1 Thou hast become favourable, Jehovah, to Thy land,
Thou hast turned back the captivity of Jacob.
2 Thou hast taken away the iniquity of Thy people,
Thou hast covered all their sin.
3 Thou hast drawn in all Thy wrath,
Thou hast turned Thyself from the glow of Thine anger.
4 Turn us, O God of our salvation,
And cause Thine indignation towards us to cease.
5 For ever wilt Thou be angry with us?
Wilt Thou stretch out Thine anger to generation after generation?
6 Wilt Thou not revive us again,
That Thy people may rejoice in Thee?
7 Show us, Jehovah, Thy loving-kindness,
And give us Thy salvation.
8 I will hear what God, Jehovah, will speak,
For He will speak peace to His people and to His favoured [ones];
Only let them not turn again to folly.
9 Surely near to them who fear Him is His salvation,
That glory may dwell in our land.
10 Loving-kindness and Troth have met together,
Righteousness and Peace have kissed [each other],
11 Troth springs from the earth,
And Righteousness looks down from heaven.
12 Yea, Jehovah will give that which is good,
And our land will give her increase.
13 Righteousness shall go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps a way.
The outstanding peculiarity of this psalm is its sudden transitions
of feeling. Beginning with exuberant thanksgiving for restoration of
the nation (vv. 1-3), it passes, without intermediate gradations, to
complaints of God's continued wrath and entreaties for restoration
(vv. 4-7), and then as suddenly rises to joyous assurance of inward
and outward blessings. The condition of the exiles returned from
Babylon best corresponds to such conflicting emotions. The book of
Nehemiah supplies precisely such a background as fits the psalm. A
part of the nation had returned indeed, but to a ruined city, a fallen
Temple, and a mourning land, where they were surrounded by jealous and
powerful enemies. Discouragement had laid hold on the feeble company;
enthusiasm had ebbed away; the harsh realities of their enterprise
had stripped off its imaginative charm; and the mass of the returned
settlers had lost heart as well as devout faith. The psalm accurately
reflects such a state of circumstances and feelings, and may, with
some certitude, be assigned, as it is by most commentators, to the
period of return from exile.
It falls into three parts, of increasing length,--the first, of three
verses (vv. 1-3), recounts God's acts of mercy already received; the
second, of four verses (vv. 4-7), is a plaintive prayer in view of
still remaining national afflictions; and the third, of six verses, a
glad report by the psalmist of the Divine promises which his waiting
ear had heard, and which might well quicken the most faint-hearted
into triumphant hope.
In the first strophe one great fact is presented in a threefold
aspect, and traced wholly to Jehovah. "Thou hast turned back the
captivity of Jacob." That expression is sometimes used in a figurative
sense for any restoration of prosperity, but is here to be taken
literally. Now, as at first, the restored Israel, like their
ancestors under Joshua, had not won the land by their own arm, but
"because God had a favour unto them," and had given them favour in the
eyes of those who carried them captive. The restoration of the Jews,
seen from the conqueror's point of view, was a piece of state policy,
but from that of the devout Israelite was the result of God's working
upon the heart of the new ruler of Babylon. The fact is stated in ver.
1; a yet more blessed fact, of which it is most blessed as being a
token, is declared in ver. 2.
The psalmist knows that captivity had been chastisement, the issue of
national sin. Therefore he is sure that restoration is the sign of
forgiveness. His thoughts are running in the same line as in Isa. xl.
2, where the proclamation to Jerusalem that her iniquity is pardoned
is connected with the assurance that her hard service is accomplished.
He uses two significant words for pardon, both of which occur in Psalm
xxxii. In ver. 2 _a_ sin is regarded as a weight pressing down the
nation, which God's mercy lifts off and takes away; in ver. 2 _b_ it
is conceived of as a hideous stain or foulness, which His mercy hides,
so that it is no longer an offence to heaven. Ver. 3 ventures still
deeper into the sacred recesses of the Divine nature, and traces the
forgiveness, which in act had produced so happy a change in Israel's
position, to its source in a change in God's disposition. "Thou hast
drawn in all Thy wrath," as a man does his breath, or, if the comparison
may be ventured, as some creature armed with a sting retracts it into
its sheath. "Thou hast turned Thyself from the glow of Thine anger"
gives the same idea under another metaphor. The word turn has a singular
fascination for this psalmist. He uses it five times (vv. 1, 3, 4,
6--_lit._, wilt Thou not turn, quicken us?--and 8). God's turning from
His anger is the reason for Israel's returning from captivity.
