Mazmur 27:1-9

Psalm 27 ¹ 

By David.

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! ² 

I fear no one! ³ 

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one! ⁴ 

27:2 When evil men attack me ⁵ 

to devour my flesh, ⁶ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ⁷ 

they stumble and fall. ⁸ 

27:3 Even when an army is deployed against me,

I do not fear. ⁹ 

Even when war is imminent, ¹⁰ 

I remain confident. ¹¹ 

27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing –

this is what I desire!

I want to live ¹²  in the Lord’s house ¹³  all the days of my life,

so I can gaze at the splendor ¹⁴  of the Lord

and contemplate in his temple.

27:5 He will surely ¹⁵  give me shelter ¹⁶  in the day of danger; ¹⁷ 

he will hide me in his home; ¹⁸ 

he will place me ¹⁹  on an inaccessible rocky summit. ²⁰ 

27:6 Now I will triumph

over my enemies who surround me! ²¹ 

I will offer sacrifices in his dwelling place and shout for joy! ²² 

I will sing praises to the Lord!

27:7 Hear me, ²³  O Lord, when I cry out!

Have mercy on me and answer me!

27:8 My heart tells me to pray to you, ²⁴ 

and I do pray to you, O Lord. ²⁵ 

27:9 Do not reject me! ²⁶ 

Do not push your servant away in anger!

You are my deliverer! ²⁷ 

Do not forsake or abandon me,

O God who vindicates me!

[27:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.

[27:1]  ² tn Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).

[27:1]  ³ tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[27:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”

[27:2]  ⁵ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ⁶ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ⁸ tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”

[27:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “my heart does not fear.”

[27:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “if war rises up against me.”

[27:3]  ¹¹ tn Heb “in this [i.e., “during this situation”] I am trusting.”

[27:4]  ¹² tn Heb “my living.”

[27:4]  ¹³ sn The Lord’s house. This probably refers to the tabernacle (if one accepts Davidic authorship) or the temple (see Judg 19:18; 1 Sam 1:7, 24; 2 Sam 12:20; 1 Kgs 7:12, 40, 45, 51).

[27:4]  ¹⁴ tn Or “beauty.”

[27:5]  ¹⁵ tn Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי (ki) is asseverative here, rather than causal.

[27:5]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”

[27:5]  ¹⁷ tn Or “trouble.”

[27:5]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “tent.”

[27:5]  ¹⁹ tn The three imperfect verb forms in v. 5 anticipate a positive response to the prayer offered in vv. 7-12.

[27:5]  ²⁰ tn Heb “on a rocky summit he lifts me up.” The Lord places the psalmist in an inaccessible place where his enemies cannot reach him. See Ps 18:2.

[27:6]  ²¹ tn Heb “and now my head will be lifted up over my enemies all around me.”

[27:6]  sn In vv. 1-3 the psalmist generalizes, but here we discover that he is facing a crisis and is under attack from enemies (see vv. 11-12).

[27:6]  ²² tn Heb “I will sacrifice in his tent sacrifices of a shout for joy” (that is, “sacrifices accompanied by a joyful shout”).

[27:7]  ²³ tn Heb “my voice.”

[27:8]  ²⁴ tc Heb “concerning you my heart says, ‘Seek my face.’” The verb form “seek” is plural, but this makes no sense here, for the psalmist is addressed. The verb should be emended to a singular form. The first person pronominal suffix on “face” also makes little sense, unless it is the voice of the Lord he hears. His “heart” is viewed as speaking, however, so it is better to emend the form to פָּנָיו (panayv, “his face”).

[27:8]  ²⁵ tn Heb “your face, O Lord, I seek.” To “seek the Lord’s face” means to seek his favor through prayer (see 2 Sam 21:1; Pss 24:6; 105:4).

[27:9]  ²⁶ tn Heb “do not hide your face from me.” The idiom “hide the face” can mean “ignore” (see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9) or carry the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 30:7; 88:14).

[27:9]  ²⁷ tn Or “[source of] help.”