Matthew Poole and continuators on Psalms 90:5

5 Thou carriest them away as with a floud , they are as a sleep : in the morning they are like grass which groweth up .

i. e. Mankind, of whom he spake, v. 3.

Unexpectedly, violently and irresistibly, universally, without exception or distinction.

Short and vain, as sleep is, and not minded till it be past. Or, like a Dream when a man sleepeth, wherein there may be some real pleasure, but never any satisfaction, or some real trouble, but very inconsiderable, and seldom or never pernicious. Even such an idle and insignificant thing is humane life considered in it self without respect to a future state, in which there is but a meer shadow or dream of felicity, onely the calamities attending upon it are more real and weighty.

Heb. which is changed, either first for the worse, which passeth away, as some render the word. Which having generally affirmed here, he may seem more particularly to explain in the next Verse. Or rather secondly for the better, as this word is sometimes used, as Iob 14. 7. Isa. 40. 31. which sprouteth out of the Earth and groweth more apparent and green and flourishing. And this interpretation is confirmed from the next Verse, where this same word is used in this sence, where also the morning is again mentioned, and that as the time not of its decay, but of its flourishing.

Marginal references: Psal. 73. 20.; Psal. 103. 15.; Or, is changed.