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Psalm 90 · a question people ask

"You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.”" (90:3). Return to what?

In the text

The verse doesn't say. In Hebrew destruction is dakka, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives for this verse as "dust (as pulverized)" (tap destruction), and turn and Return are one verb, shuv (tap Return). The same verb is in what God said to Adam (Genesis 3:17): "For you are dust, and you shall return to dust" (Genesis 3:19), where dust is another Hebrew word, afar. And the psalm uses the verb once more, the other way round, when it asks the LORD, "Relent, LORD! How long?" (Psalm 90:13). The psalm doesn't explain its Return further, and these notes don't either.

The verses

“You turn man to destruction, saying, “Return, you children of men.””
Psalm 90:3 · World English Bible
“To Adam he said, “Because you have listened to your wife’s voice, and have eaten from the tree, about which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ the ground is cursed for your sake. You will eat from it with much labor all the days of your life.”
Genesis 3:17 · World English Bible
“You will eat bread by the sweat of your face until you return to the ground, for you were taken out of it. For you are dust, and you shall return to dust.””
Genesis 3:19 · World English Bible
“Relent, LORD! How long? Have compassion on your servants!”
Psalm 90:13 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 90

Psalm 90: Teach us to count our days

Psalm 90 is the only psalm whose title names Moses, and it opens the fourth part of the book: God before the mountains, people like grass that lasts a day. The God who tells people "Return" (90:3) is asked, with the same Hebrew verb, "Relent, LORD!" (90:13), and the prayer ends asking, twice, "establish the work of our hands" (90:17).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions