תהילים צ and צא really form a unit; תהילים צא doesn’t start with a כותרת, and in fact, when we recite it, we start with the last pasuk of the previous perek, (תהילים צ:יז) ויהי נעם אדנ־י אלקינו עלינו. This unit is the only one that is explicitly attributed to Moshe:
Moshe here is called “איש האלקים”, which echoes the description at the end of his life:
The midrash understands that to refer to Moshe’s “super-human” status:
This means that our perek is the תפילה of the one who was an intermediary between human beings and הקב״ה.
The psalm starts by echoing Moshe’s final words, describing ה׳ as dwelling on high but protecting בני ישראל:
ה׳ has a מענה, a dwelling-place, that serves as מעון אתה היית לנו, our dwelling and protection as well. That is a hint to the context of this תפילה. It is about one of Moshe’s great tasks, building a place for ה׳ on earth. To understand that, we have to look at the last psukim:
That was the ברכה that Moshe gave בני ישראל when they completed the משכן:
יראה אל עבדיך פעלך and ומעשה ידינו כוננהו was Moshe’s תפילה to ה׳ and ברכה to the people at the inauguration ceremony of the משכן. But that is פסוק טז. What about the previous 15 psukim? For that, we have to go back to the ceremony itself. The Torah goes into great detail to describe the offerings:
And then we have our ברכה:
It starts with וישא אהרן את ידו אל העם ויברכם. That’s not our ברכה; that is what we call נשיאת כפיים, or ברכת כהנים.
And then Aharon goes down from עשת החטאת והעלה והשלמים, which means that he blessed the people from on top of the מזבח. And then Moshe and Aharon go into the אהל מועד and come out. Why? Only after that, we have our ברכה of ויהי נעם, and the miraculous fire come out and the people see the Glory of G-d.
Rashi feels it necessary to tell us that when Aharon descended, he descended from the מזבח:
That’s not particularly helpful. I would assume that מקום נשיאת כפים was the מזבח; where else would אהרן be? Rashi is telling us that the text is emphasizing that אהרן's ירידה was from the מזבח. So what?
Now, the fire from the קדש הקדשים doesn’t come until two psukim later, after אהרן has come down.
So we have this picture of אהרן on top of the מזבח; he’s set up the first sacrifices that he will offer (the previous week, it’s been his brother doing everything), he turns to the people and blesses them, and then…nothing. That’s not how it is supposed to work:
That last sounds familiar; in our perek, when the fire finally does come down, וירא כל העם וירנו ויפלו על פניהם. But it doesn’t come down when אהרן blesses the people. וירד מעשת החטאת והעלה והשלמים is אהרן's failure. This was to be the return of the כבוד ה׳ in the fire from heaven that had last been experienced at מעמד הר סיני and lost with מעשה העגל. And nothing happened.
We know how Aharon’s sons reacted:
But what does אהרן himself do after he trudges down the ramp, with no divine fire in sight? Rashbam explains why the next pasuk is ויבא משה ואהרן אל אהל מועד:
So that is why Moshe brings Aharon into the משכן—to pray for him.
Rashi brings two explanations:
What does קטרת have to do with anything? We’ll have to come back to that. The second, פשט, explanation, I can understand. אהרן knows why he failed; it’s all his fault, from the very beginning.
אהרן didn’t want to do the עבודה at all. He knew he would fail:
So, now, we go back to תפלה למשה. I would read the first part, before ויהי נעם, as the text of Moshe’s prayer for (and with) his brother: נכנס משה עמו ובקשו רחמים. The message of this perek is the famous lines, כי אלף שנים בעיניך כיום אתמול and ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה. I always shallowly read it as a message that human beings should be humble, realize that they are finite and mortal and so should obey the infinite G-d. But that’s not what it’s about at all. It’s a prayer that G-d should recognize our frailty, and forgive us even if we’ve sinned, since we are only human.
That’s the way it starts: You are all-powerful, but you still care about us and want us to do תשובה:
But our lives are over before they have really begun:
Because of our sins, we are punished; we’re not denying that the punishment is deserved:
But because our lives are so fleeting, we can’t really understand what You want. Help us!
למנות ימינו כן הודע: teach us to count our days, to make our limited days count.
And so You, ה׳, should turn from your anger even if we have not returned to You:
You say “שובו בני אדם”; we say “שובה ה׳…והנחם על עבדיך”.
It certainly fits the context that we are assuming here, and the perek continues with part two, when Moshe and Aharon come out and bless the people: יראה אל עבדיך and the וירא כבוד ה׳ אל כל העם as we’ve said. But why was this necessary at all? ה׳ had already forgiven בני ישראל for חטא העגל; that’s why building the משכן was possible in the first place.
I propose that while the תפלה למשה was addressed to ה׳, it was intended for אהרן. ה׳ had forgiven him, but he had not forgiven himself. He expected to fail before he even started: היה אהרן בוש וירא לגשת.
