The psalmist now produces a contrast in time. In verse 4 he looked at time from God’s view, which moved from years to yesterday to a watch in the night. Now looking at mankind’s time the movement is in the opposite direction: our days … our years.
In verse 9 all our days and our years are parallel expressions, meaning “our lifetime, our life.” In verse 9a Revised Standard Version our days pass away under thy wrath misses the point that God’s wrath is the cause of our days ending. Furthermore, the verb is used with a poetic connotation that calls to mind the ending of a day. Good News Translation “cut short” misses that connotation. Bible en français courant translates “Under the effect of your anger our life wanes,” and Biblia Dios Habla Hoy has “In truth, our whole life ends because of your anger.” In verse 9b come to an end is parallel with pass away in verse 9a; the form of the verb in Hebrew is “we end (our years)” (see Revised Standard Version footnote). It is not necessary to depart from the Masoretic text and follow the Syriac, as Revised Standard Version does, in order to make sense of the passage. New Jerusalem Bible translates the Masoretic text “we spend our years like a sigh.” The emphasis appears to be on the brevity of human life, so a better translation can be “our life goes by as quickly as a sigh.”
Even when a person lives out the full life span of seventy years–and, in exceptional cases, eighty years–all that person experiences is toil and trouble; life is over quickly and we fly away. Again, this is poetic language, and nothing is to be inferred from this passage as to what happens at death. Bible en français courant has “we fly toward death.”
Good News Translation‘s “… years is all we have” is idiomatic in English and will have to be recast in many languages to say something like “A person only lives seventy years, or if he is strong, he may live eighty years.”
Good News Translation “all they bring” in verse 10c translates what seems to be “and their pride.” The noun is variously defined by the lexicons: BDB has “pride”; K-B “eagerness, insistence”; Holladay “crowding, hurry.” One possible translation is “but at best they bring only”; Biblia Dios Habla Hoy “yet pride in living so long (only brings illnesses and toil)”; New Jerusalem Bible “but the best of them” (with a note: “meaning of Heb uncertain”).
Revised Standard Version, New American Bible, An American Translation, and New Jerusalem Bible follow the Septuagint and other ancient versions in reading “their extent.” Anderson says the Revised Standard Version emendation is not needed; the meaning of the Masoretic text is “even the best years of our life … are characterized by toil and trouble.”9-10 Hebrew Old Testament Text Project suggests “and their turmoil (or, hurry)” (“B” decision).
Quoted with permission from Bratcher, Robert G. and Reyburn, William D. A Handbook on the Book of Psalms. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1991. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .