A manual of the book of Psalms · Martin Luther
PSALM LXXXV.
_The Psalmist, out of the experience of former mercies, prayeth for the continuance thereof.—He promiseth to wait thereon, out of confidence of God’s goodness._ To the chief Musician, A Psalm to the sons of Korah. LORD, thou hast been favourable unto thy land: thou hast brought back the captivity of Jacob. Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of thy people; thou hast covered all their sin. Selah. Thou hast taken away all thy wrath: thou hast turned _thyself_ from the fierceness of thine anger. Turn us, O God of our salvation, and cause thine anger towards us to cease. Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? Wilt thou not revive us again, that thy people may rejoice in thee? Shew us thy mercy, O LORD, and grant us thy salvation. I 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 folly. Surely his salvation _is_ nigh them that fear him; that glory may dwell in our land. Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed _each other_. Truth shall spring out of the earth; and righteousness shall look down from heaven. Yea, the LORD shall give _that which is_ good: and our land shall yield her increase.
Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set _us_ in the way of his steps. This Psalm is a prayer containing the feelings of a heart that fears God; and it persuades, in the most impressive words, such an one, not to dread God’s anger. For those who fear God, are not like the despisers and Epicureans, who are secure and care for nothing that happens; but when calamities fall upon godly men, their first and main concern is to turn to God that smites them, and to make anew their peace with him. The anger wherewith God chastised his people, at this time, was this: he had taken away from them, for a time, the word; he had diminished the number of those that preached it in truth, and had made few the true prophets, priests and Levites. In addition to which, the peace of the nation was broken by seditions; and many evils prevailed in the state and among the rulers thereof. And this was not all: there came on also the dread and expectation of war, and the want of the necessary provisions of life: for these calamities generally follow, one after the other, when God, according to the first commandment, visits the iniquities of a people. The Psalmist, therefore, prays that God would be pleased again to preserve the church, and also the nation; again to restore the real ministers of the word, who preached it in truth, and by whom alone God truly speaks unto men.
The Psalmist, therefore, breaks forth with a wonderful burden of heart, as if he had said, ‘O that I might again hear the Lord truly speaking! O that the word of God were again truly preached, lest even the godly should be “turned to folly”’ (or ignorance; that is, lest they should be so broken down and utterly worn out, by the greatness of their afflictions, as not to know what to do.) ‘O that both the worship of God, and the prosperity of our nation, may be restored, and that peace, and concord, and truth, and justice, may flourish among us! that the fruits of the earth, and the produce of the fields and of the vineyards may be blessed; that we may lead a godly life in this our day, and, as St. Paul saith, may “look for the glorious appearing of the great God!”’
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.