Bible Strands
Psalms 90:2
Before the mountains were born or You brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting You are God.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Moses, identified in the superscript as "the man of God," addresses YHWH in a prayer that immediately pivots (Psalms 90:3) to human mortality. The moment is one of lament, where the speaker grounds his plea in God's eternal nature.
The words — עוֹלָם ('olam) is glossed here as "antiquity" rather than the BSB's "everlasting," pointing to unbounded duration rooted in the past. The phrase מֵעוֹלָם עַד עוֹלָם brackets God's existence with the same word on both ends, resisting a linear timeline.
The thread — Genesis 1:1 places God before creation; Psalms 102:24 echoes the same "through all generations" language; Hebrews 13:8 applies the eternal-identity claim to Christ. The immediate context (Psalms 90:3) sharpens the contrast: God's permanence is stated precisely so that human dust is felt.
Why it lands — It asks the reader to hold two facts without smoothing them: God has no beginning or end, and human life is brief enough to be measured in a single breath. The verse does not offer comfort; it offers scale.
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
Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Cross-references
- Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.
- Genesis 1:1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
- Psalms 102:24 I say: “O my God, do not take me in the midst of my days! Your years go on through all generations.
- Revelation 1:8 “I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and was and is to come—the Almighty.
- Psalms 93:2 Your throne was established long ago; You are from all eternity.
- Psalms 33:9 For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.
- 1 Timothy 6:15 which the blessed and only Sovereign One—the King of kings and Lord of lords—will bring about in His own time.
- Hebrews 1:10 And: “In the beginning, O Lord, You laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of Your hands.
- Isaiah 44:6 Thus says the LORD, the King and Redeemer of Israel, the LORD of Hosts: “I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God but Me.
- Habakkuk 1:12 Are You not from everlasting, O LORD, my God, my Holy One? We will not die. O LORD, You have appointed them to execute judgment; O Rock, You have established them for correction.