Bible Strands
Psalms 90:16
May Your work be shown to Your servants, and Your splendor to their children.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Moses addresses God in a psalm that contrasts divine eternity with human mortality. This petition appears between a request for joy proportional to past affliction and a follow-up plea for God to establish human labor.
The words — The Hebrew יֵרָאֶה (ye.ra.'Eh) means "may it appear," linked to פָעֳלֶךָ (fo.'o.Le.kha) for "Your work" and הֲדָרְךָ (ha.da.re.kha) for "Your splendor." The syntax structures a direct request for God's visible deeds to be revealed to His servants and their descendants.
The thread — The petition for God's visible deeds aligns with Habakkuk 3:2, where the Lord's works are called to be revived and known, and reflects Deuteronomy 32:4, which defines His work as perfect and just. The psalmist also grounds this request in the ancestral testimony recorded in Psalms 44:1.
Why it lands — The text commands a reader to recognize divine action as a present reality rather than a distant memory. It requires acknowledging that faith involves actively seeking visible evidence of God's power in the current generation and the next.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Let thy work appear unto thy servants, and thy glory unto their children.
Cross-references
- Habakkuk 3:2 O LORD, I have heard the report of You; I stand in awe, O LORD, of Your deeds. Revive them in these years; make them known in these years. In Your wrath, remember mercy!
- Psalms 44:1 For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the sons of Korah. We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.
- Deuteronomy 32:4 He is the Rock, His work is perfect; all His ways are just. A God of faithfulness without injustice, righteous and upright is He.
- Numbers 14:15 If You kill this people as one man, the nations who have heard of Your fame will say,
- Deuteronomy 1:39 And the little ones you said would become captives—your children who on that day did not know good from evil—will enter the land that I will give them, and they will possess it.
- Numbers 14:30 Surely none of you will enter the land in which I swore to settle you, except Caleb son of Jephunneh and Joshua son of Nun.
- Joshua 4:22 you are to tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’
- Joshua 23:14 Now behold, today I am going the way of all the earth, and you know with all your heart and soul that not one of the good promises the LORD your God made to you has failed. Everything was fulfilled for you; not one promise has failed.
- Psalms 77:12 I will reflect on all You have done and ponder Your mighty deeds.
- Psalms 92:4 For You, O LORD, have made me glad by Your deeds; I sing for joy at the works of Your hands.