Original Meaning
The Heading (85:0)
PSALM 85 IS THE SECOND SONG of the Korahite collection in the Psalter’s Book 3. For discussion of the dedication to the “director of music,” see the comments on Psalm 77:0.
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S
FIERCE ANGER. It is difficult for Christians who do not often delve into the Old Testament to understand how God—whom we see as Father, Savior, and Comforter—can also be a God of wrath and fierce anger (Ps 85:3). This idea seems alien to a “New Testament” understanding of God. How are we to understand this notion of God’s fierce anger?
God’s fierce anger is a proper response to our covenantal failure, as is perhaps best illustrated by considering one of the covenantal ceremonies we find in the Bible itself. Genesis 15 is one of these Old Testament passages that seems strange and alien to modern readers. In this passage, God enters into a covenant with Abram. He promises to the old man an heir of his own flesh and blood, something that seemed impossible to Abram. So, to establish the certainty of this promise, God enters into a covenant with him. The ceremony itself seems strange to us but was common enough in the ancient Near East. Abram was to take a heifer, a goat, and a ram, as well as a dove and a young pigeon (Gen 15:9), split the larger animals in two, and lay out the halves (along with the birds) to create a path, albeit a bloody and fairly gruesome one.
Normally, the covenant would be entered into by both parties to the contract via the walking of each one through the path of sacrificed animals.11
The symbolism of this solemn act communicated a vow: “Should I fail to keep my side of the covenant, may I be treated as harshly as these animals.” This ceremony illustrates just how seriously a covenant should be viewed.
It is in this context of covenant that we should understand God’s fierce anger. Covenantal relationship is a serious thing. Failing to keep the covenant has serious consequences. Should either party to the promise fail to uphold his or her side of the deal, the offended party has the right to be angry and to execute justice. Israel failed (as have God’s people in every generation) to meet their covenantal promises. They bound themselves to keep God’s law and singularly failed to do so. God had faithfully and patiently kept his side of the covenantal deal, but his people not only failed to keep but also openly rejected their covenantal responsibilities. They were meant to love God and follow in his ways, but they rejected his law and chased after other gods.
So it was that, eventually, God vented his justifiable anger against Israel and Judah through their respective exiles. Covenant is a serious matter, and breaking covenant has serious consequences. It is in this context that the psalmist speaks about God’s “wrath” and “fierce anger” in Psalm 85. Thankfully, he only raises the matter to speak about the grace of God in choosing not to act upon the righteous anger he felt.
Contemporary Significance
TWO SIGNIFICANT THEMES run through Psalm 85, and to one degree or another Christians struggle with each of these ideas. The psalm celebrates the grace of God and our dependence on that grace, but underpinning that meditation is the idea of God’s anger. God’s grace means that he turns away from anger and maintains relationship with a sinful people. There are many people in today’s church who struggle with each of these concepts—God’s unmerited grace and his righteous anger. By way of application it is important that we allow each of these themes to speak to the way we think about God, ourselves, and the world in which he has placed us.
Embracing God’s grace. There is something immensely human about our struggle to accept God’s free grace. We find it difficult to accept that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that we bring to the table to merit God’s love and acceptance. We long to be good enough. We desire a quantifiable righteousness that means we are just good enough to be considered worthy of relationship with God. But Psalm 85 is clear that forgiveness is not found in our ability to obey. It is based solely in God’s gracious decision simply to forgive (vv. 2–3). The covenantal relationship works because God chooses to see us as faithful even when we are not (vv. 10–11).
Christians struggle with grace on two levels. First, it is hard to accept our unworthiness, and we can tend to think of ourselves as better than we really are. Second, we can struggle to accept that God still loves us and that his grace is sufficient to forgive all our sins.
1. Conditionality: Human beings are used to conditionality. Our love for one another is often predicated on what we receive from the object of that love. We love because we are loved back. We serve others because (or so that?) they, in turn, help us. But we feel that we must always do something to merit the love, service, or acceptance of others. This conditionality often affects our relationship with God. Although we would never actually voice such ideas, we can feel that God loves us because of all that we do for him. We serve in church (whether that be preaching or setting out the chairs); we are kind to others (though we expect them to be kind back); we take care to read the Bible and pray (most of the time). And in some sense we feel that we deserve God’s love because, after all, we try our best to love and serve him. We do not like to be beholden . . . but that is exactly what we are! God loves us not because of what we do for him—he loves us just because he has chosen to do so. It is important for us to realize that we are completely dependent on God’s grace, for one day our self-righteousness will fail us. One day we will fail to do the things that we feel make us acceptable, and the world will come crashing down around us. The psalmist makes it clear that God’s desire for relationship with and forgiveness of us are unmerited. It is important for us to remember this truth if we are to have any sense of security in our life with God and if we are to view ourselves with the humility we ought to have.
2. Accepting forgiveness: The second reason for our need to think properly about God’s grace is that if we do not do so, we will become crippled by guilt and useless to God. In various churches, I frequently encounter Christians who find it hard to believe that God can still love them and forgive them again for the sins they have committed. Some struggle because of the number of times they sin—and that they commit the same sins over and over again. Others cannot accept God’s grace because of the perceived seriousness of the sins they commit. But Psalm 85, as a clear precursor of what we see in the New Testament, points readers to the fullness of God’s forgiveness. Verses 2–3 make it clear that all sin (and its associated guilt) is thoroughly removed from us. God lifts the burden of sin from us, he covers it over so that he sees it no more, and he chooses to turn away from rightful anger. His grace is absolutely full. His forgiveness is totally complete. As far as the psalmist is concerned, this truth is an absolute and unquestionable fact—our responsibility is simply to accept that fact.
If we are to make Psalm 85 real in our lives, we must embrace the grace of God fully in our hearts and minds. Only then we will see and understand our relationship with him properly.
Embracing God’s anger. As contemporary Christians we tend to struggle with the idea of an angry God. This is not the way we see God; rather, we view him as Father and Friend. We often encounter statements that relegate this idea of a God of wrath to the pages of the Old Testament alone, as though God underwent a personality transplant at the point of the incarnation. We certainly do not like to think of God as being angry, because the image is not comfortable for us. Yet in Psalm 85 the anger of God is the important background theme against which the main theme of God’s rich grace is played out. Is it right for modern Christians to marginalize the idea of God’s wrath? In doing so, do we run risks?
The wrath of God is inescapable in the Scriptures and certainly cannot be limited to the Old Testament. Frequently, God’s anger is described as burning against sin, injustice, and oppression (e.g., Exod 32:11; Ps 7:6, 11 et al.). The Bible often talks about the sinful activities of human beings as “provoking” God to anger (for example, see the historian’s presentation of the kings of Israel who turned their backs on God in 1 Kgs 15:30; 16:13, 26, 33 et al.). Jesus’ anger at the hypocrisy and callousness of the religious rulers of his day is unmistakable, the cleansing of the temple in John 2 being just one of many examples of the wrath of God displayed during the period of the Messiah’s earthly incarnation. And the concept of God’s righteous anger does not disappear in the Christian era. Both Paul and John are clear that God’s anger has not ceased because of the work of Jesus (e.g., see Rom 1:18; 3:5; Col 3:6; Rev 16). So, we cannot easily rid ourselves of an angry God, but how are we to understand these passages and others like them?
Clearly, God’s anger is linked with human sin and rebellion, as we see in Psalm 85. God’s righteous anger at the persistent sin of Judah and Jerusalem led to the exile, yet God turned from that wrath and restored the people to their home (vv. 1, 3). But the people still sinned, so the poet prays for God’s grace in once again turning from his anger (vv. 4–5).
This link between anger and sin is important for believers of every generation to remember. God’s anger against sin remains real and true today. It has not changed. God has not “chilled out” over the passing generations so these things simply do not matter anymore. Failure to grapple with the concept of an angry God will lead the current generation of believers into a state of complacency, one in which we are not filled with horror at sin as we should be. God’s anger should be reflected in our own response to sinful behavior both in ourselves and in the world in which we live. If we have no concept of God’s anger, then we will grow to tolerate sin in our own hearts and become indifferent to injustice in the world. We embrace the angry God because his anger is our guide—his anger shapes our perspectives of life.12
Ultimately, a God who cannot be angry is toothless and stands for nothing. Perhaps that is why contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with the wrath of God—we are actually quite happy with a God who does not place awkward demands or expectations on his people. Yet the Bible is clear that, at some point in the future, God’s anger will be worked out in human reality.
It is clear from how God revealed himself to Moses that God controls his anger and does not express his wrath in ways that he might. Exodus 34:6–7 powerfully portrays God as compassionate in nature, as keeping his anger in check. Yet that anger still teaches us. God’s wrath must be allowed to shape the life of believers in our (and every) generation. Otherwise we will never have the absolute abhorrence of sin (both personal and societal) that we should have. So, it is not the place of the church to marginalize the wrath of God. Yes, we rejoice in God’s grace, as did the psalmist, but we also embrace God’s anger as a flawless guide that shapes our view of our hearts and of the world in which we live.
Original Meaning
Rich Forgiveness (85:1–3)
THE OPENING VERSES OF PSALM 85 are among the richest found even among the great wealth of literary masterpieces in the Psalter. The poet celebrates the completeness of Yahweh’s forgiveness of his people in terms that rival anything we read in the New Testament.
You, LORD, showed favor to your land. As we so often see in the psalms, this composition begins with a focal thought that is developed throughout the rest of the poem. In some ways, the description we find in verse 1 immediately highlights for us the theme of the psalm as a whole. The God of the psalmist is a God who shows favor. The God of Psalm 85 is the God who restores his people. The language used in this verse is strong and emotive, and our English translations do not quite do justice to the tone of this verse. The Hebrew verb ratsah perhaps more closely reflects “delight” rather than simply “showing favor.” John Goldingay comments, “Here, as in 44:3[4], it denotes an unexplained if not inexplicable delight that Yahweh feels. . . . It is the pleasure and the liking that issue in practical favoring, and acting in a loving way. It is the attitude of a father to his son (Prov 3:12).”1
The object of this divine affection is the land itself—Yahweh’s own. But the second line of verse 1 makes it clear that God’s pride is not much rooted in the geography of Palestine; rather, it is rooted in the land’s being an appropriate home for his people.
You restored the fortunes of Jacob. Given the context within which Psalm 85 falls, it seems likely that this reference to restoration calls to mind Israel’s return to the land following their release from the Babylonian exile. In fact, the phrase “you restored the fortunes of Jacob” can alternatively be read as “you turned [or ‘returned’] the captivity of Jacob.”2
Verse 1 points to the Lord’s great delight in his people and the fact that they are able to return to the land promised to them as their home. The psalmist is fully aware that this restoration is not really a question of the political and military machinations of the Near East in his day. The following verses of the psalmist’s prayer show that the restoration of the people to the land is rooted in one thing alone: God’s gracious forgiveness of his people’s sin. Yes, Yahweh has restored his people to the land, but this political restoration is actually rooted in an underlying spiritual restoration that has been worked by Yahweh himself in behalf of his people.
You forgave the iniquity of your people. While the translation of this sentence is perfectly accurate, the limits of the English language mean that we miss out on a very rich metaphor contained in the Hebrew of verse 2. The language of the forgiveness of sins in Hebrew is rooted in the idea of God’s “lifting off” or “carrying away” the sins of his people (nasa’ta ‘awon ‘ammeka). The concept behind this language understands sin to be a burden that weighs down the people of God. Through the forgiveness of their sins, God reaches down and lifts that weight from their shoulders. It is in the removal of the burden of sin and guilt that Israel has found restoration.
And covered all their sins. The image of the removal of sin and guilt is complemented by the idea of God’s “covering” their moral failings. We should not think of all this activity as being akin to the contemporary notion of a “cover-up.” It does not refer to concealment in that sense. The image of covering here adds to the above idea of the removal of sin. In the divine act of covering sins, God decides to bring them to mind no more. At this point in the poem the psalmist does not indicate the instrument of this covering, but verse 7 and Proverbs 10:12 (which uses the same type of language) lead the reader to the conclusion that Yahweh has covered over the sins of his people with his steadfast love. The verb that is used for “covered” (kissitah) is elsewhere used to describe the effects of a flood on the land (Ps 104:6; Exod 15:5, 10 et al.), and the imagery of Psalm 85:2b symbolizes God’s covering over the sins of his people with his great love just as the waters of a flood cover the land. So, verse 2 conjures up an image of the completeness of Yahweh’s forgiveness—the burden of sin and guilt has been removed, and God no longer sees those wrongs because he has covered them over with his love. This imagery of grace in the heart of the Old Testament is indeed very rich.
You set aside all your wrath. The concept of forgiveness, however, often takes a twofold manifestation in the Bible. First, as we see in verse 2, God proactively removes the burden of sin and guilt from his people. Second, as we see here in verse 3, in forgiving the sins of his people God also sets aside his righteous anger. As a result of their sin and rebellion, Yahweh has every right to be angry with his people, and for a period of time that anger was manifested in the judgment of the exile. But in his prayer the psalmist celebrates the totality of God’s forgiving restoration, for he has not only removed the burden of guilt, but he has also chosen to abrogate his anger. The forgiveness celebrated by the psalmist in prayer is the complete package—both the sinful acts themselves and God’s righteous response of anger are completely removed, and therefore the people are completely restored.3
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S
FIERCE ANGER. It is difficult for Christians who do not often delve into the Old Testament to understand how God—whom we see as Father, Savior, and Comforter—can also be a God of wrath and fierce anger (Ps 85:3). This idea seems alien to a “New Testament” understanding of God. How are we to understand this notion of God’s fierce anger?
God’s fierce anger is a proper response to our covenantal failure, as is perhaps best illustrated by considering one of the covenantal ceremonies we find in the Bible itself. Genesis 15 is one of these Old Testament passages that seems strange and alien to modern readers. In this passage, God enters into a covenant with Abram. He promises to the old man an heir of his own flesh and blood, something that seemed impossible to Abram. So, to establish the certainty of this promise, God enters into a covenant with him. The ceremony itself seems strange to us but was common enough in the ancient Near East. Abram was to take a heifer, a goat, and a ram, as well as a dove and a young pigeon (Gen 15:9), split the larger animals in two, and lay out the halves (along with the birds) to create a path, albeit a bloody and fairly gruesome one.
Normally, the covenant would be entered into by both parties to the contract via the walking of each one through the path of sacrificed animals.11
The symbolism of this solemn act communicated a vow: “Should I fail to keep my side of the covenant, may I be treated as harshly as these animals.” This ceremony illustrates just how seriously a covenant should be viewed.
It is in this context of covenant that we should understand God’s fierce anger. Covenantal relationship is a serious thing. Failing to keep the covenant has serious consequences. Should either party to the promise fail to uphold his or her side of the deal, the offended party has the right to be angry and to execute justice. Israel failed (as have God’s people in every generation) to meet their covenantal promises. They bound themselves to keep God’s law and singularly failed to do so. God had faithfully and patiently kept his side of the covenantal deal, but his people not only failed to keep but also openly rejected their covenantal responsibilities. They were meant to love God and follow in his ways, but they rejected his law and chased after other gods.
So it was that, eventually, God vented his justifiable anger against Israel and Judah through their respective exiles. Covenant is a serious matter, and breaking covenant has serious consequences. It is in this context that the psalmist speaks about God’s “wrath” and “fierce anger” in Psalm 85. Thankfully, he only raises the matter to speak about the grace of God in choosing not to act upon the righteous anger he felt.
