Psalms 90:11

Who knows the power of your anger, your wrath according to the fear that is due to you?

World English Bible
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Other translations

WEBBE

Who knows the power of your anger, your wrath according to the fear that is due to you?

BSB

Who knows the power of Your anger? Your wrath matches the fear You are due.

KJV

Who knoweth the power of thine anger? even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath.

ASV

Who knoweth the power of thine anger, And thy wrath according to the fear that is due unto thee?

BBE

Who has knowledge of the power of your wrath, or who takes note of the weight of your passion?

Original Hebrew

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The early church

"For who knows the power of Your wrath: and for the fear of You to number Your anger?" [Psalm 90:11]. It belongs to very few men, he says, to know the power of Your wrath; for when Thou dost spare, Your anger is so far heavier against most men; that we may know that labour and sorrow belong not to wrath, but rather to Your mercy, when You chasten and teachest those whom You love, to save them from the torments of eternal punishment: as it is said in another Psalm, "The sinner has provoked the Lord: He will not require it of him according to the greatness of His wrath." With this also is understood, "Who knows?" Such is the difficulty of finding any one who knows how to number Your anger by Your fear, that he adds this, meaning that it is to the purpose that Thou appearest to spare some, with whom You are more angry, that the sinner may be prospered in his path, and receive a heavier doom at the last. For when the power of human wrath has killed the body, it has nothing more to do: but God has power both to punish here, and after the death of the body to send into Hell, and by the few who are thus taught, the vain and seductive prosperity of the wicked is judged to be greater wrath of God.. ..
Augustine of Hippo · d. 430Expositions on the Psalms

Commentary

Matthew Henry · Verses 7–11

The afflictions of the saints often come from God's love; but the rebukes of sinners, and of believers for their sins, must be seen coming from the displeasure of God. Secret sins are known to God, and shall be reckoned for. See the folly of those who go about to cover their sins, for they cannot do so. Our years, when gone, can no more be recalled than the words that we have spoken. Our whole life is toilsome and troublesome; and perhaps, in the midst of the years we count upon, it is cut off. We are taught by all this to stand in awe. The angels that sinned know the power of God's anger; sinners in hell know it; but which of us can fully describe it? Few seriously consider it as they ought. Those who make a mock at sin, and make light of Christ, surely do not know the power of God's anger. Who among us can dwell with that devouring fire?

Read Matthew Henry on Psalm 90 →

Spurgeon · Verse 11

Who knoweth the power of thine anger? Moses saw men dying all around him: he lived among funerals, and was overwhelmed at the terrible results of the divine displeasure. He felt that none could measure the might of the Lord's wrath. Even according to thy fear, so is thy wrath. Good men dread that wrath beyond conception, but they never ascribe too much terror to it: bad men are dreadfully convulsed when they awake to a sense of it, but their horror is not greater than it had need be, for it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. Holy Scripture when it depicts God's wrath against sin never uses an hyperbole; it would be impossible to exaggerate it. Whatever feelings of pious awe and holy trembling may move the tender heart, it is never too much moved; apart from other considerations the great truth of the divine anger, when most powerfully felt, never impresses the mind with a solemnity in excess of the legitimate result of such a contemplation. What the power of God's anger is in hell, and what it would be on earth, were it not in mercy restrained, no man living can rightly conceive. Modern thinkers rail at Milton and Dante, Bunyan and Baxter, for their terrible imagery; but the truth is that no vision of poet, or denunciation of holy seer, can ever reach to the dread height of this great argument, much less go beyond it. The wrath to come has its horrors rather diminished than enhanced in description by the dark lines of human fancy; it baffles words, it leaves imagination far behind. Beware ye that forget God lest he tear you in pieces and there be none to deliver. God is terrible out of his holy places. Remember Sodom and Gomorrah! Remember Korah and his company! Mark well the graves of lust in the wilderness! Nay, rather bethink ye of the place where their worm dieth not, and their fire is not quenched. Who is able to stand against this justly angry God? Who will dare to rush upon the bosses of his buckler, or tempt the edge of his sword? Be it ours to submit ourselves as dying sinners to this eternal God, who can, even at this moment, command us to the dust, and thence to hell.

Read Spurgeon on Psalm 90 →

Cross-references

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Topics

Cross-references: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Hebrew and Greek data from STEPBible.org (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0. Library: sources.