Psalms of Moses: How Many Did Moses Write?

Only one psalm has a heading that names Moses. It is Psalm 90, "A Prayer by Moses, the man of God", and it has 17 verses. So when people ask how many psalms Moses wrote, the answer from the text is one psalm attributed to him. Psalm 90 is also the first psalm of Book 4. A heading is an old note, not proof of authorship, and a commentator cited in Wikipedia's article on Psalm 90, C. S. Rodd, suggests it was written later than Moses' time.

Moses is named inside other psalms too, as a figure from Israel's past, and the Bible gives him songs outside the Psalms. This page covers Psalm 90, those other psalms and those other songs.

Psalm 90 sets God's eternity beside the shortness of human life. It opens by calling the Lord "our dwelling place for all generations" and says that from everlasting to everlasting he is God (verses 1 and 2). Verse 4 says a thousand years in his sight are like yesterday when it is past. People, by contrast, spring up like grass in the morning and wither by evening. Verse 10 gives a life span of seventy years, or eighty by reason of strength, "threescore years and ten" in the KJV. The prayer then turns. Verse 12 asks God to teach us to count our days, and the psalm ends by asking him to establish the work of our hands.

Psalm 90 is the only psalm with Moses in its heading, but he is named inside the text of five other psalms, in seven verses. Psalm 77:20 says God led his people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron. Psalm 99:6 counts Moses and Aaron among his priests. Psalm 103:7 says God made known his ways to Moses. Psalm 105:26 says God sent Moses his servant. Psalm 106 names him three times, at verses 16, 23 and 32, retelling how the people envied him, how he stood in the breach for them, and how he was troubled at the waters of Meribah.

The Bible gives Moses more songs than the one in the Psalms. Exodus 15:1 says Moses and the children of Israel sang a song to the LORD after the crossing of the sea: "I will sing to the LORD, for he has triumphed gloriously." Deuteronomy 31:30 says Moses spoke the words of a song to all the assembly of Israel, and that song fills Deuteronomy 32. Deuteronomy 33:1 calls Moses "the man of God", the same title found in the heading of Psalm 90. In Revelation 15:3, those who stand by the sea of glass sing "the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb".