Lectionary Year B
December 8, 2002
Second Sunday in Advent
Psalm 85:1-2, 8-13
Step III: Immediate Context
(FS) B. COMPOSITIONAL WHOLE
Mowinckel suggests that this Psalm was used for the Harvest Festival and
Feast of Tabernacles (Vol. 1, 191) or perhaps at the New Year (ibid, 223).
Both he and J.L. Mays suggest that it was paired with Psalm 126, with both
being corporate pleas for salvation in the present, based on past need and
Yahweh's response. (J.L. Mays, Psalms {Interpretation Series of
Commentaries}, 276-8).
Thomas White Currie noted that Psalms 85 and 126 are catalogued in the
ancient liturgies of the Church to be read on Christmas Day. He suggested
that the Psalm celebrates the restoration of Israel from the Babylonian
captivity (Studies in the Psalms, Kingsville, TX: The Tex.-Mex. Printery,
1941, pp. 58-59) If this is the case, one remembers how disappointing the
return to a ravaged land was, and how arduous the task of reconstruction.
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