Psalm 27

Wait for YHWH

Introduction

Overview

What do we mean by this?

The purpose was the psalmist's probable intent or reason for writing this psalm. The Content is a concise summary of the whole psalm's content. The Message is the main idea the psalmist probably wanted the audience to remember upon or after hearing the psalm.

Purpose: To seek and wait for YHWH

Content: I seek YHWH's presence to see the goodness of YHWH and to be sheltered from enemies.

Message: Wait courageously for YHWH! Those who seek him will see his goodness.

Background Ideas

What do we mean by this?

Cultural, historical, and contextual information that is important to know to understand this psalm

• LIGHT: In the HB the LORD's face is a source of light. Psalm 27 shares key terms with the priestly blessing prescribed in Numbers 6:24, 25, which connects light (shine) with the LORD's face. Numbers 6:24ff: "The Lord bless you, and keep you; 25 The Lord cause His face to shine on you, and be gracious to you; 26 The Lord lift up His face to you, and give you peace."
• TENT: The tent is a temporary structure, the dwelling place of YHWH symbolising his presence among his people. "The tent spoken of was not the Mosaic tabernacle of the congregation--for that remained at Gibeon until Solomon removed it to the Temple (see 2 Chron. i. 3,4)–but the tent which David erected for the Ark, when he removed it to Zion (2 Sam. vi. 17)" (Perowne, 268).
• ROCK: a. "The metaphor is used with reference to the temple in Jerusalem as the place where Yahweh reveals himself as protector of his people... Within Jerusalem cult tradition, Yahweh as a ‘Rock’ was primarily a symbol of refuge, and this symbolism had its physiological pole in Mount Zion (Salvador Fernandes, 51); b. "The rock may be the rock of Araunah's threshing floor" (Perowne, 268) [from 2 Sam. 24:18-25].
• SHOUT: Acclamations often accompanied worship in the HB. The word is used of shouting, as the acclamation of a king (Numbers 23:21), jubilation at moving of the ark of covenant (1 Samuel 4:5-6; 2 Samuel 6:15)... in worship, and in feast days.
• DWELL IN THE HOUSE OF YHWH: "One of the great themes running throughout Scripture, particularly evident in the Psalms, is the desire of the people of God to dwell with God, to worship him, to know him" (Blackburn, 121)

Background Situation

What do we mean by this?

A brief explanation of the "story behind" the psalm--what was going on in the psalmist's life, and/or Israel's history, that prompted the psalmist to pen this psalm? The colors in the boxes correspond to the participants in the psalm (see Participant Analysis).

Sections

What do we mean by this?

These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation)); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.

Videos

Overview Video

The Overview video is a brief, concise explanation of the psalm, pulling all the most important information specific to this psalm from each of our analytical layers. The video begins with a high-level, birds-eye view of the content of the psalm, then explores and explains the psalm verse by verse. Relevant contextual information is also included. No Hebrew knowledge required--this video serves as an entry point for all users to all our other information about the psalm.

Video files

• The script for the Overview video is available here.
• The slides for the Overview video are available here.

Translation Aids

Recommended steps for translating the psalms

To translate poetry accurately and beautifully, a knowledge of both the source language's poetry and the target language's poetry is needed. So, here are the steps we recommend to follow when setting out to translate the psalms:

1. GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE'S POETRY/ARTS. Research and analyze many examples from numerous genres of poetry, storytelling, and music in the target language and culture, and document findings. See our for help.
2. GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOURCE LANGUAGE'S (HEBREW) MEANING AND POETRY. The aim of all our materials is to provide exactly this for the translator, poet/musician/artist, and consultant: an understanding of what the psalm means, as well as its poetics.
3. TRANSLATE THE PSALM IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL ART/POETRY GENRE.

Translation and Performance Notes

TPNs are an at-a-glance reference for anyone involved with translating or checking a translation of the psalm. Specific words, phrases, and images that could be difficult to understand or to translate are highlighted, and then briefly discussed. Each note is intended to help the reader understand the meaning of the Hebrew word or phrase in its context, as well as provide a few translation options or suggestions, often pulling from existing translations. Where pertinent, our preferred translation option is given. NOTE: These notes are intended to supplement a robust internalization of the psalm, not replace it. Translation Challenges for Psalm 27 not available yet.

Close-but-Clear Translation

What do we mean by this?

The Close-but-clear translation (CBC) exists to provide a window into the Hebrew text according to how we understand its syntax and word-to-phrase-level semantics. It is not intended to be used as a stand-alone translation or base text, but as a supplement to Layer-by-Layer materials to help users make full use of these resources.

1. By David.

YHWH is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?

YHWH is the refuge of my life; on what basis shall I tremble?

2. When evildoers came near against me to devour my flesh,

[when] my adversaries and my enemies [came near] to me, they stumbled and fell.

3. If an army should encamp against me, my heart will not fear.

If war should rise against me, in this I will keep trusting.

