The Days of Our Years

“The days of our years are threescore years and ten,

and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years,

yet is their strength labor and sorrow;

for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

Psalm 90:10

The human life span was almost a thousand years long in the generations before the Flood, but afterwards, man’s years began to decline.  Five hundred years or so after the Flood, Abraham died at 175 years; a thousand years later, David died as an old man at 70.

That age, 70, is the age Psalm 90 tells us God has chosen now for the typical human life span, or 80, if one is especially healthy.  But be encouraged.  Moses, who wrote Psalm 90 and told us that 70 years had become man’s appointed lifespan, lived to be 120 years old.  From that, we know that no matter what man’s normal life span is, we are not going to leave this world until God determines that we have finished our course down here.