John Calvin Commentary Psalms 85:9

"Surely his salvation is nigh them that fear him, That glory may dwell in our land." — Psalms 85:9 (ASV)

Surely his salvation is near to them that fear him. Here the Psalmist confirms the statement made in the preceding verse. He encourages both himself and other servants of God in the hope that, although to outward appearance God was far off from his people, yet deliverance was near at hand, because it is certain that God secretly regards those whom he seems openly to neglect.

If it is considered preferable to take the particle אך (ach) adversatively, as in “Yet his salvation, etc.”—a sense in which it is often used in Hebrew—the sentence will be fuller. The prophet had just said that God continues to prolong the chastisement of his people when he perceives that they are too prone to fall again into sin. Here, lest his slowness in removing the stroke of his hand should prove too much for their patience, he qualifies the above statement by observing that even when the Divine help seems slowest in coming, it is then near at hand.

The glory that he anticipates in the second part of the verse, which will dwell in the land, is undoubtedly set in opposition to the ruinous appearance it then presented to the eye—an appearance that was a token of the dreadful anger of God and consigned the land to ignominy and reproach.

By this language, therefore, he encourages himself and other genuine believers to repentance, reminding them that the grievous oppression—accompanied with insult and derision—to which they were subjected by the tyranny of their enemies, was to be ascribed entirely to their having driven away the salvation of God from them by their sins.