At the beginning of the psalm David affirms that, after frequent and very great dangers overcome by God’s help, he has been made so strong that he now fears nothing. Yet since he understood that he could not long enjoy the leisure and repose in which he was now living, he asks God to grant him lasting peace and perpetual rest from his enemies, so that henceforth it might be permitted him to go daily to the house of the Lord, where he may be safe from every hostile assault and ambush. He also adds another prayer, which nevertheless tends to the same end, namely that God would not allow him to become entangled in secular affairs, nor in anger turn away and abandon one to whom He has hitherto always been present, but rather would teach him which path he ought to tread—indeed, lead him along the straight path—and not allow him, while engaged in warfare, to be detained and drawn away from the worship of the divine name.
Ezra observes on verse 4 that this psalm seems to him to have been written by David when he was an old man, and when his men had sworn to him, as is recorded in 2 Samuel 21:17, saying: “You shall no longer go out with us into battle.” This also seems likely to me.
Ps 27:1 “The Lord is my light and my salvation,” etc. The sense is clear: when God is my light and my salvation, truly there is no one whom I ought to fear. He sets light over against troubles and calamities, which are like darkness, just as salvation and deliverance from troubles are like a certain splendid light. “The Lord is the strength of my life,” that is, He guards my life against every assault of enemies; therefore there is no one whom I should dread. For if God is for me, who can be against me?
Ps 27:2 “This is the proposition” in verse 2: “When those came near against me,” etc. In this verse, in order more strongly to confirm his confidence in God, he recalls to memory how many victories he has won over the most powerful and savage enemies. “When they came near,” according to others, “when they engaged or fought hand to hand.” “To eat my flesh,” that is, to destroy me utterly in a single moment and, as it were, devour me like wild beasts. The Chaldean has: “to crush or cut in pieces my flesh.”
Ps 27:3 “If camps stand against me” (verse 3). The sense is: since this is so, and I have so often experienced the fall of those who threatened my life, even if the camps of all enemies now surround me while I stand alone and unprepared, yet I shall stand with an undaunted spirit. The following clause points to the same thing. “In this,” etc.—that is, in this fact that the Lord is my light and my salvation, I trust for help in overthrowing my enemies.
Ps 27:4 בְּזֹאת (bezōth) is an adverb: “in this.” The Latin translator rightly
rendered it with a neuter, “in hoc,” for the Hebrews, since they do not
recognize a neuter gender, commonly use the feminine, as Jerome observes
on Ecclesiastes 7. You have an example immediately at the beginning of
verse 4: אַחַת (’aḥath), “one” (feminine), used adverbially for “one
thing.”
“One thing I have asked of the Lord,” etc. The sense is: I indeed hope—and I know this with sufficient certainty—that even if all the forces of my enemies surround me, no danger will befall me. Yet this is far more pleasing to me, and this one thing above all I desire and beg from the Lord, nor shall I ever cease to beg it: that I may dwell or abide, that is, that it may henceforth always be permitted me to sit and move about in the house of the Lord, that is, in the place where the Ark was, and where priests, Levites, teachers, and all devout worshippers of God were frequently present and devoted themselves to divine worship.
He therefore asks God for perpetual peace and rest from enemies, so that he may more freely approach the sacred dwelling and there, in the communion of the saints, serve God with secure freedom—not as the profane do, who perversely abuse the good of peace by indulging in luxury and pleasure.
The same aim is expressed in what follows: “that I may behold the delight and beauty of the Lord,” that is, that most beautiful dwelling of the divine Majesty. “That I may behold delight,” etc.—literally, “that I may behold in delight or pleasantness.” The verb חָזָה (ḥāzāh, “to see”) when construed with בְּ (“in”) signifies seeing with delight, as in this place. So also רָאָה (rā’āh, “to see”), which occurs in Ps 27:13. “And that I may visit His temple each morning,” for this is the proper meaning of the Hebrew verb בִּקֵּר (biqqēr). Others translate: “and that I may inquire in His temple,” meaning God Himself, which perhaps adheres more closely to the wording, since in Hebrew it is בְּ (“in”), that is, “in the temple of God.” By “temple” or “tabernacle” understand the place of the Ark, for there was no other temple at that time: namely, either the place David had built for the Ark and the tent he had pitched for it, as in 1 Chronicles 15:1, or the tabernacle Moses made in the desert, which was then at Gibeon.
Ps 27:5 “For He will hide me,” etc. (verse 5). The reason for the petition is as if he said: for I am certain that then, whatever evils may rush upon me, He will hide me in His tabernacle, that is, in His holy dwelling, and will keep me safe there from enemies, as though set upon a high rock.
