Hear, Jehovah; with my voice do I call; be gracious unto me, and answer me.
Just before this verse the psalm is full of praise. Here the tone drops into a plea: why does a confident man suddenly cry out for mercy, and what does that change teach anyone who prays?
The change of tone is normal Christian experience. One writer explains it from the order of the books of Moses:
The language in these verses is so different from the language before it! Instead of praise, it is the language of earnest pleading in distress. But this is often seen in the psalms. Indeed, someone may find unspeakable joy in the presence of the Lord, with his heart lifted up to heaven. Soon he is reminded that his feet are on earth. He will find that he must be tested: how fully had he entered into the joy of God's sanctuary? So Numbers follows Leviticus. Leviticus brings us into God's immediate presence. Numbers is the book of testing in the wilderness, where prayer is a very real need.
Facing enemies and facing God teach two different lessons about yourself.
In the verses that follow we have the exercises of the believer in the presence of the Lord. In the presence of the enemy he learned the strength of the Lord; in the presence of the Lord he realises his own weakness. The Lord encourages him to seek His face. So the soul turns to the Lord, and there sees his own sin, which deserves the Lord's anger. Even so, he learns the evil of his own heart while standing in the grace that can meet it all. Has not the grace of the Lord said, "Seek my face"? Though his sin calls for forsaking, grace will not forsake, though nature may.
Many people only dare to pray when they feel God has nothing against them. This prayer goes further.
The soul here recognises that anger is possible, pleads against it, and counts on grace. This is important for the soul, for one might think it could trust in the LORD if He had nothing against it. But it is not so; the heart may recognise that it ought to expect anger, and yet trust grace.
This plea does not stand alone. The next verse gives its ground: God had already spoken the invitation.
Verse 7 pleads with the LORD to hear the cry. Verse 8 seems to me to be the LORD's own expression of what had been in His heart as the foundation of it all. The Hebrew reads like this — To You (that is, Messiah), my heart said, "Seek My face." The answer is, "Your face, LORD, do I seek." Then comes the confidence, and the pleading with the Lord on that basis.
Some commentators hear more than David here. They read the psalm as the voice of Christ standing with a tried and faithful few, and they point to past mercy as the ground of fresh prayer.
Psalm 27 is the word of Christ, speaking as in the tried remnant of the last days. He identifies Himself with their feelings. It rests on the experience He spoke of — the Lord's faithfulness to Him when He stood alone. Notice, the time of trouble is the time of God's deliverance… Mercy already acted on is the foundation of future prayer. It is, needless to say, the moral principle that gives confidence.
The verse asks for more than a hearing. It asks for an answer, and that shapes what happens after the prayer.
He has learnt something of His grace, something of His heart. So, feeling his need, he casts himself on God in childlike confidence, sure that He will hear his prayer. Then, along with this, there is expectation, waiting for the answer in faith. No doubt speaking its needs before God relieves the heart. But the one who prays in the Spirit will watch in his prayer for the expected answer.
- Called — God's own word, "Seek My face," lies underneath the cry; the prayer is a reply, not an intrusion.
- Confident — mercy already received is the ground for asking again. Past faithfulness gives fresh boldness.
- Convicted — before enemies the believer learns God's strength. Before God he learns his own weakness, and asks for mercy.
- Covered — the heart may expect anger and still count on grace. Sin calls for forsaking, but grace does not forsake, even when people do.
- Continuing — joy in God's presence gives way to wilderness testing. There prayer becomes a real need, and faith watches for the answer.
My heart said for thee, Seek ye my face. Thy face, O Jehovah, will I seek.
God speaks first in this verse, and the believer's heart echoes back what He said. Everything hangs on that order: God invites first, and the longing to seek Him is His gift before it is anyone's choice.
The verse does not begin with a resolution. It begins with God expressing what He wants, and one writer sees in this the pattern of all God's work in us.
Before God calls forth the response, He gives the desire. Our hearts are won by Christ, and we desire to be like Him.
This encourages anyone who fears their desire for God is too small to count:
What an encouragement it is to find God coming in to confirm us in our desires to seek Him. "Seek my face," He says. It is sweet to Him that we should seek Him. What a reward for the soul set on this one thing — to be in His presence, looking at His beauty. He satisfies the longing soul. He creates the longing that He may satisfy it. And with the satisfying comes a capacity for deeper longing.
When God asks and the heart answers like this, His law stops sounding like a threat. One writer sets this verse beside the long psalm about God's law and finds the same spirit in both.
But in Psalm 27:8, we breathe a different atmosphere altogether. God says He wants His creature to seek His face, and the heart answers at once... Psalm 119:1-176 is but the expansion of Psalm 27:8. Whatever name the law goes by, it no longer threatens condemnation and death. It is now perfect delight and liberty.
