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.