Contemporary Significance
TWO SIGNIFICANT THEMES run through Psalm 85, and to one degree or another Christians struggle with each of these ideas. The psalm celebrates the grace of God and our dependence on that grace, but underpinning that meditation is the idea of God’s anger. God’s grace means that he turns away from anger and maintains relationship with a sinful people. There are many people in today’s church who struggle with each of these concepts—God’s unmerited grace and his righteous anger. By way of application it is important that we allow each of these themes to speak to the way we think about God, ourselves, and the world in which he has placed us.
Embracing God’s grace. There is something immensely human about our struggle to accept God’s free grace. We find it difficult to accept that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that we bring to the table to merit God’s love and acceptance. We long to be good enough. We desire a quantifiable righteousness that means we are just good enough to be considered worthy of relationship with God. But Psalm 85 is clear that forgiveness is not found in our ability to obey. It is based solely in God’s gracious decision simply to forgive (vv. 2–3). The covenantal relationship works because God chooses to see us as faithful even when we are not (vv. 10–11).
Christians struggle with grace on two levels. First, it is hard to accept our unworthiness, and we can tend to think of ourselves as better than we really are. Second, we can struggle to accept that God still loves us and that his grace is sufficient to forgive all our sins.
1. Conditionality: Human beings are used to conditionality. Our love for one another is often predicated on what we receive from the object of that love. We love because we are loved back. We serve others because (or so that?) they, in turn, help us. But we feel that we must always do something to merit the love, service, or acceptance of others. This conditionality often affects our relationship with God. Although we would never actually voice such ideas, we can feel that God loves us because of all that we do for him. We serve in church (whether that be preaching or setting out the chairs); we are kind to others (though we expect them to be kind back); we take care to read the Bible and pray (most of the time). And in some sense we feel that we deserve God’s love because, after all, we try our best to love and serve him. We do not like to be beholden . . . but that is exactly what we are! God loves us not because of what we do for him—he loves us just because he has chosen to do so. It is important for us to realize that we are completely dependent on God’s grace, for one day our self-righteousness will fail us. One day we will fail to do the things that we feel make us acceptable, and the world will come crashing down around us. The psalmist makes it clear that God’s desire for relationship with and forgiveness of us are unmerited. It is important for us to remember this truth if we are to have any sense of security in our life with God and if we are to view ourselves with the humility we ought to have.
2. Accepting forgiveness: The second reason for our need to think properly about God’s grace is that if we do not do so, we will become crippled by guilt and useless to God. In various churches, I frequently encounter Christians who find it hard to believe that God can still love them and forgive them again for the sins they have committed. Some struggle because of the number of times they sin—and that they commit the same sins over and over again. Others cannot accept God’s grace because of the perceived seriousness of the sins they commit. But Psalm 85, as a clear precursor of what we see in the New Testament, points readers to the fullness of God’s forgiveness. Verses 2–3 make it clear that all sin (and its associated guilt) is thoroughly removed from us. God lifts the burden of sin from us, he covers it over so that he sees it no more, and he chooses to turn away from rightful anger. His grace is absolutely full. His forgiveness is totally complete. As far as the psalmist is concerned, this truth is an absolute and unquestionable fact—our responsibility is simply to accept that fact.
If we are to make Psalm 85 real in our lives, we must embrace the grace of God fully in our hearts and minds. Only then we will see and understand our relationship with him properly.
Embracing God’s anger. As contemporary Christians we tend to struggle with the idea of an angry God. This is not the way we see God; rather, we view him as Father and Friend. We often encounter statements that relegate this idea of a God of wrath to the pages of the Old Testament alone, as though God underwent a personality transplant at the point of the incarnation. We certainly do not like to think of God as being angry, because the image is not comfortable for us. Yet in Psalm 85 the anger of God is the important background theme against which the main theme of God’s rich grace is played out. Is it right for modern Christians to marginalize the idea of God’s wrath? In doing so, do we run risks?
The wrath of God is inescapable in the Scriptures and certainly cannot be limited to the Old Testament. Frequently, God’s anger is described as burning against sin, injustice, and oppression (e.g., Exod 32:11; Ps 7:6, 11 et al.). The Bible often talks about the sinful activities of human beings as “provoking” God to anger (for example, see the historian’s presentation of the kings of Israel who turned their backs on God in 1 Kgs 15:30; 16:13, 26, 33 et al.). Jesus’ anger at the hypocrisy and callousness of the religious rulers of his day is unmistakable, the cleansing of the temple in John 2 being just one of many examples of the wrath of God displayed during the period of the Messiah’s earthly incarnation. And the concept of God’s righteous anger does not disappear in the Christian era. Both Paul and John are clear that God’s anger has not ceased because of the work of Jesus (e.g., see Rom 1:18; 3:5; Col 3:6; Rev 16). So, we cannot easily rid ourselves of an angry God, but how are we to understand these passages and others like them?
Clearly, God’s anger is linked with human sin and rebellion, as we see in Psalm 85. God’s righteous anger at the persistent sin of Judah and Jerusalem led to the exile, yet God turned from that wrath and restored the people to their home (vv. 1, 3). But the people still sinned, so the poet prays for God’s grace in once again turning from his anger (vv. 4–5).
This link between anger and sin is important for believers of every generation to remember. God’s anger against sin remains real and true today. It has not changed. God has not “chilled out” over the passing generations so these things simply do not matter anymore. Failure to grapple with the concept of an angry God will lead the current generation of believers into a state of complacency, one in which we are not filled with horror at sin as we should be. God’s anger should be reflected in our own response to sinful behavior both in ourselves and in the world in which we live. If we have no concept of God’s anger, then we will grow to tolerate sin in our own hearts and become indifferent to injustice in the world. We embrace the angry God because his anger is our guide—his anger shapes our perspectives of life.12
Ultimately, a God who cannot be angry is toothless and stands for nothing. Perhaps that is why contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with the wrath of God—we are actually quite happy with a God who does not place awkward demands or expectations on his people. Yet the Bible is clear that, at some point in the future, God’s anger will be worked out in human reality.
It is clear from how God revealed himself to Moses that God controls his anger and does not express his wrath in ways that he might. Exodus 34:6–7 powerfully portrays God as compassionate in nature, as keeping his anger in check. Yet that anger still teaches us. God’s wrath must be allowed to shape the life of believers in our (and every) generation. Otherwise we will never have the absolute abhorrence of sin (both personal and societal) that we should have. So, it is not the place of the church to marginalize the wrath of God. Yes, we rejoice in God’s grace, as did the psalmist, but we also embrace God’s anger as a flawless guide that shapes our view of our hearts and of the world in which we live.
Original Meaning
The Conundrum (85:4–7)
RESTORE US AGAIN, GOD OUR SAVIOR. There is a strong element of surprise in the second stanza of Psalm 85. It seems absolutely contradictory that the psalmist should move from his prayerful celebration of God’s all-encompassing forgiveness in verses 1–3, where he delights in restoration of Yahweh, to this heartfelt plea that God would once again restore his people. Restoration is received yet still required. How so? The movement seems to be a bit backward. As with Psalm 126, logically speaking it appears that the second stanza should precede the first. The normal flow in psalms of this type seems to be that restoration is first sought and then celebrated once it is received. But the psalmist is not driven by logic in his prayer but by experience. He is fully aware that the experience of forgiveness does not remove the need for forgiveness. The people have been forgiven and restored, but they are still in constant need of forgiveness and restoration. The sins that led to Israel’s removal from the land and exile in Babylon have been publicly forgiven, thus resulting in the rebirth of the nation in the land. But a change of address does not automatically mean a change of heart. The psalmist is aware of the continuing sinfulness of the people and of the displeasure (lit., “vexation” [ka‘as]) this sinfulness brings to the Lord (v. 4b).
Obviously, there is an inherent tension in this situation, but the psalmist is able to pray because he knows the true nature of the God whom he worships—he is the “God of salvation” (NIV: “God our Savior”); therefore, the psalmist is emboldened to pray. There is an element of bare-faced gall about his prayer. One would think that after such public and gracious grace in the restoration of Israel to the land the poet would be almost embarrassed to seek forgiveness yet again. But he is confident to pray because he knows that salvation is something properly basic to the character of God.
