Psalms 85
Psalm 85 is a song of the sons of Korah, and it begins not with a request but with a memory. LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Before the singer asks God for anything, he rehearses what God has already done - the anger turned away, the iniquity forgiven, the sin covered over. This is how the psalm builds its courage to pray. It does not approach God as a stranger but as One whose kindness is already on the record.
The memory of past mercy becomes the ground of present hope: the God who once did this can be asked to do it again.
The prayer, when it comes, is unusually tender. Turn us, O God of our salvation… Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? These are the words of a people who have been restored and yet still feel the absence of fullness - brought home, perhaps, but not yet renewed; forgiven, but waiting for joy to return. They ask not merely for circumstances to change but for life itself to be quickened: Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation. It is the prayer of every season when faith has gone quiet and the heart longs to be made glad in God again.
And then the singer does the bravest thing in the psalm: he stops asking and listens. I will hear what God the LORD will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people. What he hears is a vision so beautiful it has echoed down the centuries - Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven (vv. 10-11).
Four great attributes of God, which so often seem to pull against one another, are here gathered into a single embrace. The early Christians, reading these lines, found that they pointed past the psalm to a place where the meeting actually happened - where God drew near, His glory dwelt among us, and the One who came was full of grace and truth.
Tap any highlighted phrase to jump to the commentary that unpacks it.
Psalm 85:1-3 · To the chief Musician, A Psalm for the sons of KorahThou Hast Covered All Their Sin
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.
The psalm opens by looking backward, and every verb is in the past tense: thou hast been favourable… thou hast brought back… thou hast forgiven… thou hast covered… thou hast taken away. This is not yet a prayer; it is a remembering. Before the singer asks God for a single thing, he rehearses, out loud, the long record of God's kindness.
There was a time when the land lay under judgment and the people were carried far from home - and God brought back the captivity of Jacob. There was guilt that should have ruined them - and God forgave the iniquity and covered all their sin. There was wrath that burned against them - and God turned from the fierceness of His anger.
This is the wise way to begin any prayer: not with the problem in front of you, but with the proven goodness behind you. Memory is the soil that hope grows in. A God who has done this before is a God you can dare to ask again.
The New Testament answers that the covering reached its fullness in Christ. In Him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7), and what the psalm could only state, the gospel shows accomplished: a God who is at once just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Rom. 3:26).
The blessing the psalm sings - Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered (Ps. 32:1) - becomes, in the apostle Paul's hands, the very heart of the good news: the God who once covered Israel's sin has, in Christ, covered ours by dealing with it for good. The memory at the start of Psalm 85 is, in the end, a memory pointing forward.
Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned thyself from the fierceness of thine anger (v. 3). The language is striking: God is pictured as turning - as One whose face had been set against His people in judgment, and who has now turned that face back toward them in favour.
The Bible does not flinch from speaking of God's anger as something real; sin is not a trifle, and the holiness that loves what is good must oppose what is destructive. But notice the direction of the whole verse. The anger is described only so that its removal can be celebrated. The wrath is taken away; the fierceness is turned from. The lasting word over God's people is not His displeasure but His returning kindness.
This is the rhythm the prophets knew when they sang, his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life (Ps. 30:5). The singer remembers a God whose judgment had a limit and whose mercy did not - and on that memory he is about to build a prayer.
Psalm 85:4-7Wilt Thou Not Revive Us Again
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.
Now the tense changes, and the psalm becomes a prayer. Turn us, O God of our salvation (v. 4). It is a remarkable request when you set it beside verse 3. There the singer remembered that God had turned from His anger; here he asks God to turn us. The same verb works both ways - God turns toward His people in mercy, and God turns His people back toward Himself.
This is one of the quiet treasures of the verse: the singer knows that even his own returning to God is something God must work in him. He does not say, “We will turn ourselves,” nor does he say, “Leave us as we are.” He prays for a turning that begins in God and takes hold of the human heart - God's initiative and the people's response held together in a single word. To pray turn us is to confess both that we cannot revive ourselves and that we truly will be changed.
