Notes on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 85
The lxxxv. PSALM.
Either at the end of the Babilonish captivitie, or under Antiochus tyrannie, was this Psalm composed, minding God of his former pardoning, and restoring-grace to his people, to intreat the same again. The Psalmist in the name of the Church promising himself a glorious deliverance, proportionable in some degree, and representative of that happie enfranchisment the Church shall have by the Messiah at his coming.
To the president of the Quire is this Psalm committed for his ordering of it, Psalm lxxxv. To the chief musician, A Psalm for the sons of Korah.to be sung by the Korathites.
1 LOrd,1LOrd, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. thou hast offered very great and gracious deliverances unto this nation thy people, by re-estating it heretofore in a good condition after sad desolations, and un-captivating Jacobs posteritie by an Almighty hand.
2 Mercifully commiserating their sufferings,2Thou hast forgiven the iniquitie of thy people, thou hast covered all their sin. Selah and pardoning their iniquities, because they were thy chosen Israel, a people peculiarly belonging to thee, though ill deserving from thee; yet though their sins were then very great and provoking, thou wast pleased after a while to put them out of thy sight, and receive thy people again into thy favour: we have not forgot it.
3 As thou wast pleased grievously to afflict thy people,3Thou hast taken away all thy wrath, thou hast turned thy self from the fierceness of thine anger. so thou didst as graciously relieve, and release them; for what thy provoked anger took from them, thy free-grace restored it again unto them, and wouldest neither quite consume, nor everlastingly embondage them, but became as much theirs, and for them, as ever thou wast against them.
4Turn us, O God of our salvation: and cause thine anger towards us to cease.4 Lord, thine anger is again miserably broken out against us, by reason of our sins, we are fallen under heavy pressures, we are now as void of all humane helps, as then. Thou onelyonly heretofore wroughtest deliverance, and so thou must still. Turn us therefore, we pray thee, by unfained repentance, and deliver us out of this miserable condition; thou that hast been, and we hope still wilt be a Saviour to us: yea, both turn us to thee, and do thou also turn towards us the face, and not the back-parts; let the clouds of thine indignation be dispelled, and the sun-shine of thy saving grace break forth upon us.
5Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?5 Wilt thou do by us as thou never diddest with any before us, wilt thou be unexorable, and are our sins unpardonable more than theirs? shall thine anger never cease, and those heavy judgements thou hast laid upon us, shall they never be taken off us, but must they be an everlasting inderitance to us, and our posterity after us? God forbid.
6Wilt thou not revive us again? that thy people may rejoce in thee?6 Thou hast raised thy people by thine Almighty power, when they were as it were dead and buried, and shall the name of Israel now die in us, never to live again? Lord, think other thoughts towards us, bring us again into a comfortable condition, and raise us up in joy, as much as thou hast cast us down in sorrow, by the return of thy reconciled favour to us, which will infinitely rejoyce us.
7Shew us thy mer… O Lord: and grant salvation.7 Let us be so happy as to see, and feel the sweet effects of thy pardoning grace, O good God, by granting us a powerfull deliverance from under this misery and bondage.
8 As pray,8I will hear what God the Lord will speak: for he will speak peace unto his people, and to his Saints: but let them not turn again to …olly. so I will also expect an answer, my faith shall listen diligently to the promise of God what it sayes, as also to his providence what it will speak effectually by way of performance, for his promises are then words, he will do as he sayes, and therefore I am confident how ever Gods time is now of punishing us, so it will be of pardoning us, his people shall have rest from these their troubles; for his Saints the invisible Church sake that are amongst them, but let them take heed of abusing such goodness by provoking the Lord again to wrath, with back-sliding ingratitude, lest he never take their words more.
9 Surely,9Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him; that glorie may dwell in our land. deliverance from the Lord will make haste for the enfranchizing of all those that faithfully wait for it, and will heartily imbrace it, when it comes to the promoting and re-establishing his worship and service again in that land of his and ours, though we are wrongfully disseiz'd of it, and restoring it to its former glorie and splendour.
10 Our return as it shall doubtless be,10MercieMercy and truth are met together: righteousness & peace have killed ea…h other. so it shall be exceeding happie, the very embleme of the salvation that comes by the Messiah to the Church, and the glorious effects thereof, for in our restauration there shall be an admirable commixtion of the merciemercy and truth of God, thereby graciously fulfilling his promise touching the well-fare of his Church and freedom from her enemies, together with a righteous obediential walking of his people with him in peace and tranquillitie: Like as in Christ and in the restauration that he shall make of poor distressed sinners, to a spiritual Libertie from their ghostly enemies, sin and Satan, there shall be a glorious reconciliation of those cross pleading attributes and properties in Gods divine nature, and in the soul of every justified regenerate member of the Church, for according to truth and righteousness, Man that sinned hath died, Christ being made a sacrifice, and according to merciemercy and peace, Man that hath sinned is saved, and God & he are reconciled, and at one in the propitiation of his son, so that in him the Laws threatnings and Gospels, promises are agreed, the rigour of Gods justice is fully satisfied, all things in God peaceably accorded, and God and man sweetly reconciled, and man in his own conscience by the faith of all these comfortably quieted.
11Truth shall spring out of the earth: and righteousness shall look down from heaven.11 We shall serve and obey God in truth and uprightness, such sweet fruit shall Judea yield upon our restitution, and God shall take pleasure in us, and from heaven pour forth his righteous blessings upon us, in grace and favour to us, as it shall be with the Church when the Messiah, that Truth of God, shall be born in our nature of earthly parents, with what satisfactorie content shall God then behold him, and those justified sanctified members of his here below, aswell as those glorified ones in heaven above, and how shall he bless them!
12Yea, the Lord shall give that which is good: and our land shall yield her increase.12 Yea, the Lord shall be so reconciled to us, that our evils shall be turned into their contrarie blessings, he shall be our friend and make every thing else befriend us for good, the creature shall be reconciled aswell as the creator, and the land that our sins have made barren and fruitless, shall by the blessing of God upon it be restored to that fertilitie it had heretofore when God was better served, and it was better blessed, and made to resemble the plenteous spiritual blessings that Christs enfranchized Church shall abound with here.
13 God himself shall plentifully vouchsafe his graces,13Righteousness shall go before him: and shall set us in the way of his steps. and make us walk to his well-pleasing in holiness and righteousness, as Christ shall his Church, and set us in the right way, which we have so miserably strayed from, and enable us to walk it, even the path of his precepts.