Will you be angry with us forever? If we do posit a setting for this psalm in the return to Jerusalem and the restoration of the people to the land, then the questions of verses 5–6 become particularly poignant. The poet asks, “Will you be angry forever? Will you prolong your anger through all generations?” But these questions are rhetorical, for in the return from exile the psalmist has witnessed the fact that Yahweh does not prolong his anger through all generations. The psalmist asks questions to which he already knows the answers. Asking questions to which we already know the answers can seem pointless, but effectively this contemplative interrogation serves as a reminder to readers and hearers alike. They have witnessed God’s salvation in the return from exile, therefore, though they sin, they can still have confidence that they will experience generous renewal again.
Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you? Again, the question is rhetorical. The poet is confident that, just as the anger of God will not linger unnecessarily, so he will also bring life to the people again. The idea of revival in verse 6a speaks to God’s breathing spiritual and moral life into the community of faith. In contemporary Christianity we tend to think of revival in terms of mass conversions and the growth of the church, but this prayer simply asks God to breathe spiritual life back into his people.4
Such spiritual renewal results in a people who are grateful in heart and rejoice in their relationship with God (cf. Ps 80:18). Only in right relationship with God can human beings truly delight in their humanity.
Show us your unfailing love, LORD, and grant us your salvation. The passion of the psalmist’s plea is found in the awareness that forgiveness, salvation, and spiritual renewal are only to be found in the unmerited love of God (his hesed). The prayer of Psalm 85:4–7 is rooted in the people’s experience of seventy years of exile. God alone can restore and renew. He alone can hear and forgive. That there is nothing the people can do to earn or merit the reviving work of God constitutes the reason for the psalmist’s offering this the impassioned appeal—prayer alone can bring about the end the psalmist seeks. The poet is fully aware that forgiveness is found entirely in the grace of God and that grace can only be sought in prayer. Salvation in Old Testament terms is God’s intervention into the historical reality of his people (see the discussion of Ps 74:12), and the clear desire voiced in this prayer is that God’s intervention will bring about spiritual renewal in the hearts of his people. Physical restoration to the land and the city is not enough; the poet’s desire is that true, spiritual transformation would accompany the outward restoration of the return from exile. Such renewal can result only from God’s unfailing love and is rooted in his intervention to carry out a work of transformation in the hearts of his people.
Psalm 85:1–3 celebrates the completeness of forgiveness that results from God’s gracious favor, and verses 4–7 deal with the inherent conundrum of the life of faith. The people have been forgiven, but they are also constantly in need of forgiveness. They have been restored, but they are constantly in need of restoration. Such is the dichotomy of life with God for every generation of God’s people. We are forgiven, but in our weakness we constantly need forgiveness. We are restored to right relationship with God, yet we still constantly require restoration. Is it possible to find some sort of resolution to this tension?
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S
FIERCE ANGER. It is difficult for Christians who do not often delve into the Old Testament to understand how God—whom we see as Father, Savior, and Comforter—can also be a God of wrath and fierce anger (Ps 85:3). This idea seems alien to a “New Testament” understanding of God. How are we to understand this notion of God’s fierce anger?
God’s fierce anger is a proper response to our covenantal failure, as is perhaps best illustrated by considering one of the covenantal ceremonies we find in the Bible itself. Genesis 15 is one of these Old Testament passages that seems strange and alien to modern readers. In this passage, God enters into a covenant with Abram. He promises to the old man an heir of his own flesh and blood, something that seemed impossible to Abram. So, to establish the certainty of this promise, God enters into a covenant with him. The ceremony itself seems strange to us but was common enough in the ancient Near East. Abram was to take a heifer, a goat, and a ram, as well as a dove and a young pigeon (Gen 15:9), split the larger animals in two, and lay out the halves (along with the birds) to create a path, albeit a bloody and fairly gruesome one.
Normally, the covenant would be entered into by both parties to the contract via the walking of each one through the path of sacrificed animals.11
The symbolism of this solemn act communicated a vow: “Should I fail to keep my side of the covenant, may I be treated as harshly as these animals.” This ceremony illustrates just how seriously a covenant should be viewed.
It is in this context of covenant that we should understand God’s fierce anger. Covenantal relationship is a serious thing. Failing to keep the covenant has serious consequences. Should either party to the promise fail to uphold his or her side of the deal, the offended party has the right to be angry and to execute justice. Israel failed (as have God’s people in every generation) to meet their covenantal promises. They bound themselves to keep God’s law and singularly failed to do so. God had faithfully and patiently kept his side of the covenantal deal, but his people not only failed to keep but also openly rejected their covenantal responsibilities. They were meant to love God and follow in his ways, but they rejected his law and chased after other gods.
So it was that, eventually, God vented his justifiable anger against Israel and Judah through their respective exiles. Covenant is a serious matter, and breaking covenant has serious consequences. It is in this context that the psalmist speaks about God’s “wrath” and “fierce anger” in Psalm 85. Thankfully, he only raises the matter to speak about the grace of God in choosing not to act upon the righteous anger he felt.
Contemporary Significance
TWO SIGNIFICANT THEMES run through Psalm 85, and to one degree or another Christians struggle with each of these ideas. The psalm celebrates the grace of God and our dependence on that grace, but underpinning that meditation is the idea of God’s anger. God’s grace means that he turns away from anger and maintains relationship with a sinful people. There are many people in today’s church who struggle with each of these concepts—God’s unmerited grace and his righteous anger. By way of application it is important that we allow each of these themes to speak to the way we think about God, ourselves, and the world in which he has placed us.
Embracing God’s grace. There is something immensely human about our struggle to accept God’s free grace. We find it difficult to accept that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that we bring to the table to merit God’s love and acceptance. We long to be good enough. We desire a quantifiable righteousness that means we are just good enough to be considered worthy of relationship with God. But Psalm 85 is clear that forgiveness is not found in our ability to obey. It is based solely in God’s gracious decision simply to forgive (vv. 2–3). The covenantal relationship works because God chooses to see us as faithful even when we are not (vv. 10–11).
Christians struggle with grace on two levels. First, it is hard to accept our unworthiness, and we can tend to think of ourselves as better than we really are. Second, we can struggle to accept that God still loves us and that his grace is sufficient to forgive all our sins.
1. Conditionality: Human beings are used to conditionality. Our love for one another is often predicated on what we receive from the object of that love. We love because we are loved back. We serve others because (or so that?) they, in turn, help us. But we feel that we must always do something to merit the love, service, or acceptance of others. This conditionality often affects our relationship with God. Although we would never actually voice such ideas, we can feel that God loves us because of all that we do for him. We serve in church (whether that be preaching or setting out the chairs); we are kind to others (though we expect them to be kind back); we take care to read the Bible and pray (most of the time). And in some sense we feel that we deserve God’s love because, after all, we try our best to love and serve him. We do not like to be beholden . . . but that is exactly what we are! God loves us not because of what we do for him—he loves us just because he has chosen to do so. It is important for us to realize that we are completely dependent on God’s grace, for one day our self-righteousness will fail us. One day we will fail to do the things that we feel make us acceptable, and the world will come crashing down around us. The psalmist makes it clear that God’s desire for relationship with and forgiveness of us are unmerited. It is important for us to remember this truth if we are to have any sense of security in our life with God and if we are to view ourselves with the humility we ought to have.
2. Accepting forgiveness: The second reason for our need to think properly about God’s grace is that if we do not do so, we will become crippled by guilt and useless to God. In various churches, I frequently encounter Christians who find it hard to believe that God can still love them and forgive them again for the sins they have committed. Some struggle because of the number of times they sin—and that they commit the same sins over and over again. Others cannot accept God’s grace because of the perceived seriousness of the sins they commit. But Psalm 85, as a clear precursor of what we see in the New Testament, points readers to the fullness of God’s forgiveness. Verses 2–3 make it clear that all sin (and its associated guilt) is thoroughly removed from us. God lifts the burden of sin from us, he covers it over so that he sees it no more, and he chooses to turn away from rightful anger. His grace is absolutely full. His forgiveness is totally complete. As far as the psalmist is concerned, this truth is an absolute and unquestionable fact—our responsibility is simply to accept that fact.
