Psalms 90:16-17: “Let thy work appear unto thy servants and they glory unto they children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

It is believed that this Psalm was written by Moses. If so he knew a few things about the glory of God.  He had asked God to reveal His glory to Him and God did. Only thing is God revealed his chasad to Moses that is, His lovingkindness. Here Moses is saying that God will reveal his hadar to his children. Hadar is beauty, majesty and splendor.

Now this gets a little confusing as God is going to reveal his works to his servants.  The word works is pa’al which is activity, deeds, what you have done.  To the servants he shows them what He has done and will do for them, but unto the children he shows his beauty.

In the next verse Moses talks about the beauty of the Lord being upon us. Here the word beauty is noam which is a word for pleasure. This, like the other words, is in a co- hortative form and thus it should be rendered as a blessing. May God do good works for his servants and may his splendor and majesty be upon their children and may the pleasure of God be upon us all.

The rest of verse 17 is a little difficult. “And establish thou the work of our hands upon us: yea the work of hands establish thou it.” The word establish is kun in its root form and has a variety of applications.  I feel the application here is success or prosperous.  Thus Moses is saying: “And make the work of our hands prosperous or successful.

Taking a very close look at the syntax of verse 17 it would appear this success or prosperity is related to the beauty or pleasure of God being upon us.  In other words: “May all our works be successful in bringing pleasure to God.” Both servants and children bring pleasure to God, but there is a difference between the two.

So God will do good deeds for his servants and his beauty will be revealed to their children so all that they do will bring pleasure to God.  I think at this point I would like to be a servant. The beauty of God is not as important as getting this good work from God.

Now that fits me just fine, because I am sure not bringing much pleasure to God with my present attitude toward my situation sitting around feeling sorry for myself and worrying about the future. I am crying out to God that I am his servant, now start doing some work in me and getting me out of my present situation.

Yet, I wonder if God is not bringing me into the state of a child. The word for servant is adad which literally means a slave, or in bondage. I am wondering if I really allowed myself to be in total bondage to God, to be a slave to God.  Moses understood this word abad he knew about slavery. He understood the slavery of God’s people in Egypt.  Your life, you existence, you next meal was all in the hands of the slave master.  You were totally dependent upon the master for everything. When the children of the Hebrew slaves left Egypt, they were free to experience the beauty and splendor of God.  They had a new slave master, one who feed them and took loving care of them. Only this new slave master was beautiful and majestic. But they were so wrapped up in getting their basic needs from this new master just as with the old Egyptian masters that they did not bother to see His majesty. In fact they told Moses, “You go in the cloud and find out what our new master wants from us and report back to us.”  I image when Moses returned from the cloud he told the people: “Our Master is so beautiful, splendid and wonderful, you gotta see it, you just gotta see it.” But the people were not interested in their new Master’s beauty, they were only concerned about their next meal.

I have been redeemed from the old slave master of sin. I have a new Master who is beautiful and splendid and who wants to show me his hadar or beauty, but I am too focused on me. I’d rather some else go into that cloud and they can tell me what he says, once I get these needs met, maybe then I will appreciate the cloud better. In a sense I am just wandering in the wilderness like the people of Israel.

Perhaps I should go into the Word of God itself to seek His hadar (His beauty) rather than his pa’al or His works.  You may notice that my studies lately have centered around the pa’al works rather than the hadar his beauty and splendor. Well, that is about to change, next week I leave for a ten day silent retreat where I will live alone in a cabin in the Catskills doing absolutely nothing but meditating on God.  I plan from moving to being a servant of God into the role of being His child, I plan to not meditate on His pa’al the works I want Him to perform in my life and to finally enter that cloud myself and meditate on His hadar, his beauty and splendor.  I specifically choose the Catskills so I can use that time to move beyond being an abad his slave who just looks to the master for his daily needs and trust that is taken care of and begin being just His child and to enjoy the beauty of His creation, to surround myself with nothing but His hadar His beauty and splendor.

The people of Israel left Egyptian slavery to become an abad or slave of God. It appears their wilderness journey ended when the moved from being an abad to a child of God. From just depending upon God for their every need, focusing on all their needs to entering the Promised Land where they could enjoy just being a child of God and enjoying His beauty and splendor.

Perhaps in going to the wilderness I will finally leave my own wilderness.