Commentary by Lee Bright, version 0.1 on
Asimov, Isaac and Palacios, Rafael (1981) Asimov's Guide to the Bible. Wings Books: NY.
The Son
Selah
Neginoth
Sheol
Cherub
Aijeleth Shahar
Acrostics
Sirion
Maschil
Abimelech
Jeduthun
The Sons of Korah
The Daughter of Tyre
Solomon
Asimov will cause some confusion here for the casual reader. It would be easy to take his commentary here as stating that the Greek term 'synagogue' is found in the Hebrew psalm. It is not. That is merely the translation of the King James Version. The Hebrew word is mō·w·‘ă·ḏê which means appointed time, place, or meeting. Synagogue might be a peripheral meaning, but of 223 occurrences of this word and its root, this is the only place it has been translated as such. So Asimov's entry on the Synagogue seems a bit premature.
Given that, why does Asimov have the psalm dated to 165 BC? Because Jerusalem was liberated and the Seleucids essentially defeated by this time. It certainly couldn't be any later than this as Psalm 74 was included in the Greek Septuagint which began translation work around 200 BC. The psalm must have been completed, generally accepted, and distributed as far as Egypt by the time the translators started on the psalms.
The Maccabean Revolt by Harry Oates - ancient.eu
Egyptian iconography strongly supports the image of Rahab representing Egypt.
A Prayer of Moses, the man of God.
The attribution of Psalm 90 to Moses refutes any idea that the days of creation are to be taken as literal 24 hour days. By the authority of Moses, Psalms 90:1-6 gives a sanctioned key for how to read the divine days, mornings and evenings of the creation account. Even if Moses is not responsible for the psalm as Asimov suggests, a community of believers accepted it on the authority of Moses and interpreted other texts by it.
Lord, You have been our dwelling place in all generations.
Before the mountains were born
Or You gave birth to the earth and the world,
Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God.
You turn man back into dust
And say, “Return, O children of men.”
For a thousand years in Your sight
Are like yesterday when it passes by,
Or as a watch in the night.
You have swept them away like a flood, they fall asleep;
In the morning they are like grass which sprouts anew.
In the morning it flourishes and sprouts anew;
Toward evening it fades and withers away.
Verse 4 (in bold) has been immensely influential, but it has often been understood with the paraphrase "with the Lord one day is like a thousand years," such as in II Peter 3:8. If taken as a simile, such phrasing is fine and captures the meaning - a prophetic or divine 'day' may take a really long time. But many throughout history have taken this as a mathematical identity - one divine day = 1000 years. For instance, one of the many rabbinic interpretations in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 97a) takes this identity:
It is taught in a baraita in accordance with the opinion of Rav Ketina: Just as the Sabbatical Year abrogates debts once in seven years, so too, the world abrogates its typical existence for one thousand years in every seven thousand years, as it is stated: “And the Lord alone shall be exalted on that day,” and it states: “A psalm, a song for the Shabbat day” (Psalms 92:1), meaning a day, i.e., one thousand years, that is entirely Shabbat. And it says in explanation of the equation between one day and one thousand years: “For a thousand years in Your eyes are but like yesterday when it is past, and like a watch in the night”
Even if "a thousand" is taken literally, the verse refutes the identity. The parallel phrases "yesterday when it passes" and "a watch in the night" say the thousand years are only referencing a small part of the evening or night. Since there are three watches in the night (Judges 7:19), taken literally there are 3000 years to one nighttime. If we are to take this proportionally with the day, which seems the literal thing to do, that makes 6000 years for a whole day!
But Psalm 90 is not to be taken literally or proportionally. It is poetry filled with metaphors, similes, and parallelism. When the verses are taken all together, the divine day of creation being referenced is a series of indeterminately long constructive periods punctuated by shorter destructive periods - long periods of light and shorter periods of darkness.
Hallelujah
Mine Anointed
Ham
Song of Degrees
The Rivers of Babylon