A Meditation on Psalm 85

A Meditation on Psalm 85

by Margaret Hummel

You favored, O Lord, your land

………………..

Truth from the earth will spring up

        as justice from the heavens looks down

                               Psalm 85, trans. Robert Alter

             We hunger for more than bread.  We hunger for “truth.”  We’re wary of asking for it, knowing how complex things are and how ill equipped we are to be absolutely definitive about anything.  But we long for the true story, the final word, the real meaning of things.  And, ironically, our access to more information than we can ever really grasp makes the search for truth more uncertain than ever.  Some days there are too many possibilities.  As Robert Frost said, “when I am weary of considerations, and life is too much like a pathless wood”, we wish there were a few things we could be absolutely sure of.  The Psalmist assures us that “truth from the earth will spring up.”  Is there any certainty hidden in that metaphor?   One of the alternate meanings of the Hebrew “truth” is reliability.   Reliability is more than dependability.  It is confidence based on experience.  We have been preceded by those, the Psalmist included, who had confidence on the promises of a loving God.    We can rely on whatever accords with the deepest truths we know as believers in Jesus.  And there are many.  These are some:  that the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, that the Spirit dwells in our hearts, that the disciples knew the Lord Jesus in the breaking of the bread.  As do we.