Loving-kindness and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other
Psalm 85 is a prayer for mercy and salvation, and verse 10 is part of God's answer: four things that could pull against each other, standing together instead. How can God show mercy without setting truth aside, or give peace without cheating righteousness? (The writers quoted here use an older wording, "mercy and truth are met together," where the ESV has "steadfast love and faithfulness meet.")
The verse answers, item by item, the requests made earlier in the psalm.
(vv. 8-13) The closing verses give the answer to this appeal to Jehovah. It is a blessed thing that the godly man says, "I will hear what God, Jehovah, will speak." He finds that Jehovah gives an answer of peace. They had asked God to save them (v. 7); they hear that salvation is near to those who fear Him. They had asked for mercy (v. 7); they hear that mercy and truth are met together. God will show mercy while holding to truth, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Peace comes to Israel, but not at the expense of righteousness.
Mercy and truth want opposite things. One writer names what each demands, and shows what their meeting cost.
For "truth," which required death, and "mercy," which can think of nothing but life and blessing, are here together. Death is endured according to truth, and the guilty one given life and liberty according to mercy. "Righteousness" also kisses "peace," and "peace" kisses "righteousness." Instead of resenting each other's presence, they welcome each other. For righteousness is more than honoured by what He who makes peace offers to it on the cross. And peace is deeply satisfied. It sees that it can announce itself to sinners on the surest of grounds: righteousness honoured and fulfilled. All is harmony where all was strife before.
Israel's own history explains the order. They had once tried to have peace without righteousness.
They will realise that mercy and truth have met together (v. 10). Truth is not compromised in God's showing wonderful mercy to those who did not deserve it. In the past Israel has sought peace at the expense of righteousness; now they find there can be no peace without righteousness. The only way that righteousness and peace can kiss each other is by virtue of the value of the sacrifice of Christ.
Commentators point to the cross as the meeting place. One sets it out as a division of labour between the four.
"God, who is rich in mercy." So the Apostle wrote in Ephesians 2:4. "Rich" is a word deep and full when applied to the most exalted Being in the universe... But righteousness and holiness are also found in God — qualities of a very different kind. Without them He would not be the absolutely perfect One that He is. The cross alone reconciles these in their application to guilty man... Truth and righteousness demanded justice on offenders. Mercy and peace provided the costly sacrifice. That sacrifice has answered all the claims of God's throne, and has secured pardon and eternal blessing for all who believe.
The righteousness that kisses peace was not the people's own. Israel had none to bring.
Notice that in the psalms mercy always comes before righteousness and truth. For Israel had forfeited all title to promise... had no righteousness to lean on... But then through Christ's work these promises would now be fulfilled, and mercy and truth met. But more than this. Jehovah was their righteousness, through grace. So that righteousness was peace for them. What would have been their ruin in judgment became their peace in grace — righteousness and peace kissed each other.
What happened once spreads outward — to the individual, and finally to the earth itself.
Admit two facts: man is utterly ruined, and righteousness and truth belong to God's very being. Then only one solution is possible — the sufferings of Christ in the sinner's place, His atoning death. In His cross, and there alone, every attribute of God came into harmony in dealing with sin. All was brought to balance and rest... These attributes of God seem opposite, yet they met in harmony at the cross. So they meet with equal harmony in the experience of the ransomed sinner. And they will yet meet in harmony in a redeemed earth.
- The meeting — Truth required death; mercy wanted life. The verse announces that both got what they asked for.
- The cost — Two of the four made demands; two met them. Truth and righteousness demanded justice. Mercy and peace provided the sacrifice.
- The order — Peace never comes at righteousness' expense. Israel once tried it the other way round; there is no peace without righteousness.
- The ground — The righteousness that embraces peace is God's own, not the worshipper's. What would have been ruin in judgment becomes peace in grace.
- The reach — The harmony settled at the cross now settles in the forgiven person. One day it will settle over the whole earth.
Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from the heavens.
Psalm 85 closes with heaven and earth in full agreement. The commentators ask three things here: whose righteousness this is, what makes such a meeting possible, and whether the scene belongs to now or to a day still ahead.
Each half of the verse points a different way. The writers quoted here use an older translation, which says "truth shall spring out of the earth" where the ESV says "faithfulness." One writer reads the first half as God's faithfulness bearing its full fruit on earth. The second half, he says, rules out any righteousness man works up.
Truth shall spring out of the earth. That is, the full fruit and effect of God's truth and faithfulness will show itself in blessings, full blessings, on the earth. But this did not come by a righteousness that man had worked out by law here below. Righteousness looked down from heaven. It was God's righteousness, Jehovah their righteousness. But this made it stable.