If we are to make Psalm 85 real in our lives, we must embrace the grace of God fully in our hearts and minds. Only then we will see and understand our relationship with him properly.
Embracing God’s anger. As contemporary Christians we tend to struggle with the idea of an angry God. This is not the way we see God; rather, we view him as Father and Friend. We often encounter statements that relegate this idea of a God of wrath to the pages of the Old Testament alone, as though God underwent a personality transplant at the point of the incarnation. We certainly do not like to think of God as being angry, because the image is not comfortable for us. Yet in Psalm 85 the anger of God is the important background theme against which the main theme of God’s rich grace is played out. Is it right for modern Christians to marginalize the idea of God’s wrath? In doing so, do we run risks?
The wrath of God is inescapable in the Scriptures and certainly cannot be limited to the Old Testament. Frequently, God’s anger is described as burning against sin, injustice, and oppression (e.g., Exod 32:11; Ps 7:6, 11 et al.). The Bible often talks about the sinful activities of human beings as “provoking” God to anger (for example, see the historian’s presentation of the kings of Israel who turned their backs on God in 1 Kgs 15:30; 16:13, 26, 33 et al.). Jesus’ anger at the hypocrisy and callousness of the religious rulers of his day is unmistakable, the cleansing of the temple in John 2 being just one of many examples of the wrath of God displayed during the period of the Messiah’s earthly incarnation. And the concept of God’s righteous anger does not disappear in the Christian era. Both Paul and John are clear that God’s anger has not ceased because of the work of Jesus (e.g., see Rom 1:18; 3:5; Col 3:6; Rev 16). So, we cannot easily rid ourselves of an angry God, but how are we to understand these passages and others like them?
Clearly, God’s anger is linked with human sin and rebellion, as we see in Psalm 85. God’s righteous anger at the persistent sin of Judah and Jerusalem led to the exile, yet God turned from that wrath and restored the people to their home (vv. 1, 3). But the people still sinned, so the poet prays for God’s grace in once again turning from his anger (vv. 4–5).
This link between anger and sin is important for believers of every generation to remember. God’s anger against sin remains real and true today. It has not changed. God has not “chilled out” over the passing generations so these things simply do not matter anymore. Failure to grapple with the concept of an angry God will lead the current generation of believers into a state of complacency, one in which we are not filled with horror at sin as we should be. God’s anger should be reflected in our own response to sinful behavior both in ourselves and in the world in which we live. If we have no concept of God’s anger, then we will grow to tolerate sin in our own hearts and become indifferent to injustice in the world. We embrace the angry God because his anger is our guide—his anger shapes our perspectives of life.12
Ultimately, a God who cannot be angry is toothless and stands for nothing. Perhaps that is why contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with the wrath of God—we are actually quite happy with a God who does not place awkward demands or expectations on his people. Yet the Bible is clear that, at some point in the future, God’s anger will be worked out in human reality.
It is clear from how God revealed himself to Moses that God controls his anger and does not express his wrath in ways that he might. Exodus 34:6–7 powerfully portrays God as compassionate in nature, as keeping his anger in check. Yet that anger still teaches us. God’s wrath must be allowed to shape the life of believers in our (and every) generation. Otherwise we will never have the absolute abhorrence of sin (both personal and societal) that we should have. So, it is not the place of the church to marginalize the wrath of God. Yes, we rejoice in God’s grace, as did the psalmist, but we also embrace God’s anger as a flawless guide that shapes our view of our hearts and of the world in which we live.
Original Meaning
God Speaks Peace (85:8–9)
I WILL LISTEN TO WHAT GOD THE LORD SAYS. The tension voiced in Psalm 85 is one with which surely every believer has grappled in the life of faith. But the author of the psalm also points the reader to the sole solution to this experiential dichotomy—the promise of God. The solution for poet and reader alike is the same: listening to what God has to say to us. Our listening to God is an act of the will. We can choose to focus on the tension we face and the inadequacies we experience—or we can actually listen to the declaration of God himself with regard to his people. The poet declares his willingness to listen and, in doing so, finds the solution to his conundrum of faith.
He promises peace to his people, his faithful servants. The problem of being forgiven yet still needing forgiveness has a twofold solution that is both theological and experiential. The psalmist starts with theology in verse 8b—God speaks peace to his people. The NIV translates this part of verse 8 as “he promises peace to his people,” but the Hebrew is much more prosaic, yet at the same time profound. The Hebrew text says simply, “He speaks [yedabber] peace [shalom] to his people.” It is the ordinary word for speaking that is used, but of course the concept is far from ordinary, for speech is the means by which God accomplishes that which he accomplishes. In Gen 1–2 God speaks the whole of the created order into being. God speaks each new day into being (Ps 50:1). The speech of God is a creative act. It brings things into being. It transforms reality. The voice of God creates a new reality—from nothing, God’s speech brings order and beauty beyond imagination.
It is this same creative speech that declares a new spiritual reality into being for the people of God. Peace between God and his people is disrupted by sin, but God himself—by his spoken word—recreates that peace and wholeness of relationship. If Yahweh speaks shalom, then shalom is precisely what results. This theological reality resolves the tension of Psalm 85. God has unilaterally declared peace with his people, and in that declaration harmony is restored. So goes the theological reality from the perspective of God—by his gracious, recreative word, the Creator has declared his people forgiven and, therefore, at peace with him. This state is a declared, unchangeable fact for all his “faithful servants,” that is, for all those who seek to be faithful to him.5
But let them not turn to folly. The psalmist is aware, however, that our cognizance of our own moral failings can skew our theological understanding. We may “know” the theological reality of God’s declaration, but we do not feel that reality because our waywardness and sin lead us to believe that harmony with God has been irrevocably broken. Often the experiential, because it is so immediate, outweighs our appreciation of theological truth. So the psalmist points to a practical solution to the conundrum of faith that should accompany the theological truth of the divine declaration of peace. If our sinfulness means that we no longer appreciate the truth of restored relationship with God, then we should turn away from these practices that mar our understanding of spiritual reality. It is because of sin that God’s people find it difficult to accept his acceptance. So the psalmist urges his readers to turn away from such patterns of behavior, thus removing the tension between theological knowledge and the doubts that spring from the experiential. Most of the English versions adopt a fairly polite translation of the Hebrew word kislah (“folly” or “foolish ways”), but the original is more blunt. “Stupidity” is perhaps a better understanding of the term.6
And “stupid” is how the poet wants the hearers of the psalm to view their sinful behavior. He is not talking about “alternative lifestyles”; turning away from God’s paths is, quite simply, stupid—and to be avoided at all costs.7
The solution is rooted, first, in God’s declaration of peace with his people. His spoken word changes their spiritual reality. By his gracious love, God has established harmony between himself and his people. But to be able to appreciate that harmony fully, without being wracked with doubt, God’s people should also turn away from all behaviors that lead them to doubt God’s love and acceptance.
Surely his salvation is near those who fear him. The psalmist comes to the realization that salvation is to be found only in the grace of God. His people will never merit his help or deliverance. Yet that salvation is near to those who fear him (v. 9a). This realization is profound because the tension of Psalm 85 can only ever be resolved in the unilateral action of God himself, for his people will never be able to merit his goodness. Yet those who “fear him” do receive his help. This truth is significant because fearing God is an attitude of heart and a determination of will rather than an absolute standard of moral goodness. What does it mean to fear God? Deuteronomy 10:12–13 indicates that fearing God is all about walking in his ways, loving him, serving him, and keeping his word.8
Those who fear God are not necessarily perfect, but they genuinely desire to please the God whom they worship and to devote their lives to him. The psalmist sees that the tension of forgiveness for an unfaithful people is never going to be resolved in the will and purpose and righteousness of those individuals. It is, rather, to be resolved by accepting the full and free grace of the God who forgives and by genuinely seeking to walk in his ways day by day. This God dwells with his people (v. 9b). He is present despite their weakness, and he will help those who genuinely seek relationship with him.9
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S
FIERCE ANGER. It is difficult for Christians who do not often delve into the Old Testament to understand how God—whom we see as Father, Savior, and Comforter—can also be a God of wrath and fierce anger (Ps 85:3). This idea seems alien to a “New Testament” understanding of God. How are we to understand this notion of God’s fierce anger?
