Psalm 85:5

Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

85:1-7 The sense of present afflictions should not do away the remembrance of former mercies. The favour of God is the fountain of happiness to nations, as well as to particular persons. When God forgives sin, he covers it; and when he covers the sin of his people, he covers it all. See what the pardon of sin is. In compassion to us, when Christ our Intercessor has stood before thee, thou hast turned away thine anger. When we are reconciled to God, then, and not till then, we may expect the comfort of his being reconciled to us. He shows mercy to those to whom he grants salvation; for salvation is of mere mercy. The Lord's people may expect sharp and tedious afflictions when they commit sin; but when they return to him with humble prayer, he will make them again to rejoice in him.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? - Thine anger is so long continued that it seems as if it would never cease.

Wilt thou draw out thine anger - Wilt thou protract or prolong it? The idea is that of a determined purpose, in retaining his anger, as if his wrath would cease of necessity unless there were such a direct exercise of will.

To all generations - literally, "from generation to generation." That is, - so that not merely the generation which has sinned, and which has brought down these tokens of displeasure, shall suffer, but the next, and the next, and the next, forever. The plea is that the judgment might terminate, and not reach coming generations.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

5. draw out—or, "prolong" (Ps 36:10).

The Treasury of David

5 Wilt thou be angry with us for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?

6 Wilt thou not revive us again: that thy people may rejoice in thee?

7 Shew us thy mercy, O Lord, and grant us thy salvation.

Psalm 85:5

"Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?" See how the Psalmist makes bold to plead. We are in time as yet and not in eternity, and does not time come to an end, and therefore thy wrath! Wilt thou be angry always as if it were eternity? Is there no boundary to thine indignation? Will thy wrath never have done? And if for ever angry, yet wilt thou be angry "with us," thy favoured people, the seed of Abraham, thy friend? That our enemies should be always wroth is natural but wilt thou, our God, be always incensed against us? Every word is an argument. Men in distress never waste words. "Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?" Shall sons suffer for their fathers' faults, and punishment become an entailed inheritance? O merciful God, hast thou a mind to spin out thine anger, and make it as long as the ages? Cease thou, as thou hast ceased aforetime, and let grace reign as it has done in days of yore. When we are under spiritual desertion we may beg in the like manner that the days of tribulation may be shortened, lest our spirit should utterly fail beneath the trial.

Psalm 85:6

"Will thou not revive us again?" Hope here grows almost confident. She feels sure that the Lord will return in all his power to save. We are dead or dying, faint and feeble, God alone can revive us, he has in other times refreshed his people, he is still the same, he will repeat his love. Will he not? Why should he not? We appeal to him - "Wilt thou not?" "That thy people may rejoice in thee." Thou lovest to see thy children happy with that best of happiness which centres in thyself, therefore revive us, for revival will bring us the utmost joy. The words before us teach us that gratitude has an eye to the giver, even beyond the gift - "thy people may rejoice in thee." Those who were revived would rejoice not only in the new life but in the Lord who was the author of it. Joy in the Lord is the ripest fruit of grace, all revivals and renewals lead up to it. By our possession of it we may estimate our spiritual condition, it is a sure gauge of inward prosperity. A genuine revival without joy in the Lord is as impossible as spring without flowers, or daydawn without light. If, either in our own souls or in the hearts of others, we see declension, it becomes us to be much in the use of this prayer, and if on the other hand we are enjoying visitations of the Spirit and bedewings of grace, let us abound in holy joy and make it our constant delight to joy in God.

Psalm 85:7

"Shew us thy mercy, O Lord." Reveal it to our poor half-blinded eyes. We cannot see it or believe it by reason of our long woes, but thou canst make it plain to us. Others have beheld it, Lord shew it to us. We have seen thine anger, Lord let us see thy mercy. Thy prophets have told us of it, but, O Lord, do thou thyself display it in this our hour of need. "And grant us thy salvation." This includes deliverance from the sin as well as the chastisement, it reaches from the depth of their misery to the height of divine love. God's salvation is perfect in kind, comprehensive in extent, and eminent in degree; grant us this, O Lord, and we have all.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Wilt thou be angry with us for ever?.... God is angry with the wicked every day, their life being a continued series of sin, without repentance for it, or confession of it; and he will be so for ever, of which they will have a constant sense and feeling; and is the worm that never dies, and the fire that is inextinguishable; but he does not retain his anger for ever with his own people; though he is displeased with them, and chastises them for their sins, his anger endures but for a moment; he is pacified towards them and turns away his anger from them, by discovering his pardoning love, and withdrawing his afflicting hand:

wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? out of his heart, where it is supposed to be conceived; and out of his treasury, where it is thought to be laid up: this has been drawn out to a great length of time upon the Jewish nation; it has been upon them for almost twenty centuries, or ages, and still remains, and will until the fulness of the Gentiles is brought in; but it will not be drawn out to "all" ages or generations; for they shall return to the Lord, and seek him; and he will come to them, and turn away iniquity from them, and so all Israel shall be saved.

Geneva Study Bible

Wilt thou be angry with us {d} for ever? wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations?

(d) As in times past they had felt God's mercies, so now being oppressed by the long continuance of evil, they pray to God that according to his nature he would be merciful to them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

5. For the pleading question cp. Psalm 77:7 ff.

wilt thou draw out &c.] I.e. protract, prolong, continue thine anger to one generation after another (Psalm 77:8).

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 5. - Wilt thou be angry with us forever? This is equivalent to "Wilt thou still go on punishing us?" Wilt thou draw out thine anger to all generations? or, "from generation to generation?" This suits well the first period after the return from the Captivity, when the depressed condition of Israel continued for several generations. Psalm 85:5

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The poet now prays God to manifest anew the loving-kindness He has shown formerly. In the sense of "restore us again," שׁוּבנוּ does not form any bond of connection between this and the preceding strophe; but it does it, according to Ges. 121, 4, it is intended in the sense of (אלינוּ) שׁוּב לנוּ, turn again to us. The poet prays that God would manifest Himself anew to His people as He has done in former days. Thus the transition from the retrospective perfects to the petition is, in the presence of the existing extremity, adequately brought about. Assuming the post-exilic origin of the Psalm, we see from this strophe that it was composed at a period in which the distance between the temporal and spiritual condition of Israel and the national restoration, promised together with the termination of the Exile, made itself distinctly felt. On עמּנוּ (in relation to and bearing towards us) beside כּעסך, cf. Job 10:17, and also on הפר, Psalm 89:34. In the question in Psalm 89:6 reminding God of His love and of His promise, משׁך has the signification of constant endless continuing or pursuing, as in Psalm 36:11. The expression in Psalm 85:7 is like Psalm 71:20, cf. Psalm 80:19; שׁוּב is here the representative of rursus, Ges. 142. ישׁעך from ישׁע, like קצפּך in Psalm 38:2, has ĕ (cf. the inflexion of פּרי and חק) instead of the ı̆ in אלהי ישׁענוּ. Here at the close of the strophe the prayer turns back inferentially to this attribute of God.