The deepest cry of the section is verse 6: Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee? The word again is the ache of it. These are people who have known revival before - who remember what it was to be glad in God - and who feel that gladness has gone quiet. They are not asking for something they have never tasted; they are asking for the return of something they have lost.
And mark the goal they name: not comfort, not prosperity, not even relief from their enemies, but that thy people may rejoice in thee. The end of revival is joy, and the object of that joy is God Himself. This is what makes the prayer so searching. A people can be restored to their land, their routines, even their religion, and still be a long way from rejoicing in God.
The singer is not content with the outward forms of recovery. He wants the inner spring of joy reopened - and he knows only God can do it. Every generation that has felt its faith grow flat has prayed some version of this verse.
The New Testament tells us how near it finally came. When the time was full, the salvation the psalmist begged for was not merely sent but given a face and a name: the One whom the aged Simeon, holding a child in the temple, called thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people (Luke 2:30-31). What Israel prayed for as a gift, God granted as a Person.
Grant us thy salvation is a prayer that God answered by drawing as near as it is possible to come - near enough to be held in human arms, near enough to dwell among us, near enough to carry the very mercy the people pleaded for straight into the world. The psalm asks; the gospel hands over the answer.
That is freeing. If you have been trying to white-knuckle your way back into gladness about God - reading more, trying harder, manufacturing feelings - this psalm hands you a better way. You do not have to revive yourself. You can do what the people of God have always done in the flat seasons: ask. Turn us. Revive us. Shew us thy mercy.
And notice what you are really asking for - not a better mood, but God Himself, that thy people may rejoice in thee. The aim of the prayer is not happier circumstances. It is the reopening of the one spring that never finally runs dry.
Psalm 85:8-13Mercy and Truth Are Met Together
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.
After all the asking, the singer does something we rarely think of as part of prayer: he goes quiet and listens. I will hear what God the LORD will speak (v. 8). Having poured out his petitions, he now waits for a reply - for prayer is not only speaking to God but waiting on Him to speak. And he is confident of what he will hear: for he will speak peace unto his people. The Hebrew word is shalom - not the mere absence of conflict but the presence of wholeness, the settled well-being of a life set right with God.
God's answer to a praying people is a word of peace. There is one sober note attached: but let them not turn again to folly. The peace God speaks is not a license to drift back into the very sins that brought the trouble; it calls for a people who will keep listening rather than wander off. But the dominant note is grace. The God who is asked to revive does not answer with a scolding. He answers with peace.
The New Testament tells us when that word was spoken in full. On the last night with His disciples, Jesus said, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you (John 14:27). And when He came back from the dead and stood among the same frightened disciples, the very first thing out of His mouth was the word this psalm foresaw: Peace be unto you (John 20:19) - and He said it again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you (John 20:21).
The risen Christ did not merely bring news of peace; He spoke it, the way verse 8 promised God would. The apostle Paul gathers it all into one phrase: Jesus came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh - for he is our peace (Eph. 2:17, 14). The God who will speak peace unto his people kept His word by becoming, in Person, the peace He spoke.
The New Testament announces that it returned beyond anything the singer could have pictured. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The verb John chooses for dwelt means literally pitched his tent - the very picture of glory dwelling in our land. What Psalm 85 longed for - salvation drawn near and glory come to dwell - arrived in a Person who set up His tent in our midst, whom they that fear him beheld with their own eyes.
Verse 10 is the jewel of the psalm, and one of the most beautiful sentences in all of Scripture: Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. These four are not first of all virtues for us to practise; they are attributes of God Himself - His steadfast love, His faithfulness, His justice, His peace. And the wonder of the verse is that they meet.
So often, to our eyes, they seem to pull in opposite directions. Truth insists that wrong be named; mercy longs to forgive it. Righteousness requires that things be set right; peace wants the quarrel to end. We are forever forced to choose - to be honest or kind, to uphold the standard or let it go.