God’s fierce anger is a proper response to our covenantal failure, as is perhaps best illustrated by considering one of the covenantal ceremonies we find in the Bible itself. Genesis 15 is one of these Old Testament passages that seems strange and alien to modern readers. In this passage, God enters into a covenant with Abram. He promises to the old man an heir of his own flesh and blood, something that seemed impossible to Abram. So, to establish the certainty of this promise, God enters into a covenant with him. The ceremony itself seems strange to us but was common enough in the ancient Near East. Abram was to take a heifer, a goat, and a ram, as well as a dove and a young pigeon (Gen 15:9), split the larger animals in two, and lay out the halves (along with the birds) to create a path, albeit a bloody and fairly gruesome one.
Normally, the covenant would be entered into by both parties to the contract via the walking of each one through the path of sacrificed animals.11
The symbolism of this solemn act communicated a vow: “Should I fail to keep my side of the covenant, may I be treated as harshly as these animals.” This ceremony illustrates just how seriously a covenant should be viewed.
It is in this context of covenant that we should understand God’s fierce anger. Covenantal relationship is a serious thing. Failing to keep the covenant has serious consequences. Should either party to the promise fail to uphold his or her side of the deal, the offended party has the right to be angry and to execute justice. Israel failed (as have God’s people in every generation) to meet their covenantal promises. They bound themselves to keep God’s law and singularly failed to do so. God had faithfully and patiently kept his side of the covenantal deal, but his people not only failed to keep but also openly rejected their covenantal responsibilities. They were meant to love God and follow in his ways, but they rejected his law and chased after other gods.
So it was that, eventually, God vented his justifiable anger against Israel and Judah through their respective exiles. Covenant is a serious matter, and breaking covenant has serious consequences. It is in this context that the psalmist speaks about God’s “wrath” and “fierce anger” in Psalm 85. Thankfully, he only raises the matter to speak about the grace of God in choosing not to act upon the righteous anger he felt.
Contemporary Significance
TWO SIGNIFICANT THEMES run through Psalm 85, and to one degree or another Christians struggle with each of these ideas. The psalm celebrates the grace of God and our dependence on that grace, but underpinning that meditation is the idea of God’s anger. God’s grace means that he turns away from anger and maintains relationship with a sinful people. There are many people in today’s church who struggle with each of these concepts—God’s unmerited grace and his righteous anger. By way of application it is important that we allow each of these themes to speak to the way we think about God, ourselves, and the world in which he has placed us.
Embracing God’s grace. There is something immensely human about our struggle to accept God’s free grace. We find it difficult to accept that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that we bring to the table to merit God’s love and acceptance. We long to be good enough. We desire a quantifiable righteousness that means we are just good enough to be considered worthy of relationship with God. But Psalm 85 is clear that forgiveness is not found in our ability to obey. It is based solely in God’s gracious decision simply to forgive (vv. 2–3). The covenantal relationship works because God chooses to see us as faithful even when we are not (vv. 10–11).
Christians struggle with grace on two levels. First, it is hard to accept our unworthiness, and we can tend to think of ourselves as better than we really are. Second, we can struggle to accept that God still loves us and that his grace is sufficient to forgive all our sins.
1. Conditionality: Human beings are used to conditionality. Our love for one another is often predicated on what we receive from the object of that love. We love because we are loved back. We serve others because (or so that?) they, in turn, help us. But we feel that we must always do something to merit the love, service, or acceptance of others. This conditionality often affects our relationship with God. Although we would never actually voice such ideas, we can feel that God loves us because of all that we do for him. We serve in church (whether that be preaching or setting out the chairs); we are kind to others (though we expect them to be kind back); we take care to read the Bible and pray (most of the time). And in some sense we feel that we deserve God’s love because, after all, we try our best to love and serve him. We do not like to be beholden . . . but that is exactly what we are! God loves us not because of what we do for him—he loves us just because he has chosen to do so. It is important for us to realize that we are completely dependent on God’s grace, for one day our self-righteousness will fail us. One day we will fail to do the things that we feel make us acceptable, and the world will come crashing down around us. The psalmist makes it clear that God’s desire for relationship with and forgiveness of us are unmerited. It is important for us to remember this truth if we are to have any sense of security in our life with God and if we are to view ourselves with the humility we ought to have.
2. Accepting forgiveness: The second reason for our need to think properly about God’s grace is that if we do not do so, we will become crippled by guilt and useless to God. In various churches, I frequently encounter Christians who find it hard to believe that God can still love them and forgive them again for the sins they have committed. Some struggle because of the number of times they sin—and that they commit the same sins over and over again. Others cannot accept God’s grace because of the perceived seriousness of the sins they commit. But Psalm 85, as a clear precursor of what we see in the New Testament, points readers to the fullness of God’s forgiveness. Verses 2–3 make it clear that all sin (and its associated guilt) is thoroughly removed from us. God lifts the burden of sin from us, he covers it over so that he sees it no more, and he chooses to turn away from rightful anger. His grace is absolutely full. His forgiveness is totally complete. As far as the psalmist is concerned, this truth is an absolute and unquestionable fact—our responsibility is simply to accept that fact.
If we are to make Psalm 85 real in our lives, we must embrace the grace of God fully in our hearts and minds. Only then we will see and understand our relationship with him properly.
Embracing God’s anger. As contemporary Christians we tend to struggle with the idea of an angry God. This is not the way we see God; rather, we view him as Father and Friend. We often encounter statements that relegate this idea of a God of wrath to the pages of the Old Testament alone, as though God underwent a personality transplant at the point of the incarnation. We certainly do not like to think of God as being angry, because the image is not comfortable for us. Yet in Psalm 85 the anger of God is the important background theme against which the main theme of God’s rich grace is played out. Is it right for modern Christians to marginalize the idea of God’s wrath? In doing so, do we run risks?
The wrath of God is inescapable in the Scriptures and certainly cannot be limited to the Old Testament. Frequently, God’s anger is described as burning against sin, injustice, and oppression (e.g., Exod 32:11; Ps 7:6, 11 et al.). The Bible often talks about the sinful activities of human beings as “provoking” God to anger (for example, see the historian’s presentation of the kings of Israel who turned their backs on God in 1 Kgs 15:30; 16:13, 26, 33 et al.). Jesus’ anger at the hypocrisy and callousness of the religious rulers of his day is unmistakable, the cleansing of the temple in John 2 being just one of many examples of the wrath of God displayed during the period of the Messiah’s earthly incarnation. And the concept of God’s righteous anger does not disappear in the Christian era. Both Paul and John are clear that God’s anger has not ceased because of the work of Jesus (e.g., see Rom 1:18; 3:5; Col 3:6; Rev 16). So, we cannot easily rid ourselves of an angry God, but how are we to understand these passages and others like them?
Clearly, God’s anger is linked with human sin and rebellion, as we see in Psalm 85. God’s righteous anger at the persistent sin of Judah and Jerusalem led to the exile, yet God turned from that wrath and restored the people to their home (vv. 1, 3). But the people still sinned, so the poet prays for God’s grace in once again turning from his anger (vv. 4–5).
