Today’s Passage: Psalm 85
This psalm moves in three stages: remembered mercy, renewed petition, and a closing vision where God’s own attributes, held in tension elsewhere, are pictured meeting face to face.
Context The sons of Korah, again
This psalm is attributed to the sons of Korah, the same guild of Temple singers behind Psalms 42-49, 84, and 87-88, several of which this series has already covered. Its combination of remembered past deliverance with an unresolved present need fits a community that has already tasted restoration, likely an early return from exile, and is now asking God to finish what He began, rather than a people still waiting for a first rescue.
As you read, hold this: the psalm’s confidence in verses 10-13 is not naive. It is built directly on the specific mercy already named in verses 1-3.
Psalm 85:1-3 (BSB)
For the choirmaster. A Psalm of the sons of Korah.
¹ You showed favor to Your land, O LORD; You restored Jacob from captivity. ² You forgave the iniquity of Your people; You covered all their sin. Selah ³ You withheld all Your fury; You turned from Your burning anger.
The psalm opens in the past tense, not with a request but with a memory: God has already forgiven, already covered sin, already turned back His own anger. Whatever comes next builds on this settled ground.
Psalm 85:4-7 (BSB)
⁴ Restore us, O God of our salvation, and put away Your displeasure toward us. ⁵ Will You be angry with us forever? Will You draw out Your anger to all generations? ⁶ Will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You? ⁷ Show us Your loving devotion, O LORD, and grant us Your salvation.
The tense shifts from remembered mercy to present need. Something has gone wrong again since the restoration of verses 1-3, and the community asks honestly whether God’s anger will simply continue indefinitely, without pretending the question is easy.
Psalm 85:8-9 (BSB)
⁸ I will listen to what God the LORD will say; for He will surely speak peace to His people and His saints; He will not let them return to folly. ⁹ Surely His salvation is near to those who fear Him, that His glory may dwell in our land.
A single voice steps forward here, promising to listen for God’s own answer rather than simply repeating the community’s petition. The warning against returning to folly quietly names what caused the original trouble in the first place.
Psalm 85:10-11 (BSB)
¹⁰ Loving devotion and faithfulness have joined together; righteousness and peace have kissed. ¹¹ Faithfulness sprouts from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven.
Word study Kissed — nashaq (Psalm 85:10)
“Have kissed” translates נָשַׁק (nashaq, nah-SHAK) — Strong's H5401, a verb for physical, affectionate contact, the same word used for an embrace between family members reunited. Paired with “have joined together,” paga (H6298, used of loving devotion and faithfulness meeting), the verse pictures God’s own righteousness and peace not as competing claims to be balanced but as two friends who have finally, warmly met.
This is the psalm’s most quoted image: qualities that can feel opposed, God’s strict righteousness and His gift of peace, pictured instead as intimate, reconciled, and glad to be together.
Psalm 85:12-13 (BSB)
¹² The LORD will indeed provide what is good, and our land will yield its increase. ¹³ Righteousness will go before Him to prepare the way for His steps.
Study notes Where righteousness and peace actually met
Verse 10’s picture, righteousness and peace no longer at odds but embracing, describes something this psalm could only long for from a distance. Paul describes the moment it actually happened.
"He did this to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so as to be just and to justify the one who has faith in Jesus." Romans 3:26 (BSB)
At the cross, God’s righteousness was not softened or set aside to make room for peace with sinners. Both were fully honored at once, exactly the meeting this psalm pictures in advance, God perfectly just and, in that same act, the one who justifies.
Personal Application
- This psalm builds its present request entirely on a specific, remembered past mercy, “You showed favor… You forgave… You covered.” What specific past mercy from God could you name honestly today as the ground for a current request?
- Verse 10 pictures righteousness and peace as no longer opposed but joined. Is there an area of your life where you have quietly assumed God’s holiness and His peace toward you are in tension rather than already reconciled in Christ?
Decision of the day: Name one specific past mercy from God in prayer today, and let it be the stated ground for whatever you ask Him for next.
Pray to Close
The truth to carry from this psalm: God’s righteousness and His peace were never actually rivals. At the cross they met completely, and that meeting is the ground for every request that follows.
Praise: for the LORD in whom righteousness and peace have already, fully met.
Confess: any tendency to treat God’s holiness and His welcome toward you as though they were in tension.
Ask: for the same revival this psalm asks for, “will You not revive us again, that Your people may rejoice in You?”
Worship for Today
Revival's In The Air · Bryan & Katie Torwalt
This song’s plea for God to move again in power and mercy echoes this psalm’s own central request, “will You not revive us again,” asked by a people who have already tasted God’s favor and want it fresh.
Listen: