Psalms 85:1-3

If we first advert to Israel's history as a history of the church, we may trace abundant proofs of God's favor, from the moment they were formed into a church, through all their eventful pilgrimage. They got not the possession of their land by their own sword, neither was it their own arm that helped them. Psalms 44:1. And so again in their subsequent captivity, in Babylon, it was the Lord's deliverance, not their strength. But we lose the chief beauty of the Psalm, as well as interest in it, if we go no farther than the view of temporal mercies and old deliverances. Surely the Lord's graciousness to his land and to his people is doubly sweet and blessed, when read with an eye to Christ. Here the Lord hath indeed brought back his people from the captivity of sin and Satan, from the bondage of corruption, and the shadow of death. Here the Lord hath indeed forgiven their iniquity, and covered all their sins, by casting them into the depths of the sea of the Redeemer's blood. Micah 7:18; 1 John 1:7.