Psalms 85:9-12

85:9 Certainly his loyal followers will soon experience his deliverance; ¹ 

then his splendor will again appear in our land. ² 

85:10 Loyal love and faithfulness meet; ³ 

deliverance and peace greet each other with a kiss. ⁴ 

85:11 Faithfulness grows from the ground,

and deliverance looks down from the sky. ⁵ 

85:12 Yes, the Lord will bestow his good blessings, ⁶ 

and our land will yield ⁷  its crops.

[85:9]  ¹ tn Heb “certainly his deliverance [is] near to those who fear him.”

[85:9]  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.

[85:10]  ³ 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]  ⁴ 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]  ⁵ sn The psalmist already sees undeniable signs of God’s faithfulness and expects deliverance to arrive soon.

[85:12]  ⁶ tn Heb “what is good.”

[85:12]  ⁷ 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.