Psalm 85:5

Psalm 85 belongs to the third book of the Psalter, where many psalms are the prayers of the whole people in hard times. It begins with thanks for what God has done: “LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land”, and “Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people” (Psalm 85:1–3). Verses 4 to 7 are the plea at its heart, and from verse 8 the psalm listens for God’s answer of peace, righteousness and truth (Psalm 85:8–13). The prayer moves from grace remembered, through present trouble, to hope, and the remembering gives the asking its confidence. The God who forgave before is asked to do it again.

The psalm leaves its exact time unnamed. It most likely belongs to the years after the first return from Babylon, from about 538 BC, the years that Ezra and Nehemiah record. The people were home again, and the return had brought real joy, but rebuilding Jerusalem and the temple was hard. Their neighbours opposed the work (Nehemiah 4), money and harvests were thin, and a spiritual slackness set in among the returned exiles that Haggai rebukes (Haggai 1:2–11). The glorious promises of a restored kingdom were still waiting to be fulfilled. Under the covenant, Israel understood hardships such as drought, famine and political weakness as the LORD’s discipline for sin, the same discipline the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel announced for idolatry and disobedience. That is why the people speak of his anger in verses 4 and 5.

Verse 4 opens with “Turn us”, the verb shûwb, which means to turn back or return. On the people’s lips it carries two requests at once. They are asking God to turn back toward them in favour and restore what they have lost, and they are asking him to turn them, so that they come back to him from their sin. Restoration runs both ways, and God begins it. The same verb is also used of conditions that pass away, such as anger that turns aside, which fits the second half of the verse.

God’s people have often prayed this way. Jeremiah’s Lamentations ends, “Turn thou us unto thee, O LORD, and we shall be turned” (Lamentations 5:21). Ephraim repents with the words “turn thou me, and I shall be turned” (Jeremiah 31:18), and Joel calls the people to “turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful” (Joel 2:13).

“O God of our salvation” is the ground of the request. The word for God, ʼĕlôhîym, is plural in form, and when it names the true God it is read as a plural of majesty, usually with singular verbs. Here it names the one God of Israel, and “of our salvation” calls him the one who has rescued them before and who alone can rescue and provide for them now. The title is both a confession of trust and an argument in prayer. The people remind God, and themselves, of what he has always been to them.

“And cause thine anger toward us to cease” names what has to change. The word for anger here, kaʻaç, means vexation, grief and indignation, and it often carries the sense of provocation: the displeasure that the people’s sin has provoked. They see their trouble as the fruit of that anger, so the request is also a confession of guilt. They ask God to relent from a judgment they know is just, and what they want is reconciliation, with his favour taking the place of his displeasure and the covenant’s peace restored.

Verse 5 is two questions, and the second repeats the first and widens it. “Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?” uses the verb ʼânaph, which Strong’s explains as “to breathe hard”, and so to be enraged. In the second line, “thine anger” is ʼaph, a noun from the same root. It properly means the nose or nostril, then the face, and, from the hard breathing of a person in passion, wrath. Verses 4 and 5 share the English word “anger”, but verse 4 uses the other word, kaʻaç.

“For ever” is ʻôwlâm, a word for the vanishing point, time out of mind, whether past or future. “Draw out” is mâshak, which means to draw, pull or drag, and here to prolong: the people fear that God will stretch his anger on and on. “To all generations” carries that fear forward to their children and grandchildren. Under the covenant, the LORD keeps mercy for thousands and visits iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generation (Exodus 34:6–7), and the people dread that the present displeasure will become a lasting condition their descendants inherit.

These are pleading questions that expect the answer “no”. “For ever” and “all generations” are the words of a people overwhelmed, who feel abandoned and say so with all their strength. The questions are themselves a kind of hope, because the people ask them believing that anger is not God’s last word. The “us” is the whole people speaking as one body, sharing the responsibility for what has brought on his displeasure.

“Revive” is châyâh, to live, to keep alive, to restore to life or quicken. It describes a move from death, decay or languishing into health and vigour. The people are worn down and spiritually sluggish, and they need God to give them life again. “Wilt thou not” is an earnest plea with an expectation inside it, almost a challenge for God to act as the life-giver he is. “Again” looks back to the favour of verses 1 to 3: he has given life before, and they need a fresh gift of the same life now. Habakkuk prays in the same spirit, “O LORD, revive thy work in the midst of the years” (Habakkuk 3:2).

“That thy people may rejoice in thee” gives the purpose of the revival. The word for people, ʻam, means a people as a gathered body, and “thy people” recalls that they belong to God by covenant. The verb sâmach means to rejoice or be glad, to feel and show great joy. Scripture uses the same verb for gloating and for joy that is forbidden, so what makes this joy holy is the phrase “in thee”. God himself is its source and its object: his people glad in his presence, his character and his saving work. The revival they ask for ends in him, beyond comfort and prosperity. That is the joy of which Nehemiah says, “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10), and which David asks back when he prays, “Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation” (Psalm 51:12).

The last line of the plea draws the others together. “Shew” is from ra’ah, to see, used here in the sense of causing to see: “make us see thy mercy”. The people ask God to make his love visible in what he does for them now.

“Mercy” is cheçed, one of the richest words in the Old Testament. It is God’s loyal, steadfast love, his faithfulness and his covenant commitment, an active and enduring kindness rooted in a relationship. It is the love by which God keeps his promises and stays loyal to his people even when they have strayed or are suffering. “O LORD” is Yᵉhôvâh, God’s personal covenant name, which is connected with the Hebrew verb “to be” (hayah) and speaks of the God who is, eternal and present with his people. Verse 4 called on God as ʼĕlôhîym, and here the people call him by the name he revealed to Israel when he made his covenant with them.

“Grant” is from natan, to give or bestow. “Salvation” is yeshaʻ, which means liberty, deliverance, safety and prosperity. It covers rescue from enemies, healing from sickness, return from exile and redemption from sin, every part of the people’s well-being, and Israel had seen it on the grandest scale when the LORD brought them through the sea (Exodus 14). The people ask for a full and lasting rescue that brings them back into peace under his favour.

The anger these verses fear is the righteous wrath of a holy God against sin, and the God of our salvation has turned toward us by providing a sacrifice. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross he bore God’s wrath against sin, so that for those who believe in him it has been satisfied and has ceased for ever. The turning the psalm asks for, God to us in grace and us to God in repentance, is fulfilled in him. Peter calls his hearers to “repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out” (Acts 3:19), and Paul writes, “being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 5:1).

The fear of anger drawn out “to all generations” is answered by a Saviour who “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25), so that God’s favour reaches every generation of those who believe.

The prayer for life is answered in the same way. We were “dead in trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1), and Jesus came “that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10). “It is the spirit that quickeneth” (John 6:63), and the Spirit whom Christ sends makes believers alive to God. Its purpose, joy in God, is fulfilled too: Paul says that we joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 5:11), and he tells believers, “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4).

God showed his mercy above all in sending his Son (John 3:16). The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14), and in him God’s steadfast love could be seen. His death and resurrection give the salvation the psalm longs for, freely given: “by grace are ye saved through faith” (Ephesians 2:8–9). Hebrews calls him “the captain of their salvation” (Hebrews 2:10).

Every line of these verses says “us”, and the people pray as one body for one restoration. The church has prayed this way from its first days, when the believers lifted up their voice to God with one accord (Acts 4:24–31). The psalm gives us words for seasons when God’s favour feels withheld and his people have grown cold, words that are honest about sin and hopeful about God at the same time.

It also shows us who God is. His anger against sin is real and just, and it has an end. He turns his people back to himself, he gives life again to those who languish, and he delights in making his steadfast love visible. The God who was favourable to his land before is the God of our salvation still.