Pearls of the Word

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Teach us to count our days

by Jean-Louis Coraboeuf

"So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart!" (Psalm 90:12).

The aim of counting our days is not to take pride (Psalm 90:10), but to lead our heart to get wisdom, which is to say to walk with God. God considers the numbers of days and the number of years where we walk with Him, so He noted that "Enoch walked with Him three hundred years" (Genesis 5:22).

His way of counting is not ours. It is written that Solomon built the House of God 480 years after the Exodus from Egypt (1 Kings 6:1). But how do we reach this figure? Now if we add the years since the Exodus from Egypt we find 573 years: 40 years in the wilderness (Acts 13:18) + 450 years with Judges (Acts 13:20) + 40 years with Saul (Acts 13:21) + 40 years with David (1 Kings 2:11) + 3 years with Solomon (1 Kings 2:39).

In reality all the years the people of Israel were enslaved were not counted for God, namely 93 years: 8 years in Cushan (Judges 3:8) + 18 years in Eglon (Judges 3:14) + 20 years in Hazor (Judges 4:2-3) + 7 years under Midian (Judges 6:1) + 40 years under the Philistines (Judges 13:1). So we find out our 480 years (573 -93). And that is how we discover the 480 years that refers to Solomon's temple!