Today’s Passage: Psalm 85
This psalm begins by looking back. Once, the LORD showed favor to His land and brought Jacob home again, and the sons of Korah have not forgotten it. So when trouble returns, they come with that old mercy in hand and ask Him to do it once more: restore us. And by the time the psalm ends, it has arrived at a place where righteousness and peace no longer stand apart from each other, but meet like two who have long belonged together.
As you read, hold this: Restore us. Righteousness and peace have kissed.
Context A Psalm of the sons of Korah
The sons of Korah were the same guild of temple singers who gave us Psalms 42 through 49, and 84, 87, and 88, and that heading is part of the inspired text, not a later note pinned on afterward. The first three verses all look backward, spoken in the past tense: forgiveness has already been given, and the LORD’s anger has already been turned away. What follows comes from a people who have tasted that restoration once and are now asking God to finish what He began in them. Read it that way, as a prayer, and do not turn the land’s increase into a chart of crops and profit.
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.
Notice how much is already finished here. He showed favor, He restored, He forgave, He covered over their sin, He held back His fury and turned away from His burning anger. Every one of those verbs is done and settled, and whatever the psalm goes on to ask for next will stand on this solid 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.
Now the tense turns, and with it the whole mood of the prayer. Restore us, they say, because something has clearly gone wrong again. They put three honest questions to God, and none of them is easy to ask: Will You be angry with us forever? Will You draw it out to all generations? Will You not revive us again? Then they ask plainly for His loving devotion and His salvation. They do not pretend that the first mercy, real as it was, has made the present need disappear.
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.
Here one voice steps forward out of the crowd and says, I will listen to what God the LORD will say. And what He will speak is peace, peace to His people and His saints, though in the same breath He names folly as the old road He will not let them wander back down. His salvation is near, His glory ready to dwell in the land. The warning and the hope sit together inside the same promise.
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.
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.
What is good, an increase risen from the land, and righteousness walking on ahead of Him to prepare the way. The yield is His gift to give, not a scheme to be worked, so do not turn verse 12 into a chart of prosperity. The psalm began by asking to be restored, and it ends by watching for His very steps.
Study notes Where they actually met
Verse 10 could only paint the picture of that meeting and hold it up before us. Paul, writing long after, names the actual place where it 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 is both just and the one who justifies the sinner who trusts in Jesus. His righteousness was not quietly set aside to make room for peace with us; both were honored fully in the one same act. This is the very gospel the psalm was reaching toward all along. Restore us. Righteousness and peace have kissed.
Restore us. Righteousness and peace have nashaq, pronounced nah-SHAK. Strong's H5401, to kiss. The word means to kiss, the warm touch of a greeting or of a reunion between two who have long been apart. Beside it stands פָּגַשׁ (pagash), H6298, which means to meet, to come together. So loving devotion and faithfulness meet, and righteousness and peace kiss. These are not two rival claims that have to be carefully balanced against each other on a scale. They are two that were parted, and have found each other at last. .