Wisdom and proverbial literature was a leading genre of the ANE. Much of the OT, and parts of the NT, fall into this category. Wisdom literature was (and still is) characterized by language of exclusivity. This is partially attributable to the fact that wisdom/proverbial literature was intended to be short, pithy, and easily memorized.

Because of these characteristics of proverbial and wisdom literature, the genre has a high rhetorical function and cannot be read as though it were absolute. Psalm 90:10 was written well after the patriarchs who lived centuries and describes the current conditions at the time of the Psalmist; as proverbial literature, it is hardly stating an absolute and universal number in the first place.