The abruptness of the transition from joyous thanksgiving to the sad
minor of lamentation and supplication is striking, but most natural,
if the psalmist was one of the band of returning exiles, surrounded
by the ruins of a happier past, and appalled by the magnitude of the
work before them, the slenderness of their resources, and the fierce
hostility of their neighbours. The prayer of ver. 4, "Turn us," is
best taken as using the word in the same sense as in ver. 1, where
God is said to have "turned" the captivity of Jacob. What was there
regarded as accomplished is here conceived of as still to be done.
That is, the restoration was incomplete, as we know that it was, both
in regard to the bulk of the nation, who still remained in exile, and
in regard to the depressed condition of the small part of it which had
gone back to Palestine. In like manner the petitions of ver. 5 look
back to ver. 3, and pray that the anger which there had been spoken
of as passed may indeed utterly cease. The partial restoration of the
people implied, in the psalmist's view, a diminution rather than a
cessation of God's punitive wrath, and he beseeches Him to complete
that which He had begun.
The relation of the first to the second strophe is not only that of
contrast, but the prayers of the latter are founded upon the facts of
the former, which constitute both grounds for the suppliant's hope
of answer and pleas with God. He cannot mean to deliver by halves.
The mercies received are incomplete; and His work must be perfect. He
cannot be partially reconciled, nor have meant to bring His people
back to the land, and then leave them to misery. So the contrast
between the bright dawning of the Return and its clouded day is not
wholly depressing; for the remembrance of what has been heartens for
the assurance that what is shall not always be, but will be followed
by a future more correspondent to God's purpose as shown in that past.
When we are tempted to gloomy thoughts by the palpable incongruities
between God's ideals and man's realisation of them, we may take a hint
from this psalmist, and, instead of concluding that the ideal was a
phantasm, argue with ourselves that the incomplete actual will one day
give way to the perfect embodiment. God leaves no work unfinished. He
never leaves off till He has done. His beginnings guarantee congruous
endings. He does not half withdraw His anger; and, if He seems to
do so, it is only because men have but half turned from their sins.
This psalm is rich in teaching as to the right way of regarding the
incompleteness of great movements which, in their incipient stages,
were evidently of God. It instructs us to keep the Divine intervention
which started them clearly in view; to make the shortcomings, which
mar them, a subject of lowly prayer; and to be sure that all which He
begins He will finish, and that the end will fully correspond to the
promise of the beginning. A "day of the Lord" which rose in brightness
may cloud over as its hours roll, but "at eventide it shall be light,"
and none of the morning promise will be unfulfilled.
The third strophe (vv. 8-13) brings solid hopes, based upon Divine
promises, to bear on present discouragements. In ver. 8 the psalmist,
like Habakkuk (ii. 1), encourages himself to listen to what God will
speak. The word "I will hear" expresses resolve or desire, and might
be rendered _Let me hear_, or _I would hear_. Faithful prayer will
always be followed by patient and faithful waiting for response from
God. God will not be silent, when His servant appeals to Him with
recognition of His past mercies, joined with longing that these may
be perfected. No voice will break the silence of the heavens; but, in
the depths of the waiting soul, there will spring a sweet assurance
which comes from God, and is really His answer to prayer, telling
the suppliant that "He will speak peace to His people," and warning
them not to turn away from Him to other helps, which is folly. "His
favoured ones" seems here to be meant as coextensive with "His
people." Israel is regarded as having entered into covenant relations
with God; and the designation is the pledge that what God speaks will
be "peace." That word is to be taken in its widest sense, as meaning,
first and chiefly, peace with Him, who has "turned Himself from His
anger"; and then, generally, well-being of all kinds, outward and
inward, as a consequence of that rectified relation with God.
The warning of ver. 8 _c_ is thought by some to be out of place, and
an emendation has been suggested, which requires little change in the
Hebrew--namely, "to those who have turned their hearts towards Him."
This reading is supported by the LXX.; but the warning is perfectly
appropriate, and carries a large truth--that the condition of God's
speaking of peace is our firm adherence to Him. Once more the psalmist
uses his favourite word "turn." God had turned the captivity; He had
turned Himself from His anger; the psalmist had prayed Him to turn
or restore the people, and to turn and revive them, and now He warns
against turning again to folly. There is always danger of relapse in
those who have experienced God's delivering mercy. There is a blessed
turning, when they are brought from the far-off land to dwell near
God. But there is a possible fatal turning away from the Voice that
speaks peace, and the Arm that brings salvation, to the old distance
and bondage. Strange that any ears, which have heard the sweetness of
His still small Voice whispering Peace, should wish to stray where it
cannot be heard! Strange that the warning should ever be required, and
tragic that it should so often be despised!
