Psalms 90:6
BeginnerPsalms 90:6 · World English Bible (WEB)
“In the morning it sprouts and springs up. By evening, it is withered and dry.”
Tip: highlight any word or phrase above to go deeper on exactly that.
Overview
The brevity and frailty of human life before the eternal God.
Psalm 90:6 pictures human life like grass that looks fresh in the morning but is gone by evening. The verse is not merely saying life is short; it is showing how quickly strength, beauty, and earthly permanence can vanish under God’s sovereign hand.
What Makes This Verse Confusing?
The “morning” and “evening” are not meant as a literal one-day lifespan. They compress the whole course of human flourishing into a single day to emphasize suddenness: what appears strong and alive can be brought low almost immediately.
The verse does not explicitly state that the day is figurative, and the image moves quickly from sprouting to withering without explaining the comparison to human life except through the surrounding psalm.
This keeps the verse from being read as a general nature observation. Moses is teaching holy humility: before the everlasting God, human life is startlingly fragile.
Symbols & Metaphors
grass
Human life in its visible strength, beauty, and temporary flourishing.
Scripture often uses grass and flowers to describe the short-lived glory of man, as in Job 14:2 and James 1:11.
The image humbles human pride without denying God’s goodness in giving life. Grass truly grows, sprouts, and has beauty — but it cannot make itself permanent. So man is real, valuable, and God-given, yet utterly dependent on the eternal Lord.
Original Language
to circumcise — 1) to circumcise, let oneself be circumcised, cut, be cut off 1a) (Qal) to circumcise 1b) (Niphal) to be circumcised, circumcise oneself 1c) (Hiphil) to cause to be circumcised 1c1) of destruction (fig.) 1d) (Hithpolel) to be cut off 1e) (Polel) cut down
This word can carry the sense of being cut down or made to wither. That adds sharpness to the evening image: the grass does not merely fade in a slow, natural way; its flourishing is brought to an abrupt end.
Lexicon & word tagging: STEP Bible (Tyndale House, STEPBible.org, CC BY 4.0)
Related Passages
Job 14:2
parallelJob also compares man to a flower that comes forth and withers.
Psalms 92:7
BackgroundJames 1:11
parallelJames uses the same kind of image: the sun rises, the grass withers, and its flower falls.
Matthew 6:30
contrastJesus speaks of grass that is alive today and thrown into the oven tomorrow, yet says the Father clothes it.
Cross-references from the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge · openbible.info (CC-BY)
Analysis generated on October 15, 2026 · version 2.0
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