Teach me thy way, Jehovah, and lead me in an even path, because of mine enemies.
Surrounded by enemies, David does not ask to escape them. He asks to be taught — and to be kept on a path where hostile eyes can find no fault.
David does not ask for a road that works, or a decision that turns out well. He asks for a way that belongs to God.
He desires to be taught the way of the Lord. He does not simply want a way. He knows that the Lord has His way for His people through this world, so he prays, "Teach me your way, O LORD."
That raises the question of the teacher. Having found that the Lord holds him when everyone else lets go, David turns to the only one who can answer.
Now David has passed the test. He has learned that the Lord is perfectly dependable, even when the closest natural relationships fail. So he is ready to truly learn the Lord's way. From whom will he learn this? Only from the Lord Himself, whom he invites to teach him.
The verse asks twice. David wants to know the way, and he wants to be kept in it.
He realises that many enemies would seek to turn him out of the Lord's way. So he desires not only to be taught the way, but also to be led in the way. He says, "Lead me on a level path because of my enemies." We need light to see the path, faith to take it, and grace to keep us in it.
Older translations call this a plain or smooth path. That does not mean an easy life.
The Lord's way may not always be easy, but in that way alone can we expect to have His sustaining grace and blessing. "Lead me on a level path because of my enemies." This is a path that faith can see plainly. In that path alone will we be fully delivered from the attacks of the enemy.
David gives his enemies as the reason. They are not only trying to defeat him. They are hoping he will trip.
Two prayers follow. The first concerns the Lord's way: he asks to be led on a plain path because of his enemies, who were watching in the hope that he might go astray. The second asks for deliverance from those enemies, because false witnesses had already risen up against him, men who breathed out cruelty.
So the prayer is about how he walks while others watch. A stumble would give them just what they want.
Made conscious of the Lord's grace, the believer seeks to be taught the Lord's way and to be led on a level path. He wants nothing in his walk to give the enemy an occasion for reproach. Many are against the believer, ready to accuse him falsely and to oppose him with violence.
What about the times when a believer cannot see what to do next? One writer points to an apostle who was left in the dark about his own path.
An apostle's knowledge never either formed or cleared his path. He walked by faith. So doubt and distressing perplexity were often allowed to visit this much-tried servant of the Lord... If perplexed, therefore, he was not in despair. If doubts stopped him, they threw him back on his Strength. They only multiplied his peace, by casting him more completely on the loving care of God.
- Ask. David does not pray for a good outcome. He prays for God's own way — and only the Lord can teach it.
- Taught. Being shown the way is the first half: light to see the path.
- Led. Being kept in it is the second half. Enemies work to pull the believer off it, so faith takes the path and grace holds him there.
- Watched. The reason David gives is his enemies. A level path is a walk that gives them no opening for reproach.
- Trusting. When the way stays unclear, perplexity is not despair. It throws the believer back on God's care, and multiplies his peace.
Deliver me not over to the will of mine adversaries; for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out violence.
Psalm 27 turns at verse 7 from confident song to urgent prayer. By verse 12 the psalmist names his fear: being handed over to men who lie about him.
The prayer of verse 12 sits in the second half of the psalm. One writer notes that this order is deliberate: the bold part comes first, the trembling part second.
Anyone can see at once that the first six verses go together, and so do the next six. The last two draw the lessons from the whole psalm. In the first part we have the psalmist's confidence in front of his enemies. The second part gives us his deep struggle of soul before God. People have often said that we might have been tempted to change the order, and to put the psalmist's confidence in the second part and his fear and distress in the first. But a deeper knowledge of the inner life proves the way of the Spirit of God right. We see it in the life of our blessed Lord Himself. In Gethsemane we see Him crying to the Father. On the other hand, we see Him in perfect calm and confidence while His persecutors rage against Him.
The word translated "will" is worth a second look. In Hebrew it is the ordinary word for "soul" — what these men crave.
In man's present natural state, the will is tied to the soul. Older English Bibles translate the same word "will" three times (Ps. 27:12, Ps. 41:2, Ezek. 16:27). "Let her go where she will," is (in Deut. 21:14) "let her go to her soul."
So he asks God to keep him out of reach of what these men want. One writer sums up the enemies in two strokes.