The first half of Psalm 27 is confident song. From verse 7 the tone changes to pleading. The remembered invitation keeps the prayer steady.
There is confidence indeed, because in coming before God the soul had answered His own invitation... Still, he knows he deserves correction, and he does not try to hide it. So he cries out, humbling himself: "Hide not Your face far from me; put not Your servant away in anger."
Seeking God's face is not a comfortable exercise. Coming close shows us what distance kept hidden. The same nearness brings the cure.
In the presence of the enemy he learned the strength of the Lord. In the presence of the Lord he realizes his own weakness. The Lord encourages him to seek His face, so he turns to the Lord. There he sees his own sin, which deserves the Lord's anger. Still, he learns the evil of his own heart in the presence of the grace that can meet it all. Has not the grace of the Lord said, "Seek my face"? Though his sin calls for forsaking, yet grace will not forsake.
Because the desire is God's own work in the soul, the words He spoke become an argument the seeker can use with Him.
This longing is the fruit of Jehovah's own work in the soul. It is the response to His own invitation and command to seek His face. So how could the faithful and unchangeable One deny or draw back from the man who now drew near to Him? He had said, "Seek My face!" could He have said that in vain?
One writer notes what is missing from this psalm: any second option.
It is remarkable that there is no thought at all of any resource or help other than Jehovah... The soul knows nothing else — no human means, no strength, no wisdom, no plan — only seeking Jehovah's face. With Him everything is settled, and so the heart stays true within and keeps its integrity. The enemies are then Jehovah's concern.
The wording of this verse is hard to arrange, and translations differ. One writer holds that the common English versions blur something real here.
This is the cry of distress, but of confidence as well. It rests on Jehovah's heart saying, "Seek My face" — a moving plea that both the Authorised and Revised versions blur here, as they do in other places. There is some difficulty, because Jehovah's call is suddenly remembered and acted on. But weigh it carefully, and the sense that comes out seems clear and striking, while the usual reading is confused and pointless.
- Call. God speaks first: the desire to seek Him is His own gift, given before the response is asked for.
- Answer. The heart that echoes His words is proof of a work God has already done, and His law then becomes delight instead of threat.
- Exposure. Drawing near shows the seeker his own weakness and sin — but he learns it in the presence of the grace that can meet it all.
- Confidence. Since the invitation was His, He cannot deny the one who takes Him at His word; the plea rests on God's faithfulness, not the seeker's worth.
- Resource. With no other plan in view, seeking His face settles everything — the enemies then become His concern, not ours.
Hide not thy face from me; put not thy servant away in anger thou hast been my help; cast me not off, neither forsake me, O God of my salvation.
Psalm 27 changes tone halfway through. The confident voice of the opening verses turns into a cry, and verse 9 is the heart of it. God had told this servant to seek His face. Now he begs Him not to turn that face away. The prayer raises questions every troubled believer asks. Can God be angry with His own? Can He abandon them? What does it mean when His face seems hidden?
The prayer is not a shot in the dark. It answers God's own invitation to seek His face. That is what gives it force.
The first part of Psalm 27 beautifully shows the one desire of the heart. The second part gives the touching plea: You taught me to seek Your face; my heart, in those times of divine instruction, said, I will seek it. Lord, will You turn it away now that I am in trouble, when You taught me to seek and trust it?
He does not deny that he deserves correction. He names the anger and asks God not to hand him over to it. That admission itself marks a man who knows God.
He knows he deserves chastening, and he has no wish to hide it. So he cries out in deep humility... Only one who had known the Lord could have uttered such a cry. It was, in fact, because the Lord had been his help that he pours out this agonizing plea in his distress. The memory of past enjoyment in the Lord's presence is what fills the soul with such sharp sorrow when, through failure or sin, the need of self-judgment has arisen.
The middle clause carries the argument. God will not deny the help He has already given, and that is where faith drops its anchor.
The cry is to the Unchangeable, and this is the only ground where faith's anchor can hold... This is the Lord's own invitation and command to seek His face, to which faith has answered earnestly and gladly... And would He now hide that glorious face, and turn away in anger the one who sought Him? Would He, so to speak, deny the help that He had given, and, though the God looked to for salvation, cast off and forsake? No, certainly not: the ground is firm, and the anchor holds.
He asks for the felt shining of God's favour. That is not the same as being secure in that favour. A believer can be sure of God's favour and still miss the warmth of it.
Encouraged to seek the face of the Lord, he prays that the Lord will not hide His face — that he may be kept in the sense of the Lord's favour shining upon him. It is one thing for the Christian to know that he is accepted in the Beloved and stands in the favour of God; it is another thing to walk in the conscious sense of this favour.
For the Christian, the two halves of this request are not the same. God will never cast him off. But he can still lose the enjoyment of God's company.
