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.
Where the verse stands in the psalm
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.
A confidence stronger than family
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.
The One from whom family came
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.
Where grace goes beyond nature
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.
Total isolation as God's opportunity
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.
Faith speaking before the loss arrives
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.
How God takes someone up
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.
Summary
- 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.