Realising his own weakness in front of his enemies, he prays that the Lord would deliver him from the will of enemies. They witness against him falsely, without conscience; they breathe out cruelty, without heart.
The enemies do not go away. What changes is the company the hunted man keeps.
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The oppressors are still there — false witnesses, men whose panting eagerness breathes out violence. The one who prays points them out to the Guide and Guard with whom He goes. But he walks firmly, though humbly, counting on deliverance.
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Commentators read the verse as more than David's private trouble. It looks ahead to the day when the nation produced false witnesses against its own Messiah.
As a nation, Israel was especially guilty of false witness against the Messiah. The Spirit of Christ foreshadowed this sin in the prophets: "false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence" (Ps. 27:12). And so it happened. When the time came and the Anointed One presented Himself to the chosen people, it was not the crowd but the religious leaders of the Jews who tried to find false witness against Jesus to put Him to death. In doing this they broke the very law they were appointed to administer.
Another writer sees a second reach in the verse. The same suffering may fall on faithful Israelites still to come.
Verse 12 clearly applies to the oppressed and afflicted Man of sorrows. But it may also point to the condition of that same remnant, who will face special persecution, above all from their own unbelieving countrymen, when the time of their deliverance is near.
- Handed over. He asks God not to give him up to what his enemies crave. The Hebrew word behind "will" is the ordinary word for "soul" — their appetite for him.
- Two failures. They lie about him without conscience. They breathe out cruelty without heart.
- God's path. He names his enemies to God, his Guide and Guard, and walks on firmly, counting on deliverance.
- Christ's trial. Commentators see the words fulfilled at the trial of Jesus. The religious leaders hunted for false witness, and broke the very law they were meant to uphold.
- Still to come. The same slander may yet fall on faithful Israelites, persecuted by their own countrymen just before God rescues them.
Unless I had believed to see the goodness of Jehovah in the land of the living ...!
Psalm 27 moves from confidence to an urgent cry for help. At verse 13 the psalmist breaks off mid-sentence: what held him up, and what was he expecting to see?
The verse never finishes. Translators complete the thought in different ways. The ESV supplies "I believe that"; older versions, which the writers quoted below follow, supply "I had fainted".
You will see that the words "I had fainted" have been added, to fill out the sense of verse 13. The verse is really an exclamation. It runs like this: "If I had not believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!" That is, believing he would see this goodness had been his stay and support.
He never spells out the disaster. What breaks out instead is the confidence underneath.
The pressure felt in the soul only comes out in the outburst. That outburst at the same time reveals the confidence supporting it — "If I had not believed" — but then I do! — "to see Jehovah's goodness in the land of the living!"
One thing alone stood between him and giving up.
Left to himself this godly man would have fainted. What sustained him? Faith in the goodness of the Lord that would bring him into the land of the living. The Christian can say the grace that brings salvation to me on earth will bring me to the glory in heaven.
For the psalmist the phrase named a real hope of rescue in this world, at God's timing.
In the end, he looks for and trusts God for rescue in this present life, in the land of the living. Meanwhile he must wait on Jehovah. He would step in at the right time; He would strengthen the heart meanwhile.
For the Christian the ground has shifted. Another writer sets the two side by side: what this world was to the Jew, and what it is now.
To the Jew, this world was the land of the living. It was the place of his blessing... But to the Christian, we may say, it is the land of the dying. "I protest," says Paul … "I die daily." It is also the land of death — the death of the Lord Jesus Christ... And where, it may be asked, is the place of the Christian's joy and blessing? In heavenly places in Christ.
The psalm rests on resurrection ground. The confidence here is not hope of survival. It is a stand taken in God Himself.
Resurrection shines brightly and clearly throughout this Psalm. The soul takes and keeps its stand in God, who owns as His people not the dead but the living (Matt. 22:32)... The soul, once joined by faith to the living God, is forever above the enemy (Rom. 8:31-39).
Commentators differ over the timing. One writer looks on to glory; another insists the goodness is seen even now:
We too, just as David, may easily lose heart if our faith wavers. Instead we should remember that we shall "see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" (v. 13), not only in heavenly glory, but even now with enemies surrounding us.
Verse 13 does not stand alone. It leads straight into the closing instruction of the psalm.