David pleads that God would not hide His face from him or turn him away in anger. Today the believer knows that God will not do either, though if our condition is one of disobedience, we can expect to find ourselves deprived of practical fellowship with God. But the psalmist reminds God that in the past He had been David's help, and on this basis makes the earnest request that God may not leave nor forsake him. Yet the reality of his faith shines through when he adds, "O God of my salvation."
The psalmist asks for something the New Testament gives as a settled promise. That turns the prayer into confidence.
Realising that the Lord has been his help in times past, he desires that the Lord will not leave nor forsake him in the days to come, even though he may be forsaken by those nearest to him on earth. Since the Lord has said, "I will never leave you nor forsake you," the Christian can "boldly say, The Lord is my helper; I will not fear; what can man do to me?" (Hebrews 13:5-6).
- Invited — God called him to seek His face. He asks God not to turn that face away now.
- Honest — he does not hide that he deserves chastening. Naming the anger, instead of denying it, marks a man who knows the Lord.
- Anchored — "You have been my help" is the ground under the plea. God will not deny the help He has already given. Faith's anchor holds there.
- Secure — a hidden face means lost enjoyment, not lost acceptance. Standing in God's favour and feeling it are two different things.
- Answered — what David asks for, the Christian already holds: "I will never leave you nor forsake you." The plea becomes bold confidence.
For had my father and my mother forsaken me, then had Jehovah taken me up.
Psalm 27 turns a corner at verse 7. The confident singer of the opening verses becomes a pleader, and here he asks what is left when even a father and mother walk away.
The psalm has two halves, and the change is not in David's circumstances but in what he is looking at.
In the first part of the psalm (1-6) the believer is full of confidence, even with enemies around him. That confidence rests on what he has found in the Lord — light and salvation. In the second part (7-14) his soul is deeply exercised before the Lord, because of what he finds in himself.
So this is not a boast made in calm weather. A man says it while pleading with God, steadying himself on what he already knows of Him.
This confidence does not rest on family staying loyal. It rests on what God has already shown Himself to be.
The soul has known a God who helps, and it does not expect to be forsaken by One who is a Saviour God. This confidence is complete. It is more than the nearest ties of nature can give, and so it truly is for the one who knows Jehovah.
A father and mother are not rivals to God's care. They are gifts that trace back to Him, which is why their failure cannot touch His faithfulness.
Experience will confirm the soul's confidence and never put it to shame. Father and mother might forsake him. But not He — the One these relationships came from, with all their tender affection. They might forsake him; He will not. And if they did, Jehovah would show His tender pity all the more. Such an outcast would be the object of His special care.
The confidence here is not that David deserves better. His own sin calls for forsaking, and grace answers anyway.
The Lord encourages him to seek His face, so the soul turns to Him. There he sees his own sin, which deserves the Lord's anger. Still, he learns the evil of his own heart while standing in the grace that can meet it all. Has not the grace of the Lord said, "Seek my face"? Though his sin calls for forsaking, yet grace will not forsake, though nature may.
Being left with nobody is not the end of God's care. It is the setting He uses.
Suppose all who are nearest and dearest turned away from him — those on whom he had the claim of the closest natural ties. Then, alone as he was, the Lord would seize the opportunity to show His favour. This is the Lord's way, as we see in the blind man in John's Gospel. Cast out by all alike — in complete isolation — the Lord drew near, and revealed Himself to him as the Son of God.
Nothing in David's history says his parents ever abandoned him. He is not describing a wound; he is testing his trust against the worst case he can imagine.
There is no evidence that David's parents ever forsook him. But even if it did happen, and he could not depend on his closest relatives, he knew he would still find the Lord reliable. So his faith triumphed.
And the weight of the sentence falls on God, not on the strength of the man saying it.
Father and mother may forsake. The best earthly props may go. He exults, "The LORD will take me in," but that is not boasting what he can do, but what the Lord will do.
Sometimes God takes someone up through another person. One writer sees this verse at work in Mordecai, who brought up the orphaned Esther.
He takes the place of the parents Esther had lost, and he welcomes her into his home. In a sense, this is a divine role: "For my father and my mother have forsaken me, but the LORD will take me in." (Ps. 27:10) He brings her up with care and watches over her with the loving concern of a mother.
- Setting — The verse sits in the psalm's second half. There, confidence before enemies gives way to honest searching of soul before the Lord.
- Cause — The failure named is the deepest one possible. The confidence that answers it is "more than the nearest ties of nature can give."
- Gift — Family came from God in the first place. So if father and mother fail, the outcast becomes "the object of His special care."
- Reach — Grace goes where nature stops: sin may call for forsaking, but grace will not forsake.
- Result — Total isolation is the Lord's moment to draw near. He did it for the blind man cast out in John's Gospel. Sometimes He does it through a Mordecai who steps into a parent's place.
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.
after
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.
after
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.