Psalm 27:1–3

27:1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me!1

I fear no one!2

The Lord protects my life!

I am afraid of no one!3

27:2 When evil men attack me4

to devour my flesh,5

when my adversaries and enemies attack me,6

they stumble and fall.7

27:3 Even when an army is deployed against me,

I do not fear.8

Even when war is imminent,9

I remain confident.10

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1	tn Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).
2	tn Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”
3	tn Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”
4	tn Heb “draw near to me.”
5	sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).
6	tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.
7	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.”
8	tn Heb “my heart does not fear.”
9	tn Heb “if war rises up against me.”
10	tn Heb “in this [i.e., “during this situation”] I am trusting.”