Psalms 85:10 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Mercy and truth are met together, &c. When that blessed time shall come, those virtues which now seem to be banished from human society shall be restored, and there shall be a happy union of mercy, or benignity, with truth, or veracity, and fidelity; of righteousness, or justice and equity, with peace, or peaceableness and concord. But the passage is rather to be understood of blessings from God, than of graces or virtues in man; of which blessings the whole context speaks. And then the sense is, that the great work of redemption and salvation by Christ shall clearly manifest and demonstrate God's mercy in redeeming his people Israel, and in the calling and conversion of the Gentiles, his truth in fulfilling his promises, especially the great promise of the Messiah to come in the flesh, which was the foundation of all the other promises; his righteousness in punishing sin in the surety of sinners, of making his Son a sin-offering for us, and in conferring righteousness upon guilty and lost creatures; and his peace, or reconciliation, to penitent, believing sinners, and that peace of conscience which attends upon it. “Thus these four divine attributes, parted at the fall of Adam, met again at the birth of Christ. Mercy was ever inclined to serve man, and peace could not be his enemy; but truth exacted the performance of God's threat, The soul that sinneth it shall die; and righteousness could not but give to every one his due. Jehovah must be true in all his ways, and righteous in all his works. Now there is no religion upon earth, except the Christian, which can satisfy the demands of all these claimants, and restore a union between them; which can show how God's word can be true, and his work just, and the sinner, notwithstanding, find mercy and obtain peace. But a God incarnate reconciled all things in heaven and earth.” Horne.