Psalms 27:1-7

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!

[27:1]  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]  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.”