Ps. 85 consists of a thanksgiving for the deliverance of Israel from the captor (vs. 1-3); a prayer for more complete restoration (vs. 4-7); and a foretaste of the answer to the psalmist’s prayer in the ultimate bestowal of spiritual and material blessings. There is insufficient evidence to tie the psalm to any particular date. Among the supreme personifications of the book of Psalms are the vivid images presented in Ps. 85:10-13. It is said that the psalm was a favorite of Oliver Cromwell’s.
On the superscription see pp. 617, 627.
Been favourable.
God had been pleased to turn the calamities of the Jews into blessings. The statement implies that the psalmist felt there were times when God had not been gracious (see Ps. 77:7-9).