Perhaps in this verse he alludes to a custom also practiced among his own people, whereby those guilty of some crime, or those threatened with grave danger, fled to the altars, from which they could not be dragged away without the greatest sacrilege. Thus Joab fled to the tabernacle of the Lord—understand, with Kimchi, the tabernacle where the Ark was—and seized the horns of the altar (1 Kings 2:28). Yet this did not help him, because, as Levi ben Gershom observes on that passage, he knowingly and deliberately committed murder. Asylum, as is clear from Joshua 20:3, benefited only one who had killed a man by mistake and without intent. But this is not the point here.
Ps 27:6 “And now He shall exalt,” etc. (verse 6), or rather, “shall be exalted,” for the Hebrew verb יָרוּם (yārūm) is elsewhere neuter or intransitive. The sense of this verse is: and now I hope He will keep me safe from enemies, and henceforth, mindful of God’s benefits, I shall offer sacrifices, etc. Hallel calls “sacrifices of shouting” those sacrifices which were performed with joyful songs.
Ps 27:7 “Hear, O Lord, my voice,” etc. (verse 7). Here follows the second prayer mentioned in the argument, in which he now addresses God in the second person.
Ps 27:8 “My heart said to You,” etc. (verse 8). The sense is: I thus said within myself and resolved in my mind: “Seek, O my face, God,” that is, look upon God, turn yourself to God. “Your face,” etc., that is, to You I now flee, I implore Your help, I gaze upon You. In the end, the whole verse returns to this: my soul urges me to supplicate You, and I supplicate You.
This verse and the preceding one are nothing other than a kind of prelude to the following petition, which tends to the same end as the former. Kimchi understands the verse in this sense. “To You” is the Hebrew לְךָ (lekha), which Kimchi and others explain as “about You” or “concerning You,” as in Genesis 20:13, “she said of me, ‘He is my brother.’” The dative is not always obvious. “My heart said,” etc. In the same sense as Psalm 16:7, “my reins instructed me in the night seasons.”
In French one would say: mon cœur a dit. “I shall seek” or “I seek”—it makes no difference to the sense, for the future is often used for the present, especially where a continuous action is meant, as here, as has often been noted already.
According to Rashi, however, it should be translated differently: “For You my heart said: ‘Seek My face.’” In this sense: in Your name and by Your words my heart says to me, “Seek My face, all of you,” and I, hearing the voice of my heart, say: “Your face, O Lord, I will seek.” Thus Rashi almost literally, who explains לְךָ (lekha) as “for You,” “in Your place,” or “on Your behalf,” as if to say: David’s heart comes to me on Your behalf and speaks thus. To prove that לְךָ can mean “for You,” he cites Job 13:8: הֲלָאֵל (halā’ēl), “will you contend for God?” where it means “on behalf of.” He also cites another passage.
Ps 27:9 “Do not turn away or hide Your face,” etc. (verse 9). He explains in the following verses what he asks. “Do not turn away,” etc. The sense is: the face which I seek, do not turn away from me. “Do not allow Yourself to decline into anger,” that is, according to Kimchi, into secular affairs, which are anger and indignation to one who is entangled in them. According to Rashi, it should be translated: “Do not cast down,” that is, do not prostrate Your servant in anger. The Chaldean has: “Do not decline in anger from Your servant.” You may translate: “Do not reject or turn away in anger,” etc., that is, do not angrily avert Yourself and cast me off, Your servant.
Ps 27:10 “For my father and my mother,” etc. (verse 10). My father and mother indeed brought me into the light, but dying they abandoned me; You, however, have always gathered me up. Thus Ezra. Or, as Rashi wishes: my parents, intent only on pleasure, did not think of me when creating me, but God took care of me and formed me. Kimchi explains it otherwise: after the upbringing by parents, You gathered me, as if to say, You provided for me what was necessary for life and worship. Since, therefore, I am the work of Your hands, and You have gathered me hitherto—
Ps 27:11 “Teach me, O Lord,” etc.—because of my enemies, who desire to draw me away. “Because of my enemies”: for he who wishes to prevail over enemies must strive as much as possible for piety toward God, as one of the Hebrews observes here, cited by Ezra. The sense may be: because of my enemies, who, if I should stray even slightly from Your ways, would either triumph, hoping for my downfall, or would be offended by my example. Something similar occurs in Psalm 5:9.
Ps 27:12 “Do not hand me over to the desire,” etc. (verse 12). The sense is: do not allow me to be surrendered to the will and desire of my enemies, nor to be perpetually occupied with wars and drawn away from worship. That “soul” (anima) signifies will and desire is clear from Genesis 23:8: “If it is with your soul,” that is, if it is your will and pleasure, or, as the Vulgate has it, “If it please your soul.”