But in God these four do not compete. They run to each other. Mercy and truth are pictured embracing like long-parted friends; righteousness and peace lean in and kiss. The verse does not explain how God holds them together without compromising any of them - it simply sees that He does, and stands amazed. The rest of Scripture will show the place where the meeting actually happens.
The New Testament finds that meeting in Christ. In Him, God is shown to be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus (Rom. 3:26) - truth and mercy in one act, righteousness upheld and the sinner welcomed. In Him, the long enmity is ended: having made peace through the blood of his cross (Col. 1:20), so that he is our peace (Eph. 2:14).
And the apostle John says it most simply of all: the One who came was full of grace and truth, for grace and truth came by Jesus Christ (John 1:14, 17). What the psalm could only picture as two friends embracing, the gospel shows joined in a Person - mercy and truth meeting, righteousness and peace kissing, in the One in whom God has reconciled the world to Himself.
The One in whom that meeting took flesh said plainly, I am the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6), and He came because God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son (John 3:16) - heaven's righteousness bending down in love to a world that could not climb up to it. The truth that springs up and the righteousness that looks down are held together in Him.
The psalm ends on the move: Righteousness shall go before him; and shall set us in the way of his steps (v. 13). Having pictured righteousness looking down from heaven, the singer now sees it walking - going out ahead of God like a herald clearing the road, and then turning to lead the people along the very path God Himself treads.
There is a beautiful reversal in the last line. The psalm has been about what God does for His people; now it speaks of where the people are taken - set… in the way of his steps. The God who comes near does not only forgive and revive; He sets His people walking in His own footprints.
This is how the psalm of mercy ends: not in passive relief, but on a road. The same righteousness that ran down from heaven to embrace peace now goes out before us and calls us to follow in its tracks. To be met by God's mercy is, in the end, to be put on God's way - and to walk where He walks.
Psalm 85 says we have set up a false choice. In God, mercy and truth are met together. He does not love us by pretending we are fine, and He does not tell us the truth by withholding His love. He does both, fully, at once - and the gospel shows the place where the two embrace, in the One who is full of grace and truth.
So when you come to God aware of your own wrong, you do not have to gamble on which attribute you will meet. You will meet both. The truth that names your sin and the mercy that covers it are not at war in Him; they kissed long ago, and they were reconciled in Christ.
Where this echoes in Scripture
Thou Hast Covered All Their Sin
- Psalm 32:1Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.The same covered sin of verse 2 - the blessing Paul makes the heart of the gospel in Romans 4:7.
- Psalm 30:5For his anger endureth but a moment; in his favour is life.The turned-away wrath of verse 3 - judgment with a limit, favour without one.
- Ephesians 1:7In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins.How God covers sin without overlooking it - the forgiveness of verse 2 accomplished in Christ.
- Micah 7:18-19he retaineth not his anger for ever... thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.The God who turns from anger and covers sin (vv. 2-3), sung by the prophet who delighted in mercy.
Wilt Thou Not Revive Us Again
- Psalm 80:3Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.The same prayer as verse 4 - a people asking God to do the turning that restores them.
- Lamentations 5:21Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned; renew our days as of old.The cry of verse 4 from the ashes of Jerusalem - even our returning is God's work.
- Habakkuk 3:2O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years... in wrath remember mercy.The prayer for revival of verse 6 - and the same plea that mercy outlast wrath.
- Luke 2:30-31For mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people.The salvation begged for in verse 7, granted at last as a child held in the temple.
Mercy and Truth Are Met Together
- John 1:14And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory)... full of grace and truth.The glory come to dwell (v. 9) and the meeting of mercy and truth (v. 10), arrived in a Person.
- John 14:27Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you.The peace God promised to speak (v. 8), spoken by Christ to His own.
- Romans 3:25-26that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.How mercy and truth meet without either being broken (v. 10) - God just and justifying at once.
- Ephesians 2:14-17For he is our peace... and came and preached peace to you which were afar off, and to them that were nigh.Righteousness and peace kissing (v. 10), and the peace spoken (v. 8) - fulfilled in the One who is our peace.