Psalms 85:1-13
1 LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.
2 Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.
3 Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.
4 Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.
5 Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?
6 Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?
7 Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation.
8 I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his saints: but let them not turn again to folly.
9 Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.
10 Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11 Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.
12 Yea, the LORD shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.
a Prayer for the Nation
This psalm is the counterpart of Psalms 80:1. There we see petitions ascending; here thanksgivings are returned. Evidently there had been granted some great national deliverance, which filled the land with thanksgiving. The restoration of the captives from Babylon was such an event; but the words well befit glad days of revival. They might have been sung on the first Easter day, when mercy and truth met at the Cross, and there was a bridal of the earth and sky. Reversed captivity, forgiven and buried sin, the dark clouds of estrangement dispelled, the speaking of peace-these are great themes and all have their counterparts in Christian experience.
There is exquisite beauty in Psalms 85:10. What a meeting of the divine attributes! The Cross is their trysting-place. It resembles the family-gathering of brothers and sisters in the old homestead. Notice that heaven must combine with earth in the production of Christian grace. Truth can spring up in the soil of our heart only when righteousness looks down with benignant love from heaven. But she does even more-she shows us how to walk in the way of God's steps.