Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 27:7 - 27:7

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Keil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 27:7 - 27:7


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

Vows of thanksgiving on the assumption of the answering of the prayer and the fulfilment of the thing supplicated, are very common at the close of Psalms. But in this Psalm the prayer is only just beginning at this stage. The transition is brought about by the preceding conception of the danger that threatens him from the side of his foes who are round about him. The reality, which, in the first part, is overcome and surmounted by his faith, makes itself consciously felt here. It is not to be rendered, as has been done by the Vulgate, Exaudi Domine vocem qua clamavi (rather, clamo) ad te (the introit of the Dominica exspectationis in the interval of preparation between Ascension and Pentecost). שְׁמַע has Dechî, and accordingly קֹולִי אֶקְרָא, voce mea (as in Psa 3:5) clamo, is an adverbial clause equivalent to voce mea clamante me. In Psa 27:8 לְךָ cannot possibly be so rendered that לְ is treated as Lamed auctoris (Dathe, Olshausen): Thine, saith my heart, is (the utterance:) seek ye may face. The declaration is opposed to this sense, thus artificially put upon it. לְךָ אָמַר are undoubtedly to be construed together; and what the heart says to Jahve is not: Seek ye my face, but by reason of this, and as its echo (Calvin: velut Deo succinens): I will therefore seek Thy face. Just as in Job 42:3, a personal inference is drawn from a directly quoted saying of God. In the periodic style it would be necessary to transpose בַּקְּשׁוּ פָּנַי thus: since Thou hast permitted and exhorted us, or in accordance with Thy persuasive invitation, that we should seek Thy face, I do seek Thy face (Hupfeld). There is no retrospective reference to any particular passage in the Tôra, such as Deu 4:29. The prayer is not based upon any single passage of Scripture, but upon God's commands and promises in general.