Text -- Psalms 27:1-5 (NET)

Psalm 27

27:1 By David. The Lord delivers and vindicates me! I fear no one! The Lord protects my life! I am afraid of no one! 27:2 When evil men attack me to devour my flesh, when my adversaries and enemies attack me, they stumble and fall. 27:3 Even when an army is deployed against me, I do not fear. Even when war is imminent, I remain confident. 27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing– this is what I desire! I want to live in the Lord’s house all the days of my life, so I can gaze at the splendor of the Lord and contemplate in his temple. 27:5 He will surely give me shelter in the day of danger; he will hide me in his home; he will place me on an inaccessible rocky summit.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Psa 27:1

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

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).

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

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

NET Notes: Psa 27:2

¹ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

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

³ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

⁴ 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.”

NET Notes: Psa 27:3

¹ tn Heb “my heart does not fear.”

² tn Heb “if war rises up against me.”

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

NET Notes: Psa 27:4

¹ tn Heb “my living.”

² 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).

³ tn Or “beauty.”

NET Notes: Psa 27:5

¹ tn Or “for he will.” The translation assumes the כִּי (ki) is asseverative here, rather than causal.

² tn Heb “he will hide me in his hut.”

³ tn Or “trouble.”

⁴ tn Heb “tent.”

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

⁶ 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.