“For false witnesses have risen,” etc. I know indeed that even now there is no lack of many who speak most bitterly against me and threaten me with destruction. And certainly I would long ago have failed, unless I had believed, etc.
Ps 27:13 Rashi thus connects this clause with the latter member of the preceding verse: unless I had believed in the Lord, those false witnesses would already have risen against me and long ago would have overthrown me. Therefore, according to his view, it should be translated: For false witnesses had risen … unless I had believed, etc. Ezra likewise joins the clauses in this way.
Yet it came very close that my enemies should have prevailed over me, had I not believed in the Lord and strengthened myself with these words: Wait for the Lord, etc. Still, I prefer to supply I would have failed (defecissem), as if he were saying: I would long ago have lost heart, assailed by the stratagems of so many enemies and harassed by so many injuries, had I not possessed a firm hope that I would one day enjoy eternal goods in the other life, which alone is true life. Or at least: I would certainly long ago have utterly failed, unless I had confidently trusted that I would still enjoy God’s benefits in this life.
As to this sense, at the end of the verse some verb must clearly be supplied, and defecissem seems altogether appropriate. Such ellipses and aposiopeses are sufficiently common, and they are especially fitting for one who is angered, for those who are agitated often break off their speech. Here, moreover, David seems to flare up against his enemies.
“To see the good.” The adverbial phrase to see in good means to enjoy the good. For the verb רָאָה (rā’āh, “to see”), when construed with בְּ (be, “in”), almost always signifies delight, or else pain and sorrow if it is taken in an evil sense. On this matter, consult the lexicons.
“In the land of the living.” He calls the land of the living the place of eternal life. For although the soul has no place in the strict sense, nevertheless the happiness of the world to come and the dwelling of the blessed are metaphorically called the land of the living, that is, Paradise or the Garden of Eden, as it is commonly named, because on earth there is no place more pleasant. Conversely, the place where demons and the souls of the damned suffer punishments is metaphorically called Gehenna, which was the name of a certain place near Jerusalem where filth and corpses were thrown and burned by a fire that burned there continually—a place than which none on earth was more vile or loathsome.
The land of the living, or of life, properly signifies the paradise of delight, or the Garden of Eden, in which Adam would have lived forever and from which, once expelled, he was immediately handed over to death. Metaphorically, however, it signifies the dwelling of the blessed, where alone one truly lives, outside of which life is death. Thus some of the Hebrews, and especially Kimchi, interpret the land of the living.
Yet it will be simpler to understand the land of the living as referring only to the former member, that is, as explaining it, and to interpret it of that heavenly region which the blessed souls inhabit, where true life is enjoyed—for what we call life is in truth death.
The Chaldean interprets it as the land of eternal life. I myself judge that the land of the living can rightly be understood as this present land, as if David were saying: I would long ago have lost heart, had I not always hoped that it would come to pass that I should still enjoy God’s benefits in this world. In this sense Hezekiah speaks in Isaiah 38:11, when he understood that the end of his life was approaching: I shall not see the Lord, the Lord, in the land of the living, as if he were saying: It will no longer be granted to me to behold in this land that sacred dwelling of the Lord or the Ark of the Lord, which in Sacred Scripture is sometimes called the Lord Himself.
He would err gravely, in my judgment, who in that passage of Isaiah were to interpret the land of the living as heaven and the dwelling of blessed spirits. For what would Hezekiah—most pious and holy king—have despaired of? That he would see God in heaven? But when nothing else is present in the latter clause except I shall no longer look upon man among the inhabitants of the world, it most clearly shows that in the preceding clause the land of the living must be understood as this present earth, even though Rashi interprets it as the house of the sanctuary, though mystically or more freely in his usual manner.
Psalm 116:9 says: I shall walk before the Lord in the land of the living, that is, in this land.
Ps 27:14 By contemplation of eternal goods, or by the hope that he has that God will hear his prayers, David stirs himself up and exhorts himself to hope well for the future. Here too perhaps an ellipsis is to be supplied, in this manner: unless I had said to myself, “Wait,” etc., or something similar understood.
“Let your heart be strengthened”—or rather, He will strengthen your heart—if you show yourself strong in His ways. And wait for the Lord. And if your prayer is not granted, return again and wait for the Lord. Thus Rashi explains this final clause.
Or he repeats the same exhortation in order to show that he will never lay aside the hope which he has placed in God, or in order more strongly to rouse himself to perseverance.
CONTINUE
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