefore was it written concerning the tree of knowledge: 'On the day that ye eat thereof ye shall die.' For this reason he did not complete the years of this day; for he died during it.

 Notes and References

"... This verse addresses an exegetical problem in Gen 2:17. According to that verse, God commanded the man not to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and threatened him “for on the day you eat from it you shall surely die.” Soon after, the snake promised the man and the woman that they would not die if they ate from the fruits of the Garden, and accused God of deception ... Jubilees 4:30 solves this problem by a reinterpretation of the word “day” in Gen 2:17, “for on the day you eat from it you shall surely die,” not as 24 hours, but rather as a 1000-year period. The first man, who died at the age of 930 (Gen 5:5), therefore did indeed die on the same “day” on which he ate, during the same 1000-year period. The identification of “one day” with “1000 years” is based upon Ps 90:4, which equates the two “in the eyes of God” ..."

Segal, Michael The Book of Jubilees: Rewritten Bible, Redaction, Ideology and Theology (pp. 310-311) Brill, 2007

 User Comments

Do you have questions or comments about these texts? Please submit them here.