Bible · Psalms

Psalms 85

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1Lord, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob.2Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah.3Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger.4Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.5Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?6Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?7Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.8I 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.9Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land.10Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other.11Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven.12Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good; and our land shall yield her increase.13Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps.

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Notes for this chapter

Historical Background

Psalm 85 carries the mark of a community emerging from crisis, most likely written in the aftermath of the Babylonian exile when the returning remnant found that restoration was harder and slower than they had imagined. The superscription attributes the psalm to the Sons of Korah, the same guild of temple musicians responsible for several of the most beloved psalms in the collection. Historically, the people had come home to a land still scarred, with crops uncertain, the temple still in ruins at the time of early return, and surrounding nations hostile. The mood of the psalm reflects that painful gap between a great deliverance already experienced and a complete restoration not yet fully realized. This is one of the most honest prayers in all of Scripture, a prayer that holds memory and longing in the same breath.

The opening three verses function as a kind of altar of remembrance. The psalmist rehearses what God has already done. He has shown favour to the land, returned the captives, forgiven iniquity, and covered sin. That word “covered” in Hebrew is kasah, the same root connected to the covering garments God provided in the garden after the fall, and it speaks of sin not merely overlooked but deliberately hidden from divine sight by an act of mercy.

Matthew Henry observed that the psalmist does not begin with complaint but with gratitude, establishing the character of God before bringing the present trouble before Him. Adam Clarke notes that the phrase “brought back the captivity of Jacob” was so concrete and specific that the original hearers would have felt the weight of it in their bones. These were not theological abstractions but lived experiences. The community prays from memory, reminding themselves of who God has been before asking who He will be now.

Core Teaching

With verse four the mood shifts from remembrance to petition, and the shift is entirely honest. “Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger toward us to cease.” The questions that follow in verses five and six, asking whether God will be angry forever and whether He will not revive the people again, are not expressions of doubt so much as the ancient Hebrew pattern of pressing God with His own character. The Barnes' Notes commentary on verse six points out that the word “revive” carries the sense of bringing the dead back to life, which reveals how spiritually depleted the community felt.

There is something deeply pastoral about this section because it captures what every believer has felt in seasons of prolonged difficulty when the joy of past deliverance seems distant and God feels silent. Ellen White, writing in Thoughts from the Mount of Blessing, reflects that God does not always restore the sense of His presence instantly after a period of spiritual decline, but that the longing itself is a sign of life still working in the soul.

Verse eight marks one of the great pivots in the Psalter. The psalmist, having laid out the petition, now deliberately quiets himself to listen. “I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people.” This movement from crying out to listening is theologically significant and practically rare.

The Jamieson-Fausset-Brown commentary calls this verse a turning point where faith steps ahead of feeling and chooses to trust the character of God before receiving any specific answer. The added caution, “but let them not turn again to folly,” is self-directed as much as God-directed. It reflects a chastened community that has learned through exile what the cost of folly truly is. Peace is promised, but it is not unconditional in the sense of being disconnected from the covenant relationship. God speaks peace to those whose hearts remain turned toward Him.

Commentary Insights

The closing verses of the psalm, from verse nine through thirteen, are among the most extraordinary in all the Hebrew poetry. The great image of verse ten, where mercy and truth meet together and righteousness and peace kiss each other, has stirred the hearts of commentators across every century. These are not abstractions but divine attributes that seemed to be in tension throughout the history of Israel's sin and God's justice. How can a holy God show mercy without compromising truth?

How can there be peace where righteousness has been violated? The Adventist theological tradition sees in this verse a direct pointer to the cross of Christ, where all four of these divine qualities were simultaneously and perfectly satisfied. Ellen White writes in The Desire of Ages that at Calvary the justice of God and the mercy of God embraced, that the law was upheld and the sinner was redeemed in the same moment. The verse is nothing less than a prophetic portrait of the atonement sketched centuries before it was accomplished.

Reflection & Application

Verses eleven through thirteen complete the picture with images of heaven and earth responding to God's redemptive work. Truth springs from the earth, suggesting the human side of covenant faithfulness, while righteousness looks down from heaven, representing God's own character reaching toward humanity. The land yields its increase not as a reward earned but as the natural overflow of a restored relationship between Creator and creation. Righteousness going before God in verse thirteen recalls the language of God going ahead of His people in the wilderness, and it closes the psalm with a sense of divine movement and purpose.

For the Adventist reader, the whole psalm traces the arc of the great controversy itself: sin, exile, longing, redemption, and the final establishment of a world where God's own character is fully at home among His people.

Go deeper — references Classic commentaries on this chapter

Matthew Henry's Commentary Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Adam Clarke's Commentary Adam Clarke (1760–1832) Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871) Barnes' Notes on the Bible Albert Barnes (1798–1870) EGW Writings Ellen G. White Blue Letter Bible Study tools and lexicon

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