Psalms 85:10-13

85:10 Loyal love and faithfulness meet; ¹ 

deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. ² 

85:11 Faithfulness grows from the ground,

and deliverance looks down from the sky. ³ 

85:12 Yes, the Lord will bestow his good blessings, ⁴ 

and our land will yield ⁵  its crops.

85:13 Deliverance goes ⁶  before him,

and prepares ⁷  a pathway for him. ⁸ 

[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.

[85:10]  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.

[85:11]  ³ sn The psalmist already sees undeniable signs of God’s faithfulness and expects deliverance to arrive soon.

[85:12]  ⁴ tn Heb “what is good.”

[85:12]  ⁵ 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.

[85:13]  ⁶ tn Or “will go.”

[85:13]  ⁷ tn Or “will prepare.”

[85:13]  ⁸ tn Heb “and it prepares for a way his footsteps.” Some suggest emending וְיָשֵׂם (vÿyasem, “and prepares”) to וְשָׁלוֹם (vÿshalom, “and peace”) since “deliverance” and “peace” are closely related earlier in v. 13. This could be translated, “and peace [goes ahead, making] a pathway for his footsteps” (cf. NEB).