The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"favourable," Hebrew ratzita (רָצִיתָ), been pleased with, accepted. The psalm opens by rehearsing what God has already done: "LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land." Before a single request is made, the record of past acceptance is laid out.

"brought back the captivity," shavta shevut (שַׁבְתָּ שְׁבִית). "Thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob." What was carried off God carried home again; the reversal was His work and not the captives' own.

"forgiven the iniquity," nasata avon (נָשָׂאתָ עֲוֺן), lifted, carried away the iniquity. He has forgiven, and the word says how: "thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people." The guilt was not waved off but picked up and carried away.

"covered all their sin," kissita kol-chatatam (כִּסִּיתָ כָל־חַטָּאתָם). He has covered as well as lifted, and covered all: "thou hast covered all their sin." Nothing was left uncovered to be brought up again.

"taken away all thy wrath," asafta kol-evratekha (אָסַפְתָּ כָל־עֶבְרָתֶךָ), gathered up, withdrawn all thy wrath. Last, He has taken away: "thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger." The anger is gathered in, called back to the God whose it was.

Explanation

Notice first that this psalm begins in the past tense, and that this is deliberate. Before it asks God for anything, it spends three verses simply remembering what God has done: "Thou hast been favourable... thou hast brought back... thou hast forgiven... thou hast covered... thou hast taken away." This is prayer built on memory: the psalmist rehearses proven mercy before pleading for present help, using what God has already been as the lever to ask Him to be it again. Grace remembered is the seedbed of grace requested. Second, look at how complete the forgiveness is, for the verbs pile up to leave no remainder. "Forgiven" is literally lifted, God carried the iniquity clean away. "Covered" means hidden from sight, put out of view. And mark the two little words repeated: "covered all their sin... taken away all thy wrath." Not most of it, not the lighter sins while the graver remain; all. God does not forgive by halves. When He turns from "the fierceness of his anger," He turns fully. This is the wonder the psalm rests on before it asks for anything more: that the God against whom they had sinned had lifted the whole weight of that sin away and laid down the whole heat of His wrath. A soul that grasps how total God's past forgiveness has been can pray with boldness for whatever it needs next.

Gospel Focus

"Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin", this is the very language of the gospel, fulfilled in Jesus Christ. To have sin "covered" is the blessedness of the forgiven: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered" (Psalm 32:1), and that covering is complete in the blood of Christ, who bore our sins in His own body. The God who "lifted" Israel's iniquity is the God who laid it on His Son and carried it away for ever, so that "as far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us" (Psalm 103:12), and He can say, "thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back" (Isaiah 38:17). And the wrath the psalm says God "hath taken away" is taken away at the cross for all who are in Christ: "there is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus" (Romans 8:1), for it is Jesus "which delivered us from the wrath to come" (1 Thessalonians 1:10). The past-tense mercies of Psalm 85 are ours in full: our iniquity lifted, our sin covered, God's anger turned away, all secured by the Lord Jesus.

Word Study

"revive us again," Hebrew tashuv techayyenu (תָּשׁוּב תְּחַיֵּנוּ), return and give us life again. The psalm prays for renewal: "Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?" The word joins two things, God's returning and their living; He comes back, and they come alive.

"shew us thy mercy," chasdekha (חַסְדֶּךָ). They ask not for a new arrangement but for the old covenant love to be made visible again. What God has already been to them is exactly what they beg Him to show.

"grant us thy salvation," yish'ekha (יֶשְׁעֲךָ). "Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation." The salvation is His, not theirs to manufacture; all they can do is ask that it be given.

"I will hear," eshme'ah (אֶשְׁמְעָה). Then the psalm falls silent to listen: "I will hear what God the LORD will speak." Having prayed, the psalmist stops talking, which is itself an act of faith that God intends to answer.

"he will speak peace," yedabber shalom (יְדַבֵּר שָׁלוֹם). And he knows beforehand what he will hear: "for he will speak peace unto his people." God's word to a forgiven people is not a further reckoning but peace.

"his saints," chasidav (חֲסִידָיו). The word belongs to the same family as the mercy just asked for: they are the people of God's covenant love, marked out by the very thing they had prayed He would show them.

"turn again to folly," al-yashuvu lekhislah (אַל־יָשׁוּבוּ לְכִסְלָה). With the promise comes a caution: "but let them not turn again to folly." Peace spoken is not licence; those brought back are not to walk the old road a second time.