All that we have to face on the way can be met with "good courage", for the Lord will support us if we walk in His way. He will strengthen the heart. There is grace along the way. There is also the final mercy that delivers us from a world of death and brings us into the goodness of the land of the living. For both, let us "Wait on the Lord."
- Pressure. Left to himself, this godly man would have fainted. He speaks from the edge of collapse, not from above the trouble.
- Belief. Believing he would see God's goodness was his stay and support. The sentence breaks off because faith cuts in before the fear can finish.
- Sight. He expects to see God's goodness in the land of the living: rescue in God's own timing. Commentators differ over how much is seen now and how much waits for glory.
- Ground. The confidence rests on the living God, who owns as His people not the dead but the living. The soul joined to Him is forever above the enemy.
- Waiting. The psalm leaves one instruction: wait on the Lord, with good courage. He strengthens the heart in the meantime.
Wait for Jehovah; be strong and let thy heart take courage yea, wait for Jehovah.
The psalm ends with an instruction, not an ask. It comes from a man who has just described enemies, false witnesses, and the fear that God had left him. Having told God his trouble, he turns and tells someone else what to do with theirs.
The final words are the conclusion of an experience, not advice offered from a safe distance. One writer draws two lessons out of what the psalmist went through, and the last verse is where they land:
Two lessons, drawn from what he had been through, close the Psalm... Believing he would see this goodness had held him up. Then he tells us, from his own experience, that the only resource for a soul under trial is to wait for the LORD. Then he urges them: be strong, and He will strengthen your heart. Last of all he repeats the sum of everything he has to say: wait for the LORD. And the LORD Himself has said, "Those who wait for me shall not be put to shame." (Isaiah 49:23.)
What makes this verse striking is what the psalm never mentions. There is no ally, no plan, no human help anywhere in it.
The goodness of the LORD — no human means — is the resource of the heart... The result is, wait on the LORD. He strengthens the heart. "Wait, I say, on the LORD." This, indeed, is the secret of strength in the time of evil. There is, then, nothing to fear... It is remarkable how completely the thought of any other resource or help than the LORD is missing. And this is what keeps a person honest, because the LORD only helps in a way that keeps the heart true.
The call to wait sits right beside the call to courage, which rules out the idea that waiting is quiet defeat.
And now a lesson from experience brings this part of the psalm to a fitting close. It is a very brief and a very simple one; yet it is a lesson of perfection... "Wait for the LORD!" Wait — but not in weakness or fear. The call to patience is no reason to be afraid: "be strong, and let your heart take courage!"... Test it, prove it, anyone who will! Who is there who cannot prove it for himself? No one!
If waiting were easy, the psalm would not need to say it twice. The pressure comes from inside us — from being sure we must do something right now.
"Strengthened unto all patience." You will find there is nothing that tests the strength of your soul like waiting for God. We think we must do the things we believe are right. Instead, we must learn to wait. Take Saul, for example, in 1 Samuel 13. He ought to have waited, and said, I can do nothing.
Saul was a king of Israel. He was told to wait, ran out of patience, and acted on his own instead.
The verse does not promise that the situation will change. It promises that the person will be held up in it. Christians pray for that same strength.
The Apostle Paul bowed his knees before the Father for the believers in Ephesus. He asked that they might be strengthened (Eph. 3:14-16). In chapter 1:3 he had told them that God blessed them with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. But they needed strength to take hold of that, and to live for God's glory here. We are blessed up there; but we need strength down here. We know where to find it. Strength belongs to God!
Up to this point the psalm has been one man speaking about himself. At the close he turns to others.
This confidence in God will not make a man impractical... The man who can rejoice in knowing God from experience will strengthen frightened believers around him by his own quiet, joyful faith. He will be able to say to them with real weight, "Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!"
- Waiting is the lesson. The command closes a psalm of enemies and fear — it is what one man learned by going through trouble, not a theory.
- Waiting is the only resource. No human help appears anywhere in the psalm; that absence is the point, and it keeps the heart honest.
- Waiting is strength, not passivity. "Be strong, let your heart take courage" stands in the same breath — patience is never a reason to be afraid.
- Waiting is the hardest test. Nothing tests a soul like it; the impulse to act, as with Saul, is what the doubled "wait, I say" is guarding against.
- Waiting is passed on. The person God strengthens turns outward and says the same words to someone still afraid.