This link between anger and sin is important for believers of every generation to remember. God’s anger against sin remains real and true today. It has not changed. God has not “chilled out” over the passing generations so these things simply do not matter anymore. Failure to grapple with the concept of an angry God will lead the current generation of believers into a state of complacency, one in which we are not filled with horror at sin as we should be. God’s anger should be reflected in our own response to sinful behavior both in ourselves and in the world in which we live. If we have no concept of God’s anger, then we will grow to tolerate sin in our own hearts and become indifferent to injustice in the world. We embrace the angry God because his anger is our guide—his anger shapes our perspectives of life.12
Ultimately, a God who cannot be angry is toothless and stands for nothing. Perhaps that is why contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with the wrath of God—we are actually quite happy with a God who does not place awkward demands or expectations on his people. Yet the Bible is clear that, at some point in the future, God’s anger will be worked out in human reality.
It is clear from how God revealed himself to Moses that God controls his anger and does not express his wrath in ways that he might. Exodus 34:6–7 powerfully portrays God as compassionate in nature, as keeping his anger in check. Yet that anger still teaches us. God’s wrath must be allowed to shape the life of believers in our (and every) generation. Otherwise we will never have the absolute abhorrence of sin (both personal and societal) that we should have. So, it is not the place of the church to marginalize the wrath of God. Yes, we rejoice in God’s grace, as did the psalmist, but we also embrace God’s anger as a flawless guide that shapes our view of our hearts and of the world in which we live.
Original Meaning
Covenantal Tensions Resolved (85:10–13)
THE DILEMMA OF FAITH AND EXPERIENCE is summed up in the final verses of Psalm 85, where the psalmist turns his attention to the tension God’s people have always felt in their covenantal relationship with God. Any covenantal relationship, just like any contract, brings benefits to both parties but also places responsibilities on them. Israel always took great delight in the covenantal promises and the blessings they brought. We see many of them in the psalms themselves—for example, protection (Pss 46 and 48), forgiveness (Pss 51 and 103), presence (Pss 23 and 91), and so on. But Israel also faced the tension of keeping the covenantal responsibilities placed upon them. Book 3 of Psalms is replete with poems dealing with the problem of the exile—a problem brought about by Israel’s failure to keep their covenantal responsibilities (e.g., Pss 74, 75, 76, 78 et al.). God’s people had failed to keep up their end of the covenantal bargain, so to speak, so Yahweh had, in a sense, been forced to use the punishment of exile as a means of reawakening his people’s awareness of their covenantal responsibilities. Having discussed the tension of being individuals who are both forgiven and in need of forgiveness in Psalm 85:1–9, the poet applies the same principles to his consideration of the covenantal relationship. God’s people long for the blessings of the covenant yet constantly fail to keep the covenant—how can this tension be resolved? Once again, the psalmist realizes that covenantal relationship can only be maintained through the grace of God.
Love and faithfulness meet together; righteousness and peace kiss each other. This language is very much that of covenant and, at heart, highlights the tension God’s people felt in being a covenant people. The chiastic structure of this verse highlights both the blessings and responsibilities of covenant. At the center of the chiasm are the responsibilities of faithfulness (’emet) and righteousness (tsedek)—terms that every Hebrew would associate with covenantal responsibility. Bracketing the central idea of covenant obligation are the terms that speak of the privileges or blessings of covenant—steadfast love (hesed) and peace (shalom). These blessings are the upsides of being in relationship with God. He pours out his devoted love on his people, and he brings wholeness and satisfaction to their lives.
| Love |
Faithfulness |
| Righteousness |
Peace |
The harmony of covenant was to be found in the meeting of God’s love with the faithfulness of his people, and the righteousness of Israel would be met with the kiss of God’s shalom.10
The problem for God’s people in the covenantal relationship has always been their inability to be faithful or righteous. Through all generations, communities of faith have rejoiced in the benefits of being in covenantal relationship with God but struggled to keep their responsibilities under the covenant. Much like the conundrum of being a people who have received forgiveness yet who are in need of forgiveness, the concept of covenant brings with it great tension: we long for the blessings of covenant but know that we are too weak to keep our side of the promise. God promises steadfast love and wholeness for his people who enter into covenant with him, but the expectation of covenantal relationship is that they, in turn, will maintain faithfulness and righteousness. The tension arises in the inability of God’s people to do just that. In the context of Book 3 of the Psalter, the psalmists devote a great deal of attention to meditating upon Israel’s covenantal failure. That both faithfulness and righteousness were far from them explain why they experience the rebuke of exile. How then can there be hope that the covenantal relationship will be any different this time?
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. Once again the psalmist realizes that the only resolution to this tension is to be found in God’s gracious and unilateral work in behalf of his people. Both psalmist and people long for Yahweh’s steadfast love and peace, yet they know they are far from being faithful or righteous. Are the blessings of the covenant therefore lost to them? With a beautiful sense of the poetic, the psalmist points the readers again to a God of grace and unmerited love, a God who does for them what they could not do for themselves. The people were supposed to be faithful and righteous if they were to receive God’s strong love and holistic blessing, but such loyalty eluded them. So Yahweh, the Creator God of heaven and earth, provides these standards for them by his own will! Faithfulness bubbles up from the earth, and righteousness looks down from heaven. What the people lack in order to make the covenantal relationship work flows from the created order. In poetic terms, Psalm 85:11 tells the singers of the psalm that God will provide what is needed to make the covenantal relationship a living, ongoing reality. That God will do so is always true in the covenantal relationships of Scripture. While normally obligations are placed on all human parties to a covenant with God (as in his covenants with Adam, Noah, and Abraham, for example), still it was always only by God’s gracious forgiveness and provision that these relationships were able to continue. The psalmist has come to realize that the solution to the tension of covenant is never going to be discovered in the strength, will, or ability of God’s people. The covenant between God and humanity can only ever work because of the grace of God.
The LORD will indeed give what is good. Verse 12 echoes the opening verse of the psalm. Just as the poet celebrated the goodness of God in the past in the introduction to his poem, so he also trusts in the goodness of God for the future. Verse 1 calls to mind Yahweh’s favor toward the land and his restoration of the people. Verse 12 looks to the future—the psalmist states his trust that God will prove himself to be “good” to his people again and that this favor will be evidenced in practical terms in future harvests yielded by the land. The stigma of sin, failure, and exile is passed. God has restored his people, and with that restoration his blessing is renewed on the land itself.
Righteousness goes before him. The final metaphor of Psalm 85 is somewhat enigmatic—righteousness goes before Yahweh and prepares a way for his steps (v. 13). It is not entirely clear what the psalmist has in mind here. It could be judgment imagery that reminds people of God’s absolute moral standards and, in doing so, warns them of future judgment should Israel turn from him again. The phrase could also be an exhortation to remind the people that they are to be instruments of Yahweh’s purpose on earth—walking in righteousness, they themselves prepare a way for him to inhabit the land. Either way, the psalm ends with a reminder of the righteousness of God, his tsedek (cf. vv. 10–11). Such is the psalmist’s emphasis on God’s grace via the forgiveness of sin and maintenance of the covenantal relationship that he wants to remind the singers of the psalms that such grace is not an excuse for license. Those who genuinely fear God (v. 9) will strive after his righteousness as his ambassadors on earth (cf. Rom 5:20–6:2).
Bridging Contexts
GOD’S
FIERCE ANGER. It is difficult for Christians who do not often delve into the Old Testament to understand how God—whom we see as Father, Savior, and Comforter—can also be a God of wrath and fierce anger (Ps 85:3). This idea seems alien to a “New Testament” understanding of God. How are we to understand this notion of God’s fierce anger?
God’s fierce anger is a proper response to our covenantal failure, as is perhaps best illustrated by considering one of the covenantal ceremonies we find in the Bible itself. Genesis 15 is one of these Old Testament passages that seems strange and alien to modern readers. In this passage, God enters into a covenant with Abram. He promises to the old man an heir of his own flesh and blood, something that seemed impossible to Abram. So, to establish the certainty of this promise, God enters into a covenant with him. The ceremony itself seems strange to us but was common enough in the ancient Near East. Abram was to take a heifer, a goat, and a ram, as well as a dove and a young pigeon (Gen 15:9), split the larger animals in two, and lay out the halves (along with the birds) to create a path, albeit a bloody and fairly gruesome one.
Normally, the covenant would be entered into by both parties to the contract via the walking of each one through the path of sacrificed animals.11
The symbolism of this solemn act communicated a vow: “Should I fail to keep my side of the covenant, may I be treated as harshly as these animals.” This ceremony illustrates just how seriously a covenant should be viewed.
It is in this context of covenant that we should understand God’s fierce anger. Covenantal relationship is a serious thing. Failing to keep the covenant has serious consequences. Should either party to the promise fail to uphold his or her side of the deal, the offended party has the right to be angry and to execute justice. Israel failed (as have God’s people in every generation) to meet their covenantal promises. They bound themselves to keep God’s law and singularly failed to do so. God had faithfully and patiently kept his side of the covenantal deal, but his people not only failed to keep but also openly rejected their covenantal responsibilities. They were meant to love God and follow in his ways, but they rejected his law and chased after other gods.
So it was that, eventually, God vented his justifiable anger against Israel and Judah through their respective exiles. Covenant is a serious matter, and breaking covenant has serious consequences. It is in this context that the psalmist speaks about God’s “wrath” and “fierce anger” in Psalm 85. Thankfully, he only raises the matter to speak about the grace of God in choosing not to act upon the righteous anger he felt.
Contemporary Significance
TWO SIGNIFICANT THEMES run through Psalm 85, and to one degree or another Christians struggle with each of these ideas. The psalm celebrates the grace of God and our dependence on that grace, but underpinning that meditation is the idea of God’s anger. God’s grace means that he turns away from anger and maintains relationship with a sinful people. There are many people in today’s church who struggle with each of these concepts—God’s unmerited grace and his righteous anger. By way of application it is important that we allow each of these themes to speak to the way we think about God, ourselves, and the world in which he has placed us.
Embracing God’s grace. There is something immensely human about our struggle to accept God’s free grace. We find it difficult to accept that there is nothing—absolutely nothing—that we bring to the table to merit God’s love and acceptance. We long to be good enough. We desire a quantifiable righteousness that means we are just good enough to be considered worthy of relationship with God. But Psalm 85 is clear that forgiveness is not found in our ability to obey. It is based solely in God’s gracious decision simply to forgive (vv. 2–3). The covenantal relationship works because God chooses to see us as faithful even when we are not (vv. 10–11).
Christians struggle with grace on two levels. First, it is hard to accept our unworthiness, and we can tend to think of ourselves as better than we really are. Second, we can struggle to accept that God still loves us and that his grace is sufficient to forgive all our sins.
1. Conditionality: Human beings are used to conditionality. Our love for one another is often predicated on what we receive from the object of that love. We love because we are loved back. We serve others because (or so that?) they, in turn, help us. But we feel that we must always do something to merit the love, service, or acceptance of others. This conditionality often affects our relationship with God. Although we would never actually voice such ideas, we can feel that God loves us because of all that we do for him. We serve in church (whether that be preaching or setting out the chairs); we are kind to others (though we expect them to be kind back); we take care to read the Bible and pray (most of the time). And in some sense we feel that we deserve God’s love because, after all, we try our best to love and serve him. We do not like to be beholden . . . but that is exactly what we are! God loves us not because of what we do for him—he loves us just because he has chosen to do so. It is important for us to realize that we are completely dependent on God’s grace, for one day our self-righteousness will fail us. One day we will fail to do the things that we feel make us acceptable, and the world will come crashing down around us. The psalmist makes it clear that God’s desire for relationship with and forgiveness of us are unmerited. It is important for us to remember this truth if we are to have any sense of security in our life with God and if we are to view ourselves with the humility we ought to have.
2. Accepting forgiveness: The second reason for our need to think properly about God’s grace is that if we do not do so, we will become crippled by guilt and useless to God. In various churches, I frequently encounter Christians who find it hard to believe that God can still love them and forgive them again for the sins they have committed. Some struggle because of the number of times they sin—and that they commit the same sins over and over again. Others cannot accept God’s grace because of the perceived seriousness of the sins they commit. But Psalm 85, as a clear precursor of what we see in the New Testament, points readers to the fullness of God’s forgiveness. Verses 2–3 make it clear that all sin (and its associated guilt) is thoroughly removed from us. God lifts the burden of sin from us, he covers it over so that he sees it no more, and he chooses to turn away from rightful anger. His grace is absolutely full. His forgiveness is totally complete. As far as the psalmist is concerned, this truth is an absolute and unquestionable fact—our responsibility is simply to accept that fact.
If we are to make Psalm 85 real in our lives, we must embrace the grace of God fully in our hearts and minds. Only then we will see and understand our relationship with him properly.
Embracing God’s anger. As contemporary Christians we tend to struggle with the idea of an angry God. This is not the way we see God; rather, we view him as Father and Friend. We often encounter statements that relegate this idea of a God of wrath to the pages of the Old Testament alone, as though God underwent a personality transplant at the point of the incarnation. We certainly do not like to think of God as being angry, because the image is not comfortable for us. Yet in Psalm 85 the anger of God is the important background theme against which the main theme of God’s rich grace is played out. Is it right for modern Christians to marginalize the idea of God’s wrath? In doing so, do we run risks?
The wrath of God is inescapable in the Scriptures and certainly cannot be limited to the Old Testament. Frequently, God’s anger is described as burning against sin, injustice, and oppression (e.g., Exod 32:11; Ps 7:6, 11 et al.). The Bible often talks about the sinful activities of human beings as “provoking” God to anger (for example, see the historian’s presentation of the kings of Israel who turned their backs on God in 1 Kgs 15:30; 16:13, 26, 33 et al.). Jesus’ anger at the hypocrisy and callousness of the religious rulers of his day is unmistakable, the cleansing of the temple in John 2 being just one of many examples of the wrath of God displayed during the period of the Messiah’s earthly incarnation. And the concept of God’s righteous anger does not disappear in the Christian era. Both Paul and John are clear that God’s anger has not ceased because of the work of Jesus (e.g., see Rom 1:18; 3:5; Col 3:6; Rev 16). So, we cannot easily rid ourselves of an angry God, but how are we to understand these passages and others like them?
Clearly, God’s anger is linked with human sin and rebellion, as we see in Psalm 85. God’s righteous anger at the persistent sin of Judah and Jerusalem led to the exile, yet God turned from that wrath and restored the people to their home (vv. 1, 3). But the people still sinned, so the poet prays for God’s grace in once again turning from his anger (vv. 4–5).
This link between anger and sin is important for believers of every generation to remember. God’s anger against sin remains real and true today. It has not changed. God has not “chilled out” over the passing generations so these things simply do not matter anymore. Failure to grapple with the concept of an angry God will lead the current generation of believers into a state of complacency, one in which we are not filled with horror at sin as we should be. God’s anger should be reflected in our own response to sinful behavior both in ourselves and in the world in which we live. If we have no concept of God’s anger, then we will grow to tolerate sin in our own hearts and become indifferent to injustice in the world. We embrace the angry God because his anger is our guide—his anger shapes our perspectives of life.12
Ultimately, a God who cannot be angry is toothless and stands for nothing. Perhaps that is why contemporary Christians are uncomfortable with the wrath of God—we are actually quite happy with a God who does not place awkward demands or expectations on his people. Yet the Bible is clear that, at some point in the future, God’s anger will be worked out in human reality.
It is clear from how God revealed himself to Moses that God controls his anger and does not express his wrath in ways that he might. Exodus 34:6–7 powerfully portrays God as compassionate in nature, as keeping his anger in check. Yet that anger still teaches us. God’s wrath must be allowed to shape the life of believers in our (and every) generation. Otherwise we will never have the absolute abhorrence of sin (both personal and societal) that we should have. So, it is not the place of the church to marginalize the wrath of God. Yes, we rejoice in God’s grace, as did the psalmist, but we also embrace God’s anger as a flawless guide that shapes our view of our hearts and of the world in which we live.
BDB 493.