But high as is the psalmist's flight of mystic devotion, he does not soar so far as to lose sight of plain morality, as mystics have often been apt to do. It is the man who walks in his integrity who may hope to receive these blessings. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord"; and neither access to His house nor the blessings flowing from His presence can belong to him who is faithless to his own convictions of duty. The pilgrim paths are paths of righteousness. The psalmist's last word translates his metaphors of dwelling in and travelling towards the house of Jehovah into their simple meaning, "Blessed is the man that _trusteth_ in Thee." That trust both seeks and finds God. There has never been but one way to His presence, and that is the way of trust. "I am the way.... No man cometh to the Father but by Me." So coming, we shall find, and then shall seek more eagerly and find more fully, and thus shall possess at once the joys of fruition and of desires always satisfied, never satiated, but continually renewed.
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.