If righteousness comes down, something must also come up. One commentator reads that rising truth as man's honest confession. He also names what man cannot supply.
Truth springs out of the earth — man acknowledging God, and acknowledging his own need and sin as well. Meanwhile righteousness looks down from heaven, since man could never reach it any other way: Christ is the only righteousness for man at any time.
Mercy and truth do not meet by themselves. One writer asks what would be left of God's justice and holiness if mercy were shown with no atonement behind it.
If these precious attributes had been shown without atonement, what would become of the justice, the truth, the majesty, the holiness, the righteousness, the claims of God's government — yes, the entire moral glory of God! How could "mercy and truth meet together"? or "righteousness and peace kiss each other"? How could "truth spring out of the earth" or "righteousness look down from heaven"? Impossible. Only the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ could have fully glorified God. But that atonement has glorified Him.
The verse does not show earth reaching up to demand a verdict. It shows righteousness already in place above. One writer points to the Person who is there.
In all cases righteousness looks down from heaven. It is not, for Israel or for us, righteousness looking up from earth to claim blessing from heaven. He has established righteousness in the very heavens. Christ is there. He is there by the righteousness of God. The righteousness was a divine, heavenly righteousness. He glorified God, and so He is glorified with God, and in Him. This is divine righteousness. Our heavenly and Israel's earthly blessing both flow from it.
Earlier in the psalm the people begged God for mercy, for new life, and for salvation. One commentator lines up the answers point by point.
They had asked for mercy (v. 7). They hear that mercy and truth have met together. God will show mercy while holding to truth, and righteousness and peace have kissed each other. Peace comes to Israel, but not at the expense of righteousness. They had asked to be "revived" (v. 6). They hear that truth shall spring out of the earth, which was once marked by corruption. Righteousness will rule from heaven, bringing goodness and plenty where there had been only evil and want.
Commentators differ on the timing. Several read it as a picture of the coming kingdom, when righteousness rules and the land yields plenty. Others see it fulfilled in Christ Himself: buried, risen from the ground, and now glorified above.
This surely reminds us that though Christ was buried, He has risen again, springing out of the earth. So truth has triumphed over falsehood. More than this, Christ is glorified now in heaven. He is the very picture of righteousness looking down upon His redeemed people.
One writer holds both together — the full scene waits, but the ground of it is already laid.
Perhaps one could not say till "that day" that "truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from the heavens." Yet one knows for certain that "grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And righteousness stands established and displayed in Him, exalted on the throne and glorified in God Himself above.
- Cause. Without the atonement of Christ, truth could never spring from the earth and righteousness could never look down. The meeting has no other ground.
- Gift. What comes down is God's righteousness, not one man worked up from below. That is what makes the blessing stable.
- Response. What rises from the earth is man acknowledging God and his own need and sin — the only thing he has to bring.
- Reach. God has established righteousness in the heavens, because Christ is there. From that one place both heavenly and earthly blessing flow.
- Result. God answers the prayer for new life. Soil once marked by corruption yields goodness and plenty under a rule from above.
Jehovah also will give what is good, and our land shall yield its increase.
Psalm 85 is the prayer of a forgiven people, and it ends by looking at the land they live on. Verse 12 answers two questions: who gives the good, and where the good shows up.
The promise that the land will yield its increase is older than this psalm. God tied it to Israel's obedience, and He stated the opposite outcome just as plainly:
Before the people of Israel moved away from Mount Sinai, the LORD had a plain talk with them about their future. Read Leviticus 26. "If you walk in my statutes and keep my commandments and do them, then I will give you rain in its season, and the land shall yield its increase... you shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely." This would be prosperity indeed! "But if you will not listen to me... I will make your heavens like iron and your earth like bronze... your land shall not yield its increase."
In this psalm no one earns the harvest. A people who already know they are forgiven ask for it, and the order matters:
This seems to be a prayer for the positive blessings that come from God's pardon being theirs, and from His favour to the land and people being declared. That is, they own this and acknowledge that their blessing rests on it, and so they look for it. Conversion to blessing follows pardon and forgiveness — always so, never the reverse.
The verse names the LORD as the giver. What makes His gift steady is where the righteousness behind it comes from:
Truth shall spring out of the earth. That is, the full fruit and effect of God's truth and faithfulness will show in blessings, full blessings, on the earth. But this did not come by a righteousness that man had worked out by law here below. Righteousness looked down from heaven. It was God's righteousness, Jehovah their righteousness. But this made it stable. Jehovah gives that which is good, and the land is blessed.
The ground can give again only because something no longer weighs on it:
Fruitfulness follows as to the land. The curse is removed from it: "Yes, the LORD will give what is good, and our land will yield its increase." His people also walk in ways of righteousness, matching the perfect rule of Him who now reigns over them in righteousness.
The people had prayed for new life. God's answer reaches past their own hearts to the soil they live on:
They had asked to be "revived" (v. 6). Now they hear that truth shall spring out of the earth, an earth once marked by corruption. Righteousness will rule from heaven, bringing goodness and plenty where there had been only evil and want.
The increase means real produce, not a figure of speech. One writer traces a chain of answers running from sky to field:
Physical blessings will abound in all their rich variety of kind. With an overflowing increase God will bless His land (verse 12). God will open heaven's windows over the favoured place of His inheritance: "And in that day I will answer, declares the LORD, I will answer the heavens, and they shall answer the earth, and the earth shall answer the grain, the wine, and the oil, and they shall answer Jezreel" (Hosea 2:21-22).
This verse is not a guarantee of crops or income for a believer today. The church's promises run along a different line:
The blessings of the Church are spiritual blessings in heavenly places — not earthly blessings, as Israel's were... And even in the coming kingdom on earth, Israel will enjoy spiritual blessings as well. Even then, having every earthly comfort stands out in what is foretold about them. "And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land" (Ezek. 34:27). There are no such promises as these to the Church.
- Pardon — a forgiven people ask for the harvest. Blessing follows forgiveness, never the other way round.
- Giver — the LORD gives the good first; the land only gives back what He has given it.
- Ground — the curse is gone, so the soil can answer. The promise goes back to Leviticus 26.
- Grace — the increase is steady. It rests on righteousness looking down from heaven, not on law-keeping below.
- Guard — this promise belongs to Israel's land. The church's blessings are spiritual and heavenly.
Righteousness shall go before him, and shall set his footsteps on the way.
Psalm 85 moves from forgiveness given to blessing longed for, and it closes by naming what that blessing rests on: righteousness walks ahead of the Lord and marks out the road. So whose footsteps does it mark out, and why does righteousness lead the way?
The closing verses describe the rule that is coming. One writer reads this last line as the mark of that whole government.
The Lord gives what is good, and the land is blessed. Righteousness traces the path of blessing for the Lord and Himself in the land — His own, no doubt. Still His rule will have this character. "A king will reign in righteousness" — no more oppression. Justice is no longer fallen in the streets, as Isaiah 59:14 says. Judgement has returned to it, and the government has this character.
Translations divide here, and so do the commentators. The writers below quote an older wording: righteousness will set or direct His footsteps in the way. Some take those steps as the King's own. On that reading, the verse shows how Messiah Himself will govern.
The closing verse declares the principle of the public rule of Messiah's kingdom: "Righteousness shall go before Him, and shall direct His footsteps in the way." He is King of righteousness. He will reign in this way. He will walk before God and man in the excellence of His own perfection. He will hold the sceptre of upright rule to the farthest edges of His appointed realm.
Others take His steps as the road His people will walk on. They point to where we can already read those steps.
"Righteousness will go before Him," unlike the many leaders who have come and gone. In none of them was righteousness accomplished. Now righteousness will be the established path of believing Israel, who will walk before God in simple faith (v. 13). The footsteps of the Lord Jesus will provide the pathway for Israel's walk. The four Gospels show those footsteps, and the nation will surely delight to study them then.
Either way, righteousness is not one feature of the kingdom among many.
Righteousness will be the basis of the restored kingdom, and "shall set his footsteps on the way" that leads to the kingdom.
Verse 11 has already said that righteousness looks down from heaven. That direction decides everything in verse 13.
But in every case righteousness looks down from heaven. It is not, for Israel or for us, righteousness looking up from earth to claim blessing from heaven. He has established righteousness in the very heavens. Christ is there. He is there by the righteousness of God. Having glorified God, He is now glorified with God, and in Him. That is divine righteousness. Our heavenly blessing and Israel's earthly blessing both flow from it.
A rule led by righteousness has consequences for everything that resists it.
Throughout His administration He will deal with every act of rebellion against the will of God in righteous judgement… In that age nothing on earth will offend the eye of God.
- It comes down. Righteousness does not rise from earth to claim blessing. It looks down from heaven, established there because Christ is there. Israel's earthly blessing and our heavenly blessing both flow from that.
- It goes ahead. Righteousness traces the road. It is the basis of the restored kingdom and the way that leads into it, not a decoration added later.
- Someone walks it. Commentators differ here. Some see the King's own perfect steps. Others see the path He lays down for His people. The Gospels show those footsteps.
- Nothing offends God. A King reigns in righteousness. Justice no longer lies fallen in the streets. Nothing is left on earth that offends the eye of God.