# Psalms 90.2 **Book:** [Psalms](/codex/psalms/) · NASB95 > Before the mountains were born Or You gave birth to the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, You are God. (Psalms 90:2, NASB95) Psalms 90:2 is one of the strongest single-verse Old Testament statements of divine eternity. The verse places God's existence both *before* the cosmos's beginning ("before the mountains were born or You gave birth to the earth and the world") and *throughout* the unbounded duration that flanks it ("from everlasting to everlasting"). The "I am" form ("You *are* God") in the present tense across unbounded duration is what later theologians called *aseity*: God's self-existence is uncaused, prior to creation, and not constituted by anything other than Himself. The verse is one of ris3n's most-cited divine-attribute proof-texts and a recurring anchor for cosmological and modal-ontological argumentation. ## Immediate context (±2 verses) **ASV** ([ASV](/codex/asv/)) > 1. A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place In all generations. > > **2. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.** > > 3. Thou turnest man to destruction, And sayest, Return, ye children of men. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night. (Psalms 90:1-4, ASV) **WEB** ([WEB](/codex/web/)) > 1. A Prayer by Moses, the man of God. Lord, you have been our dwelling place for all generations. > > **2. Before the mountains were born, before you had formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.** > > 3. You turn man to destruction, saying, "Return, you children of men." 4. For a thousand years in your sight are just like yesterday when it is past, like a watch in the night. (Psalms 90:1-4, WEB) **KJV** ([KJV](/codex/kjv/)) > 1. A Prayer of Moses the man of God. Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. > > **2. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.** > > 3. Thou turnest man to destruction; and sayest, Return, ye children of men. 4. For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night. (Psalms 90:1-4, KJV) **YLT** ([YLT](/codex/ylt/)) > 1. A Prayer of Moses, the man of God. Lord, a habitation Thou, Thou hast been, To us, in generation and generation, > > **2. Before mountains were brought forth, And Thou dost form the earth and the world, Even from age unto age Thou [art] God.** > > 3. Thou turnest man unto a bruised thing, And sayest, Turn back, ye sons of men. 4. For a thousand years in Thine eyes [are] as yesterday, For it passeth on, yea, a watch by night. (Psalms 90:1-4, YLT) ## Setting - **Speaker:** Moses (the superscription "A Prayer of Moses the man of God" gives the only Mosaic psalm in the Psalter) - **Audience:** the people of Israel, possibly in the wilderness; the prayer's contrast between divine eternity and human transience suits a generation under judgment - **Location:** wilderness wandering (traditional ascription); textually unspecified - **Time period:** c. 1400 BC (Mosaic composition by superscription); the earliest psalm in the canonical collection ## Theological reading The verse builds its claim about God by triangulating three temporal references. First, *before the mountains were born*: God's existence precedes the most apparently-permanent features of the created order. Mountains are the geological-stability metaphor across the Old Testament (the *everlasting hills*, Genesis 49:26); even they have a birth, and God precedes it. Second, *You gave birth to the earth and the world*: the verb *yalad* (to bring forth, give birth) makes God the active originator of the cosmos, not its passive companion. The cosmos is contingent; God is its source. Third, *from everlasting to everlasting* (*me-olam ad-olam*): the Hebrew construction encompasses unbounded duration both backward and forward, the bilateral infinity that distinguishes God from every created thing whose existence has a beginning. The clausal climax is the simple present: *You are God*. Across the entire bilateral-infinite span, God *is*. This is not a claim that God will be God for a very long time; it is the claim that the predicate "is God" applies at every conceivable temporal point and is independent of the cosmos's existence. The contrast with the next verses is striking: God's bilateral-infinite "are" sets up the *thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday* (90:4), the source of [2 Peter 3.8](/codex/2-peter-3-8/)'s "with the Lord one day is as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day." The doctrine is not that God experiences time strangely; the doctrine is that God's mode of being is categorically other than the time-bound existence of His creatures. For natural-theology deployment, the verse functions as scriptural confirmation of what cosmological argumentation reasons toward. The Kalam argument concludes that the cause of the universe must be beginningless, immaterial, and