After the introductory ver. 8, the substance of what Jehovah spoke
to the psalmist is proclaimed in the singer's own words. The first
assurance which the psalmist drew from the Divine word was that God's
salvation, the whole fulness of His delivering grace both in regard
to external and in inward evils, is ever near to them that fear
Him. "Salvation" here is to be taken in its widest sense. It means,
negatively, deliverance from all possible evils, outward and inward;
and, positively, endowment with all possible good, both for body and
spirit. With such fulness of complete blessings, they, and they only,
who keep near to God, and refuse to turn aside to foolish confidences,
shall be enriched. That is the inmost meaning of what God said to
the psalmist; and it is said to all. And that salvation being thus
possessed, it would be possible for "glory"--_i.e._, the manifest
presence of God, as in the Shechinah--to tabernacle in the land.
The condition of God's dwelling with men is their acceptance of His
salvation. That purifies hearts to be temples.
The lovely personifications in vv. 10-13 have passed into Christian
poetry and art, but are not clearly apprehended when they are taken
to describe the harmonious meeting and co-operation, in Christ's
great work, of apparently opposing attributes of the Divine nature.
No such thoughts are in the psalmist's mind. Loving-kindness and
Faithfulness or Troth are constantly associated in Scripture as
Divine attributes. Righteousness and Peace are as constantly united,
as belonging to the perfection of human character. Ver. 10 seems to
refer to the manifestation of God's Loving-kindness and Faithfulness
in its first clause, and to the exhibition of His people's virtues
and consequent happiness in its second. In all God's dealings for
His people, His Loving-kindness blends with Faithfulness. In all His
people's experience Righteousness and Peace are inseparable. The point
of the assurance in ver. 10 is that heaven and earth are blended in
permanent amity. These four radiant angels "dwell in the land." Then,
in ver. 11, there comes a beautiful inversion of the two pairs of
personifications, of each of which one member only reappears. Troth or
Faithfulness, which in ver. 10 came into view principally as a Divine
attribute, in ver. 11 is conceived of as a human virtue. It "springs
out of the earth"--that is, is produced among men. All human virtue is
an echo of the Divine, and they who have received into their hearts
the blessed results of God's Faithfulness will bring forth in their
lives fruits like it in kind. Similarly, Righteousness, which in ver.
10 was mainly viewed as a human excellence, here appears as dwelling
in and looking down from heaven, like a gracious angel smiling on the
abundance of Faithfulness which springs from earth. Thus "the bridal
of the earth and sky" is set forth in these verses.
The same idea is further presented in ver. 12, in its most general form.
God gives that which is good, both outward and inward blessings, and,
thus fructified by bestowments from above, earth yields her increase.
His gifts precede men's returns. Without sunshine and rain there are no
harvests. More widely still, God gives first before He asks. He does not
gather where He has not strawed, nor reap what He has not sown. Nor does
He only sow, but He "blesses the springing thereof"; and to Him should
the harvest be rendered. He gives before we can give. Isa. xlv. 8 is
closely parallel, representing in like manner the co-operation of heaven
and earth, in the new world of Messianic times.
In ver. 13 the thought of the blending of heaven and earth, or of
Divine attributes as being the foundation and parents of their human
analogues, is still more vividly expressed. Righteousness, which in
ver. 10 was regarded as exercised by men, and in ver. 11 as looking
down from heaven, is now represented both as a herald preceding God's
royal progress, and as following in His footsteps. The last clause is
rendered in different ways, which all have the same general sense.
Probably the rendering above is best: "Righteousness shall make His
footsteps a way"--that is, for men to walk in. All God's workings
among men, which are poetically conceived as His way, have stamped
on them Righteousness. That strong angel goes before Him to clear
a path for Him, and trace the course which He shall take. That is
the imaginative expression of the truth--that absolute, inflexible
Righteousness guides all the Divine acts. But the same Righteousness,
which precedes, also follows Him, and points His footsteps as the way
for us. The incongruity of this double position of God's herald makes
the force of the thought greater. It is the poetical embodiment of the
truth, that the perfection of man's character and conduct lies in his
being an "imitator of God," and that, however different in degree, our
righteousness must be based on His. What a wonderful thought that is,
that the union between heaven and earth is so close that God's path is
our way! How deep into the foundation of ethics the psalmist's glowing
vision pierces! How blessed the assurance that God's Righteousness is
revealed from heaven to make men righteous!
Our psalm needs the completion, which tells of that gospel in which
"the Righteousness of God from faith is revealed for faith." In Jesus
the "glory" has tabernacled among men. He has brought heaven and
earth together. In Him God's Loving-kindness and Faithfulness have
become denizens of earth, as never before. In Him heaven has emptied
its choicest good on earth. Through Him our barrenness and weeds
are changed into harvests of love, praise, and service. In Him the
Righteousness of God is brought near; and, trusting in Him, each of us
may tread in His footsteps, and have His Righteousness fulfilled in us
"who walk, not after the flesh, but after the spirit."