Psalms 27:1

Psalm 27

By David.

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me!

I fear no one!

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one!

Psalms 27:9

27:9 Do not reject me!

Do not push your servant away in anger!

You are my deliverer!

Do not forsake or abandon me,

O God who vindicates me!

Psalms 51:14

51:14 Rescue me from the guilt of murder, O God, the God who delivers me!

Then my tongue will shout for joy because of your deliverance.

Psalms 62:7

62:7 God delivers me and exalts me;

God is my strong protector and my shelter.

Psalms 65:5

65:5 You answer our prayers by performing awesome acts of deliverance,

O God, our savior. 10 

All the ends of the earth trust in you, 11 

as well as those living across the wide seas. 12 

Psalms 68:19

68:19 The Lord deserves praise! 13 

Day after day 14  he carries our burden,

the God who delivers us. (Selah)

Psalms 79:9

79:9 Help us, O God, our deliverer!

For the sake of your glorious reputation, 15  rescue us!

Forgive our sins for the sake of your reputation! 16 

Psalms 140:7

140:7 O sovereign Lord, my strong deliverer, 17 

you shield 18  my head in the day of battle.

Genesis 49:18

49:18 I wait for your deliverance, O Lord. 19 

Isaiah 12:2

12:2 Look, God is my deliverer! 20 

I will trust in him 21  and not fear.

For the Lord gives me strength and protects me; 22 

he has become my deliverer.” 23 

Luke 1:47

1:47 and my spirit has begun to rejoice 24  in God my Savior,

Luke 2:30

2:30 For my eyes have seen your salvation 25 

Titus 2:10

2:10 not pilfering, but showing all good faith, 26  in order to bring credit to 27  the teaching of God our Savior in everything.

Titus 2:13

2:13 as we wait for the happy fulfillment of our hope in the glorious appearing 28  of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. 29 

Titus 3:4-7

3:4 30  But “when the kindness of God our Savior and his love for mankind appeared, 3:5 he saved us not by works of righteousness that we have done but on the basis of his mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, 3:6 whom he poured out on us in full measure 31  through Jesus Christ our Savior. 3:7 And so, 32  since we have been justified by his grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life.” 33 


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

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).

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

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

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).

tn Or “[source of] help.”

tn Heb “from bloodshed.” “Bloodshed” here stands by metonymy for the guilt which it produces.

tn Heb “my tongue will shout for joy your deliverance.” Another option is to take the prefixed verbal form as a jussive, “may my tongue shout for joy.” However, the pattern in vv. 12-15 appears to be prayer/request (see vv. 12, 14a, 15a) followed by promise/vow (see vv. 13, 14b, 15b).

tn Heb “upon God [is] my deliverance and my glory, the high rocky summit of my strength, my shelter [is] in God.”

10 tn Heb “[with] awesome acts in deliverance you answer us, O God of our salvation.”

11 tn Heb “a source of confidence [for] all the ends of the earth.”

12 tc Heb “and [the] distant sea.” The plural adjective is problematic after the singular form “sea.” One could emend יָם (yam, “sea”) to יָמִים (yamim, “seas”), or emend the plural form רְחֹקִים (rÿkhoqim, “far”) to the singular רָחֹק (rakhoq). In this case the final mem (ם) could be treated as dittographic; note the mem on the beginning of the first word in v. 6.

13 tn Heb “blessed [be] the Lord.”

14 tn It is possible to take this phrase with what precedes (“The Lord deserves praise day after day”) rather than with what follows.

15 tn Heb “the glory of your name.” Here and in the following line “name” stands metonymically for God’s reputation.

16 tn Heb “your name.”

17 tn Heb “the strength of my deliverance.”

18 tn Heb “cover.”

19 sn I wait for your deliverance, O Lord. As Jacob sees the conflicts that lie ahead for Dan and Gad (see v. 19), he offers a brief prayer for their security.

20 tn Or “salvation” (KJV, NIV, NRSV).

21 tn The words “in him” are supplied in the translation for clarification.