powerful; Psalm 90:2 supplies the explicit theological identification: that beginningless, cause-of-the-mountains-and-the-earth being is God. The modal-ontological argument argues that a maximally great being exists in every possible world; Psalm 90:2's bilateral-infinite *are* is the closest Old Testament expression of necessary existence. Aseity (self-existence) and eternity are the divine attributes most directly stated here; the cosmological argument's conclusion is the verse's premise. See [Aseity](/codex/aseity/), [Eternity (Divine)](/codex/eternity-divine/), [Kalam Cosmological Argument](/codex/kalam-cosmological-argument/), and [Modal Ontological Argument](/codex/modal-ontological-argument/). ## Key words - [H5769 - olam](/codex/h5769-olam/), *olam*, "everlasting / age / eternity"; the bilateral-infinite construction *me-olam ad-olam* is the verse's metaphysical anchor. ## Theological themes - **Eternity.** God's existence has no beginning and no end; bilateral infinity in the strictest sense. - **Aseity.** God's existence is independent of the cosmos; mountains, earth, and world are originated by Him, not parallel to Him. - **Necessary existence.** The unconditional present-tense *are God* across unbounded duration is the Old Testament's closest expression of what modal logic calls necessary existence. - **Creator-creature distinction.** The cosmos is born; God is unborn. The metaphysical asymmetry is absolute. - **Time and God.** The framing for [2 Peter 3.8](/codex/2-peter-3-8/)'s thousand-years-as-a-day; God's mode of being is categorically other than time-bound existence. ## Cross-references - [2 Peter 3.8](/codex/2-peter-3-8/) - "With the Lord one day is as a thousand years"; directly built on Psalm 90:4. - [Isaiah 40.28](/codex/isaiah-40-28/) - "The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth"; the parallel divine-attribute affirmation. - [Isaiah 43.10](/codex/isaiah-43-10/) - "Before Me there was no God formed, and there will be none after Me"; YHWH's bilateral uniqueness. - [Exodus 3.14](/codex/exodus-3-14/) - "I AM WHO I AM"; the divine-name disclosure of self-existent being. - [Revelation 1.8](/codex/revelation-1-8/) - "I am the Alpha and the Omega... who is and who was and who is to come"; the New Testament echo, applied to Christ. ## See also - [Aseity](/codex/aseity/) - [Eternity (Divine)](/codex/eternity-divine/) - [Divine Attributes](/codex/doctrine/) - [Kalam Cosmological Argument](/codex/kalam-cosmological-argument/) - [Modal Ontological Argument](/codex/modal-ontological-argument/) - [Necessary Being is an Intelligent Mind](/codex/necessary-being-is-an-intelligent-mind/) - [Monotheism](/codex/monotheism/) ## Quoted in **Arguments and defeaters:** - [Anselms Four-Dimensionalist Eternity](/codex/anselms-four-dimensionalist-eternity/) - [Argument from Irrevocability](/codex/argument-from-irrevocability/) - [Argument from the Creation of Time](/codex/argument-from-the-creation-of-time/) - [Argument from the Demand to Be Witnessed](/codex/argument-from-the-demand-to-be-witnessed/) - [Christian God is the Only True God](/codex/christian-god-is-the-only-true-god/) - [Cumulative Case for the Deity of Christ](/codex/cumulative-case-for-the-deity-of-christ/) - [Kalam Cosmological Argument](/codex/kalam-cosmological-argument/) - [Modal Ontological Argument](/codex/modal-ontological-argument/) - [Necessary Being is an Intelligent Mind](/codex/necessary-being-is-an-intelligent-mind/) - [Perfection Argument](/codex/perfection-argument/) **Concepts:** - [Are There Other Gods](/codex/are-there-other-gods/) - [Doctrine](/codex/doctrine/) - [Eternity (Divine)](/codex/eternity-divine/) - [God is Impossible Paradox Cluster](/codex/god-is-impossible-paradox-cluster/) - [Pantheism](/codex/pantheism/) - [Zero and the Metaphysics of Nothing](/codex/zero-and-the-metaphysics-of-nothing/) **Lexicon:** - [H5769 - olam](/codex/h5769-olam/) --- _Scripture quotations taken from the **New American Standard Bible®** (NASB), Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995 by **The Lockman Foundation**. Used by permission. All rights reserved. [www.lockman.org](https://www.lockman.org)_ ## Why these four translations ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the **most literal English translations available** (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the **public domain in the United States**, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance. The four: - **[ASV](/codex/asv/)** (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition. - **[WEB](/codex/web/)** (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English. - **[KJV](/codex/kjv/)** (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base. - **[YLT](/codex/ylt/)** (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff. See [Bibles](/codex/bibles/) for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.