Psalms 90:16-17: “Let thy work appear unto they servants and they glory unto they children. And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us: and establish thou the work of our hands upon us; yea, the work of our hands establish thou it.”

This Psalm was written by Moses, he knew a few things about the glory of God.  He had asked God to reveal His glory to Him and God did, well kind of.  The Bible says God revealed his chasad to Moses, His lovingkindness and not His glory or kovod.  Here Moses is saying that God will reveal his hadar to his children. Some translations render this as glory but hadar is really beauty, majesty and splendor.

Now this gets a little confusing as God is going to reveal his works to his servants.  The word works is pa’al which is activity, deeds, what you have done.  To the servants he shows them what He has done and will do for them, but unto the children he shows his beauty.

In the next verse Moses talks about the beauty of the Lord being upon us. Here the word beauty is noam which is a word for pleasure.  This, like the other words, is in a cohortative form and thus it should be rendered in the form of a blessing. May God do good works for his servants and may his splendor and majesty be upon their children and may the pleasure of God be upon us all.

The rest of verse 17 is a little difficult.  “And establish thou the work of our hands upon us: yea the work of hands establish thou it.”  The word establish is kun which comes from a Semitic root that has a variety of applications.  I feel the best application here is success or prosperous. Thus Moses is saying: “And make the work of our hands prosperous or successful. 

Taking a very close look at the syntax of verse 17 it would appear this success or prosperity is related to the beauty or pleasure of God being upon us.  In other words: “May all our works be successful in bringing pleasure to God.”  Both servants and children bring pleasure to God, but there is a difference between the two.

So God will do good deeds for his servants and his beauty will be revealed to their children so all that they do will bring pleasure to God. Probably for most of us we would like to be a servant as we would much rather experience the works of God in our lives. I mean all we get by being a child of God is his beauty, like big deal.

Besides that, many of us are so caught up in life’s many problems and cares we are sure not bringing much pleasure to God with our present attitude toward our situation.  We tend to just sit around feeling sorry for ourselves and worrying about the future.

So we start crying out to God that we are his servant and it is about time He starts to do some of this good work in us like healing us, giving us a good job or blessing us financially. Once that is done then we can get down to the business of bringing Him some pleasure.

Yet, I wonder if God is not bringing us into the state of a child. The word for servant is avad which literally means slave, or bondage. Do we really allow ourselves to be in total bondage to God, to be a slave to God.  Moses understood this word avad, he knew about slavery. He understood the slavery of God’s people in Egypt.  Your life, you existence, you next meal was all in the hands of the slave master. As a slave you are totally dependent upon the master for everything. When the children of the Hebrew slaves left Egypt, they were free to experience the beauty and splendor of God.  They had a new slave master, one who fed them and took loving care of them.  Only this new slave master was beautiful and majestic. But they were so wrapped up in getting their basic needs from this new master, just like from the old Egyptian masters, that they did not bother to see His majesty.  In fact they told Moses, “You go in the cloud and find out what our new master wants from us and report back to us.” I image when Moses returned from the cloud he told the people: “Our Master is so beautiful, splendid and wonderful, you gotta see it, you just gotta see it.” But the people were not interested in their new Master’s beauty, they were only concerned about their next meal.

We have been redeemed from our old slave master of sin.  We have a new Master who is beautiful and splendid and wants to show us his hadar or His beauty, but we are too focused on our personal needs, desires and wants that we never take time to see His hadar or beauty. We would rather some else go into that cloud and tell us what He is saying.  Once we get our needs met, maybe then we will appreciate that cloud better.

Most of us just pick up our Bibles and begin to read it when we need something, maybe comfort, some key to getting our prayers answered or maybe thinking that reading His Word will sort of brown nose Him into doing us a favor or a pa’al a work or miracle. Do we ever really go into the Word of God to seek His hadar (His beauty) rather than his pa’al or His works?

My little studies are really a daily journal that I keep.  Sometimes I look back on them and I notice that, at times, they center around the pa’al (God’s works) rather than the hadar his beauty and splendor. There are plenty of web sites, blogs, books and material out there that center around God’s pa’al, His works and how to get Him working in our lives.  I really don’t need to add another voice to that.  I would just like to move beyond an avad, being his servant or slave and offer a voice that is not commonly heard as it does not meet one’s personal needs, desires or wants. I would like my writings to reflect that of a child who looks to God as a Father, as one that wants to simply have a relationship with Him and to see His hadar or beauty and majesty. I want my writings to bring pleasure to God’s heart by admiring his beauty and majesty and not just the good works He performs in my life.

I know if I write on Facebook, “God gave me a big book deal with a juicy advance,” I would get a thousand likes and hundreds of praisealleuiahs. But if I say, “I looked up in the sky tonight and I saw the beauty and majesty of God,” I could count on one hand the number of likes. But you know what, if I had my choice between a juicy book deal or seeing and experiencing the beauty and majesty of God, I grab the latter in a heartbeat.

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