Psalms 85: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm looks back at a time when God forgave his people and brought them home from captivity, then asks him to restore them again and to stop being angry. The middle of the psalm turns to listening: the speaker waits to hear what God will say, and reports that God speaks peace to his people and that his rescue is near those who honor him. The psalm closes with a picture of loyal love and faithfulness meeting together, of the land producing its harvest, and of righteousness going ahead of God to make a path.

Claim by Claim

1. 85:1
   • The LORD showed favor to his land.
   • The LORD restored the fortunes of Jacob, which can also mean he brought back Jacob's captives.
2. 85:2
   • God forgave the iniquity of his people.
   • God covered all their sin.
3. 85:3
   • God withdrew all his wrath.
   • God turned away from his burning anger.
4. 85:4
   • The speaker asks God to turn them back, or restore them.
   • The speaker addresses God as the God of our salvation.
   • The speaker asks God to put an end to his anger toward them.
5. 85:5
   • The speaker asks whether God will be angry with them forever.
   • The speaker asks whether God will prolong his anger to all generations.
6. 85:6
   • The speaker asks whether God will not revive them again.
   • The purpose of that reviving is that God's people may rejoice in him.
7. 85:7
   • The speaker asks the LORD to show them his steadfast love.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to grant them his salvation.
8. 85:8
   • The speaker says he will listen to what God the LORD will speak.
   • God will speak peace to his people.
   • God will speak peace to his faithful ones.
   • The verse says either that they should not return to folly or that they will not return to folly.
9. 85:9
   • God's salvation is near to those who fear him.
   • The purpose is that glory may dwell in their land.
10. 85:10
    • Steadfast love and faithfulness have met together.
    • Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
11. 85:11
    • Faithfulness springs up from the earth.
    • Righteousness looks down from heaven.
12. 85:12
    • The LORD will give what is good.
    • Their land will yield its produce.
13. 85:13
    • Righteousness will go before him.
    • Righteousness will set them in the way of his steps, which can also mean it will make his footsteps a path.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

85:1

"Jacob" is used here for the whole nation descended from him, Israel. The phrase behind "brought back from captivity" is a Hebrew idiom that can mean either bringing exiles home or, more generally, reversing someone's fortunes, and both senses are in play. Where "LORD" appears in capitals it stands in for God's personal name in Hebrew, four consonants that Jewish readers did not say aloud, substituting a word for "Lord" when reading.

85:2

"Covered over" is the language of a stain or a debt being put out of sight; the same Hebrew root lies behind the word usually translated "atonement." "Selah" is a marking that appears throughout the Psalms, probably a direction for performance, a pause, an instrumental break, a lift in volume. Its exact sense was already uncertain by the time the Psalms were translated into Greek in the centuries before Christ.

85:4

"Bring us back" is the same Hebrew verb used in verse 3 for God turning away from his anger. The psalm asks God to turn the people the way he once turned himself.

85:6

The word translated "revive" literally means to make alive again. It is used of someone reviving after collapsing and of a plant putting out new growth once the rain returns.

85:7

"Faithful love" translates hesed, one of the central words of the Hebrew Bible: the loyalty owed inside a binding relationship, the steady commitment of one party to another, rather than a warm feeling.

85:8

"Those who are loyal to him" renders hasidim, a word built from the hesed of verse 7, people who hold to God in the way he holds to them. The last line is genuinely unsettled in Hebrew: it can be read as a warning ("let them not go back to foolish ways"), as a wish, or as a promise that God will not let them go back. Translations divide, and the rendering here keeps it as a wish.

85:9

"Glory" is the visible weight and splendor of God's presence, the thing said to fill the tent-sanctuary and later the temple. The verb for "live in" is the one used for God settling down among his people in that tent. "Honor him with awe" is the standard Hebrew phrase usually translated "fear him": reverence rather than fright.

85:10

Faithful love and faithfulness (hesed and emet) were a fixed Hebrew word pair for dependable loyalty, and righteousness and peace pair in much the same way. "Peace" is shalom, which means wholeness and wellbeing, not merely the absence of fighting. The four qualities are pictured as people meeting on a road and exchanging the kiss that was the ordinary greeting between friends or kin.

85:11

A farming image: faithfulness comes up out of the soil like a crop while right living comes down from the sky like rain, the two halves of what makes a harvest.

85:12

"The land will produce its harvest" is stock Hebrew phrasing for a good agricultural year, grain, wine and oil coming in as they should.

85:13

The second half of this verse is obscure in Hebrew; read word by word it runs roughly "and will set his footsteps for a way." Translators divide between righteousness clearing a road ahead of God for him to walk on, and righteousness setting people on the path where God has walked.