Once he accepted the fact that ה׳ had forgiven him, אהרן could bless the people באהבה.
And Rashi’s first explanation, that משה brought אהרן into the משכן to teach him מעשה הקטרת? I think that this is fundamentally the same idea. משה wasn’t showing him עבודת הקטרת, how to offer the incense. He was showing him מעשה הקטרת, how to make the incense. The ingredients of the קטרת teach us that we don’t need to be perfect for ה׳ to accept our prayers.
The message of תפלה למשה is that we need to accept ourselves, with all our human imperfection. ה׳ will grant מחילה if we do תשובה, and being human is part of our עבודת ה׳.
It is Moshe as איש האלקים, who had the perspective to see that and to reassure Aharon of that.
And after that, ויצאו ויברכו את העם.
The first pasuk is addressed to ה׳; it may have been said inside the אהל מועד, or publicly, in front of the people (the next pasuk starts with “and” so I would go with the latter). The next pasuk is in the first person plural, so it is addressed to the people as a whole. As Rashi points out, there are two blessings here, one about the completed משכן and one about the future:
And then the next perek continues that ברכה:
Artscroll translates:
But I think that the clauses should be reversed:
“The one who dwells in the shadow of the Almighty shall sit safely in the highest refuge”. בצל שד־י has a specific meaning:
Building the משכן is shadowing הקב״ה.
The name שד־י refers to ה׳ as creator of the universe, and more than that, as the creator who stopped creating.
שד־י as a Divine Name represents both the power of creation and the fact that ה׳ left creation incomplete, and the one who בצל שד־י יתלונן is the one who completes it, and so merits protection from the שלטון המזיקין בעולם, as the Sfas Emes puts it. Such a person is ישב בסתר עליון.
The next part of תפלה למשה, the remainder of פרק צא, is not so much a prayer but a statement of assurance, that ה׳ will protect His faithful. This is the bulk of ויצאו ויברכו את העם.
Moshe
starts in the first person, talking about himself. He has complete faith that ה׳ protects him ( לה׳ means “about ה׳”). He then turns to his audience and tells him about all the dangerous things that exist in the world. I would not take the idea of מזיקין literally, as intelligent supernatural demons, but it is certainly true that there are a lot of invisible dangers out there. This perek, in fact, is called שיר של פגעים or שיר של נגעים:
And then there is a detailed list of all the מזיקין that you don’t need to worry about:
Before, you walked blindly and blithely through life, unaware of how much danger you were in.
Rabbi Slifkin, of the Rationalist Judaism website, is bothered by this statement:
But I think he is taking Rabbi Shafran too literally. I don’t think חז״ל envisioned gram negative rods producing endotoxins that stimulate cytokine release and the systemic inflammatory response syndrome. This idea, that all around us are things we can’t see that are out to get us, is common and universal. Rabbi Shafran cites an example in ספר במדבר:
So this ברכה is sort of a warning as well. Don’t take your security for granted; ה׳ מחסי ומצודתי is a gift that must be earned.
The next part of the perek echoes the first. Moshe tells his audience, “You trust in ה׳, so you can experience the עליון of the first pasuk: you will be ישב בסתר עליון” and he ties it back to the beginning of פרק צ: אדנ־י מעון אתה היית לנו.
Rashi does not translate this as a apostrophe to ה׳ (”You, O G-d, are my refuge“), which is the way the English translations do. If that were the case, then Moshe would be switching his address (the “you”) from the people to ה׳. That’s possible, but Rashi (and I would interpret this like Rashi) says that this is still addressed to בני ישראל: ”You say: G-d is my refuge“. And therefore, עליון שמת מעונך, ”you have placed your dwelling on high“: you get to live under the aegis of הקב״ה.
And therefore you have nothing to fear:
This is a much stronger reassurance than the previous part. There, you will face dangers and not fear them. Here, you will not even have to face the danger. In fact, you will become the predator, treading on the snakes and lions. The midrash says that it was participating in building the משכן made that possible:
The one who dwells בצל שד־י becomes a partner with ה׳. The מזיקין are nothing to worry about.
Then Moshe, as the איש האלקים, quotes הקב״ה directly:
And this forms the conclusion to the תפלה למשה. The answer to ימי שנותינו בהם שבעים שנה…ורהבם עמל ואון is ארך ימים אשביעהו: we will be satisfied with the length of our days, no matter how short they may be compared to the אלף שנים בעיניך כיום אתמול, as long as they are filled with the productive work of עבודת ה׳.
When we recite this perek during davening (which we do, often), we double the last line. Avudraham says that the number of words symbolize the 248 body parts that need protection:
The Tur gives a kabbalistic reason:
אין לנו עסק בנסתרות, but that goes with אשגבהו כי ידע שמי, and the idea of יודעי שמך specifically refers to having בטחון in ה׳: