Commentary - Psalm 85:1-3

Bird's-eye view

Psalm 85 is a prayer for national revival, and it follows a divine and necessary logic. The psalm is structured in three movements. First, the psalmist looks back and remembers God's past deliverances (vv. 1-3). He recounts a time when God showed favor, restored the people from captivity, and, most importantly, dealt with the root cause of their troubles by forgiving their sin. Second, based on that history of grace, the psalmist pleads with God to do it again in the present (vv. 4-7). He asks God to turn them back, to withdraw His anger, and to revive them. Third, the psalm concludes with a confident expression of faith, listening for God's response and anticipating the glorious results of His salvation (vv. 8-13). The whole prayer is a model for God's people in any time of spiritual declension. It teaches us to ground our pleas for present mercy in the solid bedrock of God's past faithfulness, a faithfulness ultimately and perfectly displayed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.

The logic is inescapable: because God has acted graciously in the past to save His people, we have every reason to ask Him to do so again. The foundation of our prayer is not our deserving, but His character. The sin that caused the problem has been atoned for, and so the psalmist is not asking God to do something new, but rather to act consistently with who He has already revealed Himself to be: a God who forgives iniquity and restores His people.

Outline

Context In The Psalter

This psalm is attributed to the sons of Korah, a guild of temple musicians and singers who were responsible for a number of psalms, particularly in Book III of the Psalter (Psalms 73-89). This section of the Psalms is generally darker in tone, often dealing with themes of national disaster, exile, and the apparent silence of God. Psalm 85 fits this context perfectly. It is most likely a post-exilic psalm, written after the return from the Babylonian captivity. The people are back in the land (v. 1), but the full blessings of restoration have not yet been realized. They are facing hardship, opposition, and a sense of spiritual languishing. The temple might be rebuilt, but the glory has not fully returned. In this context, the community cries out to God, reminding Him of the great grace He showed in bringing them out of Babylon, and pleading with Him to complete the work He began.

Key Issues

The Grammar of Revival

There is a right way to pray for revival, and a wrong way. The wrong way is to approach God as though He were a reluctant deity who needs to be cajoled or persuaded into blessing His people, as though our passionate agonies could somehow twist His arm. The right way, the biblical way, is laid out for us here in Psalm 85. The prayer for revival begins with theology. It begins with remembrance. It starts by rehearsing what God has already done.

The psalmist grounds his entire appeal in the historical reality of God's saving work. He is not trying to generate an emotional experience out of thin air. He is standing on the firm ground of redemptive history and asking God to do what He has done before. The logic is simple: "Lord, you have been gracious before. You have restored us before. You have forgiven us before. Therefore, do it again." This is not presumption; it is faith. It is taking God at His word and holding Him to His own covenant promises. All true prayer, and especially prayer for revival, must be rooted in the character and actions of God as revealed in history, culminating in the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If we want God to move in our time, we must begin by remembering how He has moved in all times.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1 O Yahweh, You showed favor to Your land; You returned the fortunes of Jacob.

The prayer begins with a direct address to God, using His covenant name, Yahweh. And the first thing the psalmist does is acknowledge God's past grace. The word for "showed favor" speaks of sovereign good pleasure and delight. God's blessings do not flow from our merit, but from His free and uncoerced choice to love and bless. He chose to show favor to His land, which in the Old Covenant was the inheritance He promised to His people. This favor was demonstrated in a concrete, historical act: He "returned the fortunes of Jacob." This is a Hebrew idiom that means to restore or reverse a calamitous situation. While it can mean restoring material prosperity, its primary sense here refers to the return from the Babylonian exile. God acted decisively to end their captivity and bring them home. This is the foundational fact upon which the rest of the psalm is built. God is a restorer. He is a God who brings His people back. This is what He does.

2 You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You covered all their sin. Selah.

Here the psalmist goes deeper, identifying the spiritual reality that undergirded the physical restoration. Why did God bring them back from exile? Because He first dealt with the sin that sent them into exile. The physical deliverance was predicated on a spiritual forgiveness. Two beautiful words are used here. First, God forgave their iniquity. The Hebrew word is nasa, which means to lift or carry away. This is the picture of a burden being removed. God took the crushing weight of their guilt and carried it away from them. Second, He covered all their sin. This is the language of atonement. He did not ignore their sin or pretend it did not exist. He covered it, putting it out of His sight, typically through the means of sacrifice. This points forward to the ultimate sacrifice of Christ, whose blood truly covers our sin. The psalmist sees that restoration of fellowship with God is impossible unless the sin problem is dealt with. And he celebrates the fact that God Himself has dealt with it. The Selah here is a musical or liturgical notation, but its effect is to tell the worshiper to pause. Stop and think about this. Meditate on the wonder of a God who lifts away and covers the sin of His people. Everything hangs on this truth.

3 You withdrew all Your fury; You turned back from Your burning anger.

This verse describes the result of God's forgiveness. Because the sin was carried away and covered, God's righteous wrath was appeased. We must be clear that God's anger is not like our petty, sinful tantrums. It is His holy, settled, and just opposition to all that is evil. The exile was a manifestation of that holy fury against Israel's covenant-breaking idolatry. But because God provided a way for sin to be forgiven, He could justly "withdraw" His fury. He "turned back" from His burning anger. The forgiveness described in verse 2 was not a sentimental overlooking of sin; it was a just transaction that satisfied God's own holiness, thereby allowing His wrath to be turned aside. This is the logic of the cross. On the cross, the burning anger of God against our sin was fully poured out upon His Son. Because Christ absorbed that fury, God can turn back from His anger toward us and show us favor. The psalmist understood this principle centuries before Christ came. He knew that for God to be favorable, His justice must be satisfied.

Application

This psalm provides us with a divine template for our own prayers, both personal and corporate. When we find ourselves in a state of spiritual dryness, when our church feels lifeless, when our nation seems to be spiraling away from God, where do we begin? We begin right here. We begin by looking back.

We must first anchor our prayers in what God has already done. Our primary point of reference is not the return from Babylon, but the exodus accomplished at Calvary. We look back to the cross and say, "O Yahweh, You have shown the ultimate favor to Your people. You have returned our fortunes, rescuing us from the ultimate exile of sin and death. You did this because You forgave our iniquity, lifting it and carrying it away in the body of Your Son. You covered all our sin with His perfect righteousness. Therefore, You have withdrawn Your fury from us forever."

This is the foundation. We do not come to God pleading from a position of uncertainty. We come on the basis of a finished work. And from that foundation, we can then plead for a present application of that past work. We can ask Him, "Lord, revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You. Show us Your steadfast love now, and grant us Your salvation in this situation." We ask Him to make the realities of the gospel, which we know by faith, experiential realities in our lives, in our churches, and in our land. The grammar of revival always begins in the past tense of the gospel before it moves to the present imperative of our petitions.