Psalms 85:4 - Exposition

Turn us, O God of our salvation. Thou art turned to us ( Psalms 85:1 ); let us also be turned to thee. We cannot turn of our own mere wish to turn; we need thy helping grace (comp. Psalms 80:3 , Psalms 80:7 , Psalms 80:19 ). And cause thine anger toward us to cease. Verbally, this contradicts Psalms 85:3 , whence it has been supposed by some to come from the mouth of another speaker. But really there is no contradiction, if we understand, both here and in the next verse, by God's anger, the effects of his anger, which were still continuing (comp. Ezra 3:12 , Ezra 3:13 ; Ezra 4:4-24 ; Ezra 9:2-15 ; Nehemiah 1:3 ; Nehemiah 2:17 ; Nehemiah 4:1-22 ; Nehemiah 5:1-19 ).