Psalm 85:10-13 – Righteousness and Peace Will Kiss Each Other

BIBLE TEXT

Psalm 85:10-13

SUMMARY

All good things come together in God’s salvation of God’s people.

ANALYSIS

At the end of this prayer for restoration and renewal comes one of the Psalter’s loveliest images of God’s salvation. When “salvation is at hand” (v. 9), then “Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground, and righteousness will look down from the sky” (vv. 10-11). The images are poetic, of course, not literal, yet their truth is profound. At last, everything meets: steadfast love and faithfulness, righteousness and peace, faithfulness and righteousness. The repetition indicates that precise definitions of terms are not the primary issue here, though each of these words has content. Still, the point at last is that “the Lord will give what is good” (v. 12)--everything that is good. This is what God has in store for God’s people, that for which they hope in faith and which they experience, if incompletely, even now by faith.