Psalm 085

Introduction

This psalm can be divided into four parts. In the first part, the psalmist recalls a time in the past when God restored the fortunes of his people. In the second part, he asks the Lord to restore their fortunes once again. In the third part, he expresses his confidence in the Lord, who promises peace to his people. And in the fourth and final part of the psalm, we have the outcome.

Verses 1 to 3

In verses 1 to 3 the psalmist recalls a time in the past when God restored the fortunes of his people.

He says in verse 1 that God showed favour to his land. When he refers to his land, he’s probably referring, not so much to the land itself, but to his people who live on the land. That’s confirmed by the second line of verse 1 where he refers to Jacob, which is another way of referring to the people of Israel, who came from Jacob.

So, sometime in the past, God showed favour to his people and restored their fortunes. In other words, he graciously helped them. We can’t be certain about the historical background, but there was a time in the past when the people were in some kind of trouble or distress. They were afflicted. But then God helped them. He rescued them.

And from verses 2 and 3 we discover the reason for their affliction. It seems that God had afflicted them because of their sin and rebellion. So, they had sinned against the Lord. And because they did not turn from their sin immediately, God afflicted them. Think, for instance, of the days of the Judges, when God’s people turned away from the Lord and they did evil in his sight. And so, the Lord sent their enemies against them to afflict them and to humble them. And in their distress, they turned back to the Lord and cried out to him to rescue them. And when they turned back to him, God forgave them and saved them. That was the pattern throughout the period of the Judges. And that seems to be the pattern here as well: sometime in the past, the people had sinned against the Lord; he therefore afflicted them in some way; the people then turned back to the Lord; and God forgave them and saved them.

The Hebrew word for forgive means ‘take away’ or ‘lift up’. And so, sin is pictured as a burden which the Lord lifts from us and takes away. And God also covered all their sins: he covered them so that he would see them no more. And he set aside all of his wrath and turned away from his fierce anger. God’s anger against his rebellious people was once fierce. It was hot. It burned against them. But since the Lord is gracious and merciful, he was willing to put away his fierce anger and to pardon them for their sins and to restore their fortunes once again. Instead of destroying them completely, instead of abandoning them, instead of giving them up as a dead loss, the Lord forgave them.

Think of the parable of the Prodigal Son. When the son came to his senses and returned to his father, his father didn’t turn him away. Instead his father welcomed him home. And when we sin against the Lord, without confessing it or turning from it, he may chastise us. But he chastises us, not because he hates us, but because he loves us and wants us to return to him. And once we return to him, he promises not to hold our sins against us, but to forgive us and to remember them no more. And he can forgive us, because of Christ our Saviour who paid for our sins with his life and who made peace for us with God.

Verses 4 to 7

In the first part of the psalm, the psalmist recalls a time in the past when God forgave his people and restored their fortunes. And in the second part — verses 4 to 7 — he asks the Lord to do it again.

So, ‘Restore us again’, he says in the first line of verse 4; and in the second line he says: ‘and put away your displeasure towards us.’ He knows that God is displeased with them. And he’s displeased with them because they have turned from him. It seems they have gone back to their old sins, which again recalls the time of the Judges, when the same pattern was repeated often: the people sinned; God afflicted them; they turned back to God; and he saved them. And then the pattern was repeated: the people sinned; God afflicted them; they turned back to God; and he saved them. That’s what happened in the time of the Judges and from what the psalmist says, it seems that the people have gone back to their sins. And so, God was displeased with them and he afflicted them. And now the psalmist is leading the people in prayer, calling on the Lord to remove his anger from them and to restore them once again.

‘Will you be angry with us forever?’, he asks in verse 5. And then he asks in verse 6: ‘Will you not revive us again?’ Perhaps you have a plant in the house which appears to be dead. But with a little love and care and water, the plant revives and blossoms. The people are like that plant which appears to be dead, because the Lord has afflicted them. But the psalmist is hoping that the Lord will revive them so that they will blossom as a nation once again. And when God revives them, the people will rejoice in him. They will praise his name for saving them.

And so, he asks the Lord in verse 7 to show them his unfailing love and to grant them his salvation. The Hebrew word translated ‘unfailing love’ is that Hebrew word hesed which refers to God’s covenant love for his people. God has promised to love them, the way a husband and wife promise to love one another when they are married. And, of course, the psalmist also refers to God by his covenant name which appears in our English translations as LORD in capital letters. So, he’s appealing to the LORD, who is the God of the covenant, to display his covenant love towards his people. Since the Lord has bound himself to them with a promise to be their God and to love and care for them always, the psalmist asks the Lord to let them see his covenant love in action. Let us see your unfailing, never-ending love which you have promised us.

And God has bound himself to us with a covenant promise to love us and to forgive our wickedness and to remember our sins no more. This covenant was sealed in the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ, when he died on the cross for our forgiveness. And so, when we go astray, God may have to discipline us. But when we turn back to God, we can be confident that he will indeed put away his displeasure and he will indeed restore us. He will do it, because of his covenant commitment to his people, sealed in the blood of Christ who made peace for us with God by the sacrifice of himself.

