Psalms 27:1-2

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 

Isaiah 41:10

41:10 Don’t be afraid, for I am with you!

Don’t be frightened, for I am your God! ⁹ 

I strengthen you –

yes, I help you –

yes, I uphold you with my saving right hand! ¹⁰ 

Isaiah 41:13

41:13 For I am the Lord your God,

the one who takes hold of your right hand,

who says to you, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am helping you.’

Romans 8:31

8:31 What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

[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.”

[41:10]  ⁹ tn According to BDB (1043 s.v. שָׁעָה), the verb תִּשְׁתָּע (tishta’) in the second line of the poetic couplet is a Hitpael form from the root שָׁעָה (sha’ah, “gaze,” with metathesis of the stem prefix and the first root letter). Taking the Hitpael as iterative, one may then translate “do not anxiously look about.” However, the alleged Hitpael form of שָׁעָה (sha’ah) only occurs here and in verse 23. HALOT 1671 s.v. שׁתע proposes that the verb is instead a Qal form from the root שׁתע (“fear”) which is attested in cognate Semitic languages, including Ugaritic (discovered after the publishing of BDB), suggests the existence of this root. The poetic structure of v. 10 also supports the proposal, for the form in question is in synonymous parallelism to יָרֵא (yare’, “fear”).

[41:10]  ¹⁰ tn The “right hand” is a symbol of the Lord’s power to deliver (Exod 15:6, 12) and protect (Ps 63:9 HT [63:8 ET]). Here צֶדֶק (tsedeq) has its well-attested nuance of “vindicated righteousness,” i.e., “victory, deliverance” (see 45:8; 51:5, and BDB 841-42 s.v.).