Psalms 85

Verse-by-verse explanation

1. Psalms 85:1“The captivity of Jacob” refers to the people’s return from a period of exile or defeat, likely the Babylonian exile, treated in the psalm as already accomplished, even though full restoration was still underway.
2. Psalms 85:2To have “covered” sin is a common Hebrew image of forgiveness: as if something were laid over it, hidden, no longer counted against the person. The Selah marks another musical pause of uncertain meaning.
3. Psalms 85:3Speaks of the end of God’s anger as something already accomplished, likely recalling the people’s return from the Babylonian captivity mentioned in the previous verse.
4. Psalms 85:4Even while recalling a past forgiveness, the psalmist asks for a new restoration — the experience of God having acted before becomes a reason for hope in asking again.
5. Psalms 85:5The question does not expect a “yes”: it is a poetic way of pressing God, recalling that His anger does not normally last forever, as an argument in favor of the request.
6. Psalms 85:6“Revive” here is the image of restoring the people after a crisis, bringing them from a near-dead state back to joy — it is not about individual resurrection.
7. Psalms 85:7Joins two requests that appear together several times in the Psalms: mercy, in the sense of forgiveness and compassion, and salvation, a concrete deliverance from a bad situation.
8. Psalms 85:8The psalmist shifts from asking to listening: he promises to pay attention to God’s answer, which he hopes will be peace, with the warning not to repeat past mistakes.
9. Psalms 85:9To “fear” God here does not mean being afraid, but respect and reverence. “Glory” dwelling in the land is an image of God’s presence recognized and made visible among the people.
10. Psalms 85:10Personifies four qualities of God — mercy, truth, righteousness, and peace — as if they were people meeting again, a poetic way of saying that, after forgiveness, these things are no longer in conflict.
11. Psalms 85:11“Spring out of the earth” and “look down from heaven” form an image of a meeting between the human and the divine, as if truth and righteousness coming from below and above complete each other.
12. Psalms 85:12After so much petitioning, the psalm turns to speak of material abundance — rain and a good harvest were, for an agricultural people, concrete signs God had returned to bless the land.
13. Psalms 85:13Imagines righteousness as a herald walking ahead of God, preparing the way He is about to travel — a royal procession image applied to a virtue.