Psalm 85 Chapter Study

The song begins with memory like a sunrise over a wounded field. “You, Lord, showed favor to your land; you restored the fortunes of Jacob,” the singers recall, stacking mercy-words: you forgave iniquity, you covered sins, you set aside wrath, you turned from fierce anger (Psalm 85:1–3). Remembered grace becomes fuel for fresh prayer, because the people standing in the present bear evidence of past kindness and need the same God to act again. “Restore us again, God our Savior,” they plead; “will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” (Psalm 85:4–6). The psalm pivots from lament to listening, waiting for the Lord’s answer, convinced that salvation is near those who fear him and that his glory intends to dwell in the land where his name is known (Psalm 85:8–9).

The closing vision is lyrical and bold. Love and faithfulness meet, righteousness and peace kiss, faithfulness sprouts from the ground, righteousness looks down from the sky, and the Lord gives what is good so that the soil yields a harvest under the steps of a righteous King (Psalm 85:10–13). The picture is not mere poetry; it is the moral order God brings when he revives a people and reinhabits a place with his glory. The chapter therefore becomes a school of hope: remember what God has done, ask for renewal without excuse, listen for his peace, and expect a future where justice and mercy do not pull apart but travel together under his hand (Psalm 85:1–2; Psalm 85:6–13).

Words: 2508 / Time to read: 13 minutes

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Historical and Cultural Background

The superscription assigns the psalm to the Sons of Korah, Levites who guarded gates and led songs in the temple courts, which explains the corporate voice and the concern for the land, the people, and the anointed life under God’s smile (Psalm 85:1; 1 Chronicles 9:19; 2 Chronicles 20:19). The phrase “restored the fortunes” appears across Israel’s story as shorthand for large-scale reversals, from exile returns to harvest renewals, signaling that the community has lived through judgment and tasted a public restoration they now long to see completed (Psalm 85:1; Jeremiah 29:14; Psalm 126:1). The pairing of forgiveness and turning aside wrath matches covenant warnings and promises: when the people repent, the Lord remembers his compassion and relents from burning anger, not because sin is light but because his steadfast love endures (Leviticus 26:40–45; Joel 2:12–14).

The corporate prayer suggests a season after some deliverance yet before full renewal. God has turned, yet tears and tension remain. The petitions “restore us again” and “will you be angry with us forever?” imply lingering consequences that only God can resolve (Psalm 85:4–5; Nehemiah 1:3–6). That mix fits the history of those who came back to a damaged city and a challenged harvest, dependent on the Lord to complete what he began (Haggai 1:9–11; Psalm 85:12). The grounding in “your land” keeps the geography concrete. This is not generic spirituality; it is worship tethered to a real place chosen by God, where his presence and rule were to be displayed among the nations (Psalm 85:1; Psalm 76:2; Isaiah 2:2–4).

The promise that “his glory may dwell in our land” reaches back to tabernacle and temple and forward to a day when the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (Psalm 85:9; Exodus 40:34–35; Habakkuk 2:14). Glory dwelling is not fog in a room; it is the weight of God’s revealed character active among his people for blessing and righteousness (Exodus 34:6–7; Psalm 29:9–11). The final image of righteousness marching ahead like a herald “preparing the way for his steps” suits royal processions in the ancient world and suggests that when the King comes near, moral order arrives before him and fruitfulness follows in his wake (Psalm 85:13; Psalm 97:2).

Biblical Narrative

The first movement is gratitude grounded in history. The singers rehearse verbs of mercy: you favored the land, restored fortunes, forgave iniquity, covered sins, set aside wrath, turned from anger (Psalm 85:1–3). The memory is specific, not vague; it recalls a moment when God acted publicly for Jacob, and the land felt the difference. That past action authorizes present appeal. If the Lord turned once, he can turn again; if he covered sin then, he can cover it now. The logic of faith is rooted in God’s record (Psalm 77:11–12; Psalm 103:2–4).

Petition follows with urgency but without accusation. “Restore us again, God our Savior,” the psalm says, asking that divine displeasure be set aside and that joy in God be restored by revival from above (Psalm 85:4–6). The questions press hard: “Will you be angry with us forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations?” These are not complaints against God’s character; they are the words of children who know that a Father’s discipline has a purpose and an end (Hebrews 12:5–11; Psalm 30:5). The request that he “show us your unfailing love” uses the covenant word for steadfast love and asks that salvation be granted again, not earned (Psalm 85:7; Exodus 34:6–7).

The third movement changes posture. “I will listen to what God the Lord says,” the psalmist vows, expecting a promise of peace for God’s people and faithful ones while urging them not to turn back to folly once peace arrives (Psalm 85:8). The assurance comes quickly: salvation is near those who fear him so that his glory may dwell in the land, a pairing that binds inner reverence to outer renewal (Psalm 85:9; Psalm 34:7–9). The chapter refuses the error of seeking public blessing without holy fear, or private piety without public fruit.

The final vision personifies virtues to describe the order God brings. Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other; faithfulness springs from the earth; righteousness looks down from heaven; the Lord gives what is good; the land yields its harvest; righteousness goes before him and prepares the way for his steps (Psalm 85:10–13). The lines are not fantasy. They are shorthand for a community transformed by God’s nearness, where truth and reliability flourish, where justice and wholeness embrace, and where the ground itself participates in the blessing of a rightly ordered life under God (Psalm 72:1–3; Isaiah 32:16–18).

Theological Significance

The psalm teaches a pattern of revival that is covenantal and communal. Renewal does not begin with technique but with memory, confession, and a plea for God to act again as he has acted before, paired with a readiness to listen and to forsake folly when peace returns (Psalm 85:1–2; Psalm 85:6–8). The key request is not abstract vitality but joy in God himself: “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” which locates real refreshment in renewed communion rather than in improved circumstances (Psalm 85:6; Psalm 16:11).

The famous couplet “righteousness and peace kiss each other” gives language to a union that sinners cannot engineer. Righteousness names God’s rightness and his standard for human life; peace names the wholeness and harmony that result when his rule is honored (Psalm 85:10; Isaiah 32:17). In a fallen world these often seem at odds, as if justice must crush peace or peace must ignore justice. The psalm dares to announce that under God’s rule they embrace, because his holiness never abandons his compassion and his compassion never violates his holiness (Psalm 89:14; Micah 7:18–19).

The line “love and faithfulness meet” describes the intersection of God’s covenant love and his reliability in keeping promises, a pairing that steadies struggling hearts. Love is his disposition to do good to his people; faithfulness is his unswerving steadiness to do what he has said (Psalm 85:10; Lamentations 3:22–23). When those meet, hope rises, because we are not at the mercy of mood or chance. God’s character holds the future together for those who fear him, and his past mercies pledge more mercies (Psalm 23:6; Psalm 100:5).

The vertical–horizontal imagery shows how heaven’s verdicts heal earth’s fractures. “Faithfulness springs forth from the earth” pictures an integrity growing in ordinary lives, in homes and markets, while “righteousness looks down from heaven” assures that God’s governance smiles on that growth and protects it (Psalm 85:11). The result is social and environmental sanity: “the Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest,” a promise that ties moral order to material flourishing without collapsing one into the other (Psalm 85:12; Deuteronomy 28:1–6). When people walk with God, creation itself often enjoys the spillover (Psalm 65:9–13).

The psalm also sketches the difference between the administration under Moses and the grace that now writes God’s ways on hearts. The community prays for revival and vows to listen; the Lord promises peace but warns against a return to folly, anticipating the gift of the Spirit who enables obedience from within so that fear and love can sustain faithfulness beyond moments of enthusiasm (Psalm 85:8; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:26–27). Law names God’s will; renewed hearts delight to walk in it, and peace becomes durable rather than briefly felt (Psalm 1:1–3; Romans 8:3–4).

The Redemptive-Plan thread comes into sharp focus when the New Testament announces where righteousness and peace finally embrace without compromise. At the cross God demonstrates his righteousness by dealing truly with sin while making peace through the blood of his Son, so that he is “just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:25–26; Colossians 1:19–22). Love and faithfulness meet in the incarnate King who is full of grace and truth, and who speaks peace to those near and far, forming one new people while preserving every promise he made to Israel (John 1:14; Ephesians 2:14–18; Romans 11:28–29). The psalm’s horizon therefore includes a righteous path laid before the steps of the Messiah, with present tastes of reconciliation and future fullness at his appearing (Psalm 85:13; Revelation 11:15).

The emphasis on “your land” honors Israel’s particular calling and the goodness of place. God’s plan involves a people in a location with promises that are not vapor; the church does not erase that story but bears witness to the King whose reign will bring the earth into its intended peace (Psalm 85:1; Isaiah 2:2–4). At the same time, the chapter’s moral vision reaches every nation, because the Lord’s way of righteousness before him and peace among people is the pattern for human flourishing everywhere his name is honored (Psalm 85:10–12; Psalm 67:1–4).

The promise “the Lord will indeed give what is good” guides expectations. Good, as Scripture defines it, is what conforms us to the Lord and advances his purpose; it is not everything we imagine would make life easier (Psalm 85:12; Psalm 84:11). That realism protects faith from disillusionment. Revival, in this psalm’s terms, is not a bypass around sorrow but a path through which God returns to favor his people, renews their joy in him, restores integrity on the ground, and causes the land to yield healthy fruit under his steps (Psalm 85:6; Psalm 85:11–13).

Spiritual Lessons and Application

Pray from history toward hope. The psalm models thanksgiving that catalogs past mercies as the platform for present requests, teaching households and churches to remember how God has already turned wrath aside and restored fortunes so that confidence rises to ask for “again” (Psalm 85:1–3; Psalm 77:11–14). Keeping a record of God’s deeds guards against the amnesia that breeds either pride or despair and trains lips to ask large because his character has not changed (Psalm 9:10; Psalm 116:1–2).

Ask for revival that centers on God, not merely on relief. The most daring petition here is for joy in God himself, for a people who rejoice in him even before all circumstances shift, because the first fruit of renewal is worship that tastes his kindness and fears his name (Psalm 85:6; Psalm 34:8–9). Such prayer includes a willingness to listen and a resolve not to return to folly when peace comes, turning revived feelings into reformed habits that match the Lord’s ways (Psalm 85:8; Psalm 119:33–37).

Work for a community where righteousness and peace embrace in visible ways. The couplets envision a neighborhood where truth-telling, reliability, clean dealing, and reconciled relationships grow like plants in a watered garden, with heaven’s smile over the entire scene (Psalm 85:10–11; Isaiah 58:10–12). Churches can practice that vision in public honesty, fair economics, peacemaking between estranged parties, and advocacy for integrity in civic life, trusting that such obedience invites God’s “good” in ways that often bless the wider city (Psalm 85:12; Jeremiah 29:7).

Receive God’s “good” on his terms. When the Lord promises to give what is good, he commits himself to provide what grows faith, nourishes joy in him, and equips obedience, which may include pruning that yields long-term fruit (Psalm 85:12; John 15:1–2). Contentment grows when we measure gifts by their capacity to align us with God’s glory dwelling among his people rather than by their capacity to remove every difficulty (Psalm 85:9; Philippians 4:11–13). In that posture, the land of ordinary life begins to yield a harvest under his steps.

Conclusion

Psalm 85 teaches the church to turn memory into petition and petition into listening. It looks back at a season when God covered sin and turned aside wrath, and then it looks up and asks for “again”—for restored favor, revived joy, and peace that does not license folly but trains it out of us (Psalm 85:1–8). The answer it expects is not vague uplift; it is God’s nearness. Salvation is near those who fear him so that his glory may dwell in the land, bringing with it the embrace of righteousness and peace, the meeting of love and faithfulness, and a harvest that accompanies the footsteps of the King (Psalm 85:9–13).

For readers today, the path is clear and good. Remember what the Lord has done. Ask him to revive you and your people so that joy in him rises again. Commit to hear his peace and refuse the old paths of folly. Then look for faithfulness to sprout around you as righteousness smiles from above, trusting that the Lord will indeed give what is good and that your daily ground will yield fruit in season under his steady rule (Psalm 85:10–12; Psalm 1:2–3). The prayer that begins with “restore us again” ends with steps prepared for a King whose coming brings order, beauty, and durable peace (Psalm 85:4; Psalm 85:13).

“Love and faithfulness meet together;
righteousness and peace kiss each other.
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth,
and righteousness looks down from heaven.” (Psalm 85:10–11)