22 tc The Hebrew text has, “for my strength and protection [is] the Lord, the Lord (Heb “Yah, Yahweh).” The word יְהוָה (yehvah) is probably dittographic or explanatory here (note that the short form of the name [יָהּ, yah] precedes, and that the graphically similar וַיְהִי [vayÿhi] follows). Exod 15:2, the passage from which the words of v. 2b are taken, has only יָהּ. The word זִמְרָת (zimrat) is traditionally understood as meaning “song,” in which case one might translate, “for the Lord gives me strength and joy” (i.e., a reason to sing); note that in v. 5 the verb זָמַר (zamar, “sing”) appears. Many recent commentators, however, have argued that the noun is here instead a homonym, meaning “protection” or “strength.” See HALOT 274 s.v. III *זמר.

23 tn Or “salvation” (so many English versions, e.g., KJV, NIV, NRSV, NLT); NAB “my savior.”

24 tn Or “rejoices.” The translation renders this aorist, which stands in contrast to the previous line’s present tense, as ingressive, which highlights Mary’s joyous reaction to the announcement. A comprehensive aorist is also possible here.

25 sn To see Jesus, the Messiah, is to see God’s salvation.

26 tn Or “showing that genuine faith is productive.” At issue between these two translations is the force of ἀγαθήν (agaqhn): Is it attributive (as the text has it) or predicate (as in this note)? A number of considerations point in the direction of a predicate ἀγαθήν (e.g., separation from the noun πίστιν (pistin) by the verb, the possibility that the construction is an object-complement, etc.), though is not usually seen as an option in either translations or commentaries. Cf. ExSyn 188-89, 312-13, for a discussion. Contextually, it makes an intriguing statement, for it suggests a synthetic or synonymous parallel: “‘Slaves should be wholly subject to their masters…demonstrating that all [genuine] faith is productive, with the result [ecbatic ἵνα] that they will completely adorn the doctrine of God.’ The point of the text, then, if this understanding is correct, is an exhortation to slaves to demonstrate that their faith is sincere and results in holy behavior. If taken this way, the text seems to support the idea that saving faith does not fail, but even results in good works” (ExSyn 312-13). The translation of ἀγαθήν as an attributive adjective, however, also makes good sense.

27 tn Or “adorn,” “show the beauty of.”

28 tn Grk “the blessed hope and glorious appearing.”

29 tn The terms “God and Savior” both refer to the same person, Jesus Christ. This is one of the clearest statements in the NT concerning the deity of Christ. The construction in Greek is known as the Granville Sharp rule, named after the English philanthropist-linguist who first clearly articulated the rule in 1798. Sharp pointed out that in the construction article-noun-καί-noun (where καί [kai] = “and”), when two nouns are singular, personal, and common (i.e., not proper names), they always had the same referent. Illustrations such as “the friend and brother,” “the God and Father,” etc. abound in the NT to prove Sharp’s point. The only issue is whether terms such as “God” and “Savior” could be considered common nouns as opposed to proper names. Sharp and others who followed (such as T. F. Middleton in his masterful The Doctrine of the Greek Article) demonstrated that a proper name in Greek was one that could not be pluralized. Since both “God” (θεός, qeos) and “savior” (σωτήρ, swthr) were occasionally found in the plural, they did not constitute proper names, and hence, do fit Sharp’s rule. Although there have been 200 years of attempts to dislodge Sharp’s rule, all attempts have been futile. Sharp’s rule stands vindicated after all the dust has settled. For more information on Sharp’s rule see ExSyn 270-78, esp. 276. See also 2 Pet 1:1 and Jude 4.

30 tn Verses 4-7 are set as poetry in NA26/NA27. These verses probably constitute the referent of the expression “this saying” in v. 8.

31 tn Or “on us richly.”

32 tn This is the conclusion of a single, skillfully composed sentence in Greek encompassing Titus 3:4-7. Showing the goal of God’s merciful salvation, v. 7 begins literally, “in order that, being justified…we might become heirs…”

33 tn Grk “heirs according to the hope of eternal life.”