4. One thing I hereby ask of YHWH; I will seek it:

that I may take a seat in the house of YHWH every day of my life,

in order to gaze on the beauty of YHWH, and in order to contemplate in his temple.

5. [I trust] that he will shelter me in his booth in a day of trouble.

He will hide me in the hiding place of his tent. He will lift me up on a rock.

6. And now: my head will be exalted over my enemies around me,

and I will sacrifice in his tent sacrifices accompanied by a shout,

and I will sing and sing praises to YHWH.

7. Hear my voice, YHWH, with which I cry out

and be merciful to me and answer me!

8. My heart has said for you: “Seek my face”!

Your face, YHWH, I will seek.

9. Do not hide your face from me;

do not turn away your servant in anger!

You have been my help. Do not abandon me,

and do not forsake me, God of my salvation!

10. Because even if my father and my mother forsook me,

nevertheless, YHWH would take me in.

11. Teach me, YHWH, your way,

and lead me on a level path, because of my foes.

12. Do not give me to the craving of my adversaries,

for false witnesses and those who breathe out violence have risen against me.

13. Had I not believed I would look upon the goodness of YHWH in the land of the living –

14. Wait for YHWH! Be courageous, and let your heart become strong!

Yes, wait for YHWH!

Explore the Layers

Exegetical Issues

What do we mean by this?

The Hebrew of the psalms can be difficult to understand at times. In this section, you can explore (in either video or text format) what we've deemed to be the three most important difficulties in the Hebrew, and follow our reasoning as we do a deep dive in scholarly work and explain our conclusions.

• The Meaning of וּלְבַקֵּר in Ps 27:4 (Draft)
• The Text and Meaning of Psalm 27:8a (Draft)
• The Textual and Logical Issues with לוּלֵא in Ps 27:13 (Draft)

Grammar

What do we mean by this?

A full, detailed diagram showing the grammatical function of each word/morpheme in the Hebrew text, along with accompanying notes.

• Explore the Grammar layer

Semantics

Lexical and Phrase-level Semantics

What do we mean by this?

Lexical semantics is the study of word meanings. It examines semantic range (=possible meanings of a word), the relationship between words (e.g. synonymy, hyponymy), as well as the relationship between words and larger concepts (conceptual domains). One component of our approach involves not only the study of the Hebrew word meaning, but also of our own assumptions about word meaning in modern languages. Because the researcher necessarily starts with their own cultural assumptions (in our case, those of Western-trained scholars), this part of the analysis should ideally be done afresh for every culture. Phrase-level semantics analyses the meaning of syntactic units which are larger than the level of the word and smaller than the level of the clause. Specifically, this layer analyses the meaning of prepositional phrases , construct phrases (a special type of construction in Hebrew), phrases formed by a coordinating waw conjunction, and noun phrases which consist of a noun plus a determiner (such as "the") or a quantifier (such as "all").

• Explore Lexical and Phrasal Semantics

Verbal Semantics

What do we mean by this?

Verbal Semantics focuses on the relationship between verbs, time and modality, and gives details about each verb in the psalm. This is important for interpretation and translation, and how one analyses a verb can have a significant effect on how it is rendered.

• Explore Verbal Semantics

Story Behind the Psalm (Unit-level Semantics)

What do we mean by this?

The Story Behind triangle tells the "story" (reading from left to right, beginning at the bottom left corner) of what might have prompted the psalmist to write this psalm. The events and ideas on the triangle are taken from the Propositions and Assumptions table below. Propositional content is the part of the meaning of a clause or sentence that is constant, despite changes in such things as voice, illocutionary force, tense/aspect/mode, person/gender/number, etc. It refers to “the kind of situation or event described by the underlying proposition.” Once we have identified the propositional content, we ask, “what would the world have to be like for this [proposition] to be true?” That is, what does this proposition presuppose about the world? What does it entail? What might be implied? In what kind of situation does this make sense? In other words, what assumptions are bound up with this proposition? We distinguish three kinds of assumptions:

• Common-ground assumptions
• Local-ground assumptions
• Playground assumptions

See the Legend accompanying the chart for more details on the types of assumptions.

Understanding the assumptions involved will help translators understand the implicit information present in the text, so that they can decide which of these to make explicit in the translation or biblical helps for their audience to understand the text's larger meaning.

• Explore the Story Behind the Psalm

Discourse

Participant Analysis

Explore in more detail

What do we mean by this?

This layer examines each participant in the psalm, whether they have speaking roles in the psalm, or are just referenced in the poem. Often, the relationships and interactions among participants sheds much light on the understanding and translation of a psalm. The summary visuals give a view of the participants in the psalm as a whole, while the tables list the participant information for each clause.

• Explore Participant Analysis

Macrosyntax

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• Explore Macrosyntax

Speech Act Analysis

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• Explore Speech Act Analysis

Emotional Analysis

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• Explore Emotional Analysis

Repeated Roots

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Poetics

Poetic Structure & Features

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• Explore further Poetic Analysis

Verse-by-Verse Notes

View all of Psalm 27 Verse-by-Verse Notes, or click on an individual verse below.

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