Explanation

The heart of this section is a single word and a single turn. The word is "again": "Wilt thou not revive us again." Revival, biblically, is not the arrival of something the church has never had; it is God returning to give life a second time to a people who have grown cold, breathing again upon embers that once burned. The Hebrew is vivid, "return and make us live." What God's people most need in their deadness is not novelty but renewal, that the same God who once made them alive would do it once more, "that thy people may rejoice in thee." And notice the aim: not merely that they would be comfortable, but that they would rejoice in Him; the end of revival is joy in God. Then comes the turn, and it is the most important movement in the psalm. Having asked, "Shew us thy mercy... grant us thy salvation," the psalmist suddenly stops asking and starts listening: "I will hear what God the LORD will speak." Prayer reaches its highest point not when we have said everything but when we grow quiet enough to hear. And what does God speak? "He will speak peace unto his people." The answer to the cry for revival is a word of peace from God, followed by a tender warning, "but let them not turn again to folly", for the great danger after God revives a people is that they drift back into the very sins that deadened them. Revival is a returning; so is relapse. The psalm ends this movement in hope: "his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land."

Gospel Focus

"He will speak peace unto his people", that word of peace has come to us in a Person, for Christ Himself "is our peace" (Ephesians 2:14), and He "came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh" (Ephesians 2:17). When the risen Lord stood among His frightened disciples, the first word off His lips was the very promise of this psalm: "Peace be unto you" (John 20:19); and to all His own He says, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27). The cry "wilt thou not revive us again" is answered in the One who said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly" (John 10:10); all true revival is Christ breathing His resurrection life afresh into His people. And "his salvation is nigh them that fear him", how near it is now, for "behold, now is the day of salvation" (2 Corinthians 6:2), and the glory the psalm longed to see dwell in the land has come, for in Christ "the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory)" (John 1:14). So pray this psalm for a cold church and a cold heart: revive us again, speak peace, and let us not turn back to folly.

Word Study

"mercy and truth," Hebrew chesed ve'emet (חֶסֶד וֶאֱמֶת). The psalm pictures four great attributes of God, and pairs them two by two. Mercy and truth are the first pair: covenant love, and the faithfulness that will not bend the facts.

"met together," nifgashu (נִפְגָּשׁוּ). "Mercy and truth are met together." They come face to face, no longer at odds but in one place at one time, and the meeting is a reconciliation rather than a collision.

"righteousness and peace," tzedeq veshalom (צֶדֶק וְשָׁלוֹם). The second pair is as hard to hold together as the first: the righteousness that must deal with sin, and the peace that sinners need.

"kissed," nashaqu (נָשָׁקוּ). "Righteousness and peace have kissed each other." The picture is not a truce but an embrace; what might have been enemies greet one another with affection.

"truth shall spring out of the earth," emet me'eretz titzmach (אֱמֶת מֵאֶרֶץ תִּצְמָח). The verb is one of sprouting, as a seed comes up out of the ground. Truth is pictured rising from below, taking root in the land where God's people live.

"righteousness shall look down from heaven," tzedeq mishamayim nishqaf (צֶדֶק מִשָּׁמַיִם נִשְׁקָף). And from the other direction righteousness leans over the edge of heaven to look. Earth sends up truth, heaven bends down righteousness, and the two meet in between.

Explanation

This is one of the most profound verses in the Bible, and to feel its wonder you must first feel the problem it solves. God is merciful, and God is true; God is righteous, and God loves peace. But how can these live together when it comes to a guilty sinner? Mercy longs to forgive; truth insists the debt be paid and the sinner condemned. Righteousness demands that justice be done; peace yearns for the sinner to be reconciled and embraced. Face to face with human sin, these four seem to pull against one another, mercy tugging one way, truth the other; peace reaching out a hand, righteousness holding it back. How can God be merciful without ceasing to be true? How can He make peace with sinners without surrendering His righteousness? The psalm answers not with an argument but with a picture: "Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other." The attributes that seemed to be at war are reconciled; they meet, and they embrace. And verse 11 shows how: "Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven." From below, out of the earth, truth springs up like a plant; from above, out of heaven, righteousness leans down to look, and the two meet in the middle. Earth reaches up and heaven bends down, and where they touch, mercy and truth, righteousness and peace, all find their meeting place. But the psalm only shows the meeting; it does not yet name the place. That place is a Person.

Gospel Focus

"Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other", the place where these four embrace is the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. At Calvary God's mercy reaches the sinner, yet His truth is not denied, for the debt is fully paid in the blood of His Son; mercy is shown because truth is satisfied. There God's righteousness is upheld, every claim of justice met upon Christ, and out of that satisfied justice flows perfect peace, so that "being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (Romans 5:1). This is the very mystery Paul names: that God might "be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:26), just, so truth and righteousness stand; the justifier, so mercy and peace flow. Mercy did not overrule truth at the cross; both were honoured, and both kissed. And see the picture of verse 11 come true in Christ: "truth shall spring out of the earth", the Son of God sprang up from the earth, born of the virgin and risen from the grave, the Truth in person come up from below; and "righteousness shall look down from heaven", the Father's own righteousness bent down and was satisfied. So the deepest problem of the universe, how a holy God can save the guilty, is answered at the cross, where mercy and truth met, and righteousness and peace kissed, in the Lord Jesus Christ.