Text -- Psalms 85:1-12 (NET)

Psalm 85

85:1 For the music director; written by the Korahites, a psalm. O Lord, you showed favor to your land; you restored the well-being of Jacob. 85:2 You pardoned the wrongdoing of your people; you forgave all their sin. (Selah) 85:3 You withdrew all your fury; you turned back from your raging anger. 85:4 Restore us, O God our deliverer! Do not be displeased with us! 85:5 Will you stay mad at us forever? Will you remain angry throughout future generations? 85:6 Will you not revive us once more? Then your people will rejoice in you! 85:7 O Lord, show us your loyal love! Bestow on us your deliverance! 85:8 I will listen to what God the Lord says. For he will make peace with his people, his faithful followers. Yet they must not return to their foolish ways. 85:9 Certainly his loyal followers will soon experience his deliverance; then his splendor will again appear in our land. 85:10 Loyal love and faithfulness meet; deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. 85:11 Faithfulness grows from the ground, and deliverance looks down from the sky. 85:12 Yes, the Lord will bestow his good blessings, and our land will yield its crops.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 85:1

¹ sn Psalm 85. God’s people recall how he forgave their sins in the past, pray that he might now restore them to his favor, and anticipate renewed blessings.

² tn Heb “you turned with a turning [toward] Jacob.” The Hebrew term שְׁבוּת (shÿvut) is apparently a cognate accusative of שׁוּב (shuv). See Pss 14:7; 53:6.

NET Notes: Psa 85:2

¹ tn Heb “lifted up.”

² tn Heb “covered over.”

NET Notes: Psa 85:3

¹ tn Heb “the rage of your anger.” The phrase “rage of your anger” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the single idea. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81. See Pss 69:24; 78:49.

NET Notes: Psa 85:4

¹ tn Heb “break your displeasure with us.” Some prefer to emend הָפֵר (hafer, “break”) to הָסֵר (haser, “turn aside”).

NET Notes: Psa 85:5

¹ tn Heb “Will your anger stretch to a generation and a generation?”

NET Notes: Psa 85:8

¹ sn I will listen. Having asked for the Lord’s favor, the psalmist (who here represents the nation) anticipates a divine word of assurance.

² tn Heb “speak.” The idiom “speak peace” refers to establishing or maintaining peaceful relations with someone (see Gen 37:4; Zech 9:10; cf. Ps 122:8).

³ tn Heb “to his people and to his faithful followers.” The translation assumes that “his people” and “his faithful followers” are viewed as identical here.

⁴ tn Or “yet let them not.” After the negative particle אֵל (’el), the prefixed verbal form is jussive, indicating the speaker’s desire or wish.

NET Notes: Psa 85:9

¹ tn Heb “certainly his deliverance [is] near to those who fear him.”

² tn Heb “to dwell, glory, in our land.” “Glory” is the subject of the infinitive. The infinitive with -לְ (lÿ), “to dwell,” probably indicates result here (“then”). When God delivers his people and renews his relationship with them, he will once more reveal his royal splendor in the land.

NET Notes: Psa 85:10

¹ tn The psalmist probably uses the perfect verbal forms in v. 10 in a dramatic or rhetorical manner, describing what he anticipates as if it were already occurring or had already occurred.

² sn Deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. The psalmist personifies these abstract qualities to emphasize that God’s loyal love and faithfulness will yield deliverance and peace for his people.

NET Notes: Psa 85:11

¹ sn The psalmist already sees undeniable signs of God’s faithfulness and expects deliverance to arrive soon.

NET Notes: Psa 85:12

¹ tn Heb “what is good.”

² tn Both “bestow” and “yield” translate the same Hebrew verb (נָתַן, natan). The repetition of the word emphasizes that agricultural prosperity is the direct result of divine blessing.