Moses — "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.
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More from Moses
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"You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
Details
Psalm 90:12, attributed to Moses.
Date: c. 13th-15th century BCE (traditional dating)
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Understanding this quote
What it means
This saying asks for the awareness that life is finite and every day is counted. Recognizing our mortality is not meant to cause despair but to sharpen priorities, deepen humility, and push us toward what genuinely matters. When a person truly grasps how limited their time is, they stop wasting it on trivialities and begin making choices with greater care, purpose, and moral clarity, cultivating real wisdom.
Relevance to Moses
Moses led the Israelites for forty years through the wilderness, watching an entire generation die before reaching the Promised Land. Traditionally credited as author of Psalm 90, from which this line comes, he witnessed human frailty daily and lived to 120 himself. As lawgiver, he framed existence around covenant obligations and ethical accountability, so urging people to count their days reflects his lifelong concern with using limited time to obey God and pursue righteousness.
The era
In the ancient Near East around the 13th century BCE, lifespans were short, infant mortality high, and survival precarious amid famine, plague, and warfare. Surrounding cultures like Egypt obsessed over death through elaborate tombs and afterlife rituals. Moses's wilderness era, shaped by slavery in Egypt and nomadic hardship, made mortality inescapable. Against that backdrop, framing death as a teacher of wisdom rather than a terror to be embalmed against was a distinctive moral reorientation rooted in covenant faith.
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