Discovery BoxPsalms 27:1-4 
ContextBy David.
27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! 2
I fear no one! 3
The Lord protects my life!
I am afraid of no one! 4
27:2 When evil men attack me 5
to devour my flesh, 6
when my adversaries and enemies attack me, 7
they stumble and fall. 8
27:3 Even when an army is deployed against me,
I do not fear. 9
Even when war is imminent, 10
I remain confident. 11
27:4 I have asked the Lord for one thing –
this is what I desire!
I want to live 12 in the Lord’s house 13 all the days of my life,
so I can gaze at the splendor 14 of the Lord
and contemplate in his temple.
1 sn Psalm 27. The author is confident of the Lord’s protection and asks the Lord to vindicate him.
2 tn Heb “the
3 tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”
4 tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”
5 tn Heb “draw near to me.”
6 sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).
7 tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.
8 tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”
9 tn Heb “my heart does not fear.”
10 tn Heb “if war rises up against me.”
11 tn Heb “in this [i.e., “during this situation”] I am trusting.”
12 tn Heb “my living.”
13 sn The
14 tn Or “beauty.”