Verses 8 and 9

In the third part of the psalm, the psalmist expresses his confidence in the Lord, who promises peace to his people. So, he says in verse 8 that he will listen to what God the Lord will say. He’s already asked the Lord to restore them again and to put away his displeasure. And having made his request to the Lord, he’s now listening to hear what God will say.

And what has God said? He has promised peace to his people. He describes God’s people as ‘his saints’ or ‘his holy ones’. That means the Lord chose them for himself and set apart from the rest of humanity. They belong to him. And he has promised them peace. The Hebrew word is shalom which conveys the idea of peace and well-being and wholeness and that all is well in the world. God gives this sense of well-being to his people.

But then the psalmist adds the important last line to verse 8 which is, ‘let them not return to folly’. Remember the Judges pattern? The people sinned; God afflicted them; they turned back to God; and he saved them. And then the pattern was repeated: the people sinned; God afflicted them; they turned back to God; and he saved them. But now the psalmist is saying that the people must break the pattern. Don’t return to your folly. Don’t return to your sinful ways. After the Lord restores your fortunes and puts away his displease from you and gives you peace, stay faithful to him. Don’t turn away from him again. Walk in his ways and enjoy his peace.

And he once again expresses his confidence in the Lord in verse 9 where he says that God’s salvation is near those who fear him. So, God will save his people who worship him and who do not turn away after other gods and idols. And God’s glory will dwell in the land. In the days of Moses, God’s glory-cloud signified that God was with his people. When the Israelites saw the glory-cloud, they knew that God was with them. And so, when the psalmist says that God’s glory will dwell in the land, he means it will be clear that God is with them.

And, as Paul tells us in Romans 8, nothing can separate us from God and his love for us in Christ Jesus. God’s loving presence is always with us. And so, we don’t need to be afraid of anything in the world, because we know that God is with us to help us to overcome and to conquer every trouble we may face in this life. All will be well, because God is with us to help us.

Verses 10 to 13

In the first part of the psalm, the psalmist recalled the way God restored them in the past. In the second part, he prayed for God to restore them in the present. In the third part, he expressed his confidence that God will help them. And here now is the outcome.

Love and righteousness meet together and righteousness and peace kiss each other. Faithfulness springs forth from the earth and righteousness looks down from heaven. The commentators discuss whether the psalmist is describing God or God’s people. So, is he referring to God’s love and righteousness and peace and faithfulness? Or is he describing the love and righteousness of God’s people? Or is it both? I take it that he’s describing the Lord. The Lord will demonstrate his love and faithfulness to his people. He will show them his righteousness and give them his peace. He will demonstrate his faithfulness and righteousness to his people. And so, as the psalmist says in verse 12, the Lord will indeed give what is good and their land will yield its harvest.

By mentioning the harvest, the psalmist reveals to us right at the end of the psalm the nature of their present affliction. Up until this point in the psalm, it hasn’t been clear what God has done. What kind of trouble were they in? What disaster did they face? It hasn’t been clear until now. But now it becomes clear that they were concerned about the harvest. They were worried that they wouldn’t have enough food to live on. God had withheld the rain and their crops were dying instead of growing. And if their crops died, and if there was a famine in the land, then they too would die.

God had warned his people back in Deuteronomy 28 that if they did not obey him or follow all his commands, then he would send curses on them. And one of the curses he warned them about was that he would withhold the rain from them: the sky would be like bronze and the ground will be like iron. No rain will fall and the ground will become hard and dry. But now the psalmist is hopeful that the Lord will give what is good so that the land will yield its harvest. And so, love and faithfulness meet together and righteousness and peace kiss each other, because the rain is a sign of God’s love and righteousness; and it falls on the growing crops which are a sign of God’s faithfulness and which are evidence that God is at peace with them. The plants which spring forth from the fields are signs of God’s faithfulness towards them; and the falling rain from heaven is a sign of his righteousness.

Righteousness goes before the Lord, he says in verse 13. The psalmist is personifying righteousness. He’s depicting it as a person who goes before the Lord. And he means that God always does what is right. It’s right for God to chastise his people when they do wrong and don’t turn from it immediately. But when they turn from their sin, and return to the Lord, as they have done, it’s right for the Lord to forgive them and to send the rain again.

Conclusion

And if we sin against the Lord, and persist in it, without confessing it or turning from it, then it’s right for God to discipline us, just as it’s right for parents to discipline a wayward child. But when we turn from our sin and turn back to the Lord, confessing our sin and asking for forgiveness, then it’s right for God to forgive us. It’s right for God to forgive us, because the Lord Jesus has paid for our sins with his life and he shed his blood to cleanse us of our guilt. And so, for his sake, God promises not to hold our sins against us, but to remember them no more. And since God forgives us for the sake of Christ, then we can expect good things from the Lord and not evil.