Psalm 27

⁰⁷          Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud;

be gracious to me and answer me!

⁰⁸          [To my heart], You have said:

“Seek my face.”

Your face, Lord, I will seek.

⁰⁹                      Hide not Your face from me.

 

Turn not Your servant away in anger

You have been my helper.

Cast me not off; forsake me not,

O God of my salvation!

¹⁰          [If] my father and my mother forsake me,

the Lord will take me in.

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Seek His Face

For the Lord’s Day:  the 22^nd of May  2005

 

Introduction:  Joseph A Alexander outlines our Psalm in three parts.  In verses one to six, David declares his satisfaction and confidence.  In verses seven to twelve there is the prayer for deliverance from a present danger.  Finally, in the last two verses David is content to wait for the providential protection of our gracious God.  The Psalm can truly be as simple as this, though some commentators favor a composite composition of individual lines of thought and prayer.  And so today, we come to the second section of our Psalm.

 

Our first verse for today, the seventh is much like a call to worship, an invocation that David’s Lord and God will hear his voice.  “Hear, O Lord, when I cry aloud; be gracious to me and answer me!”  Now, the word “cry aloud” here does not mean “to call loudly, to shout, as RSV interprets it.  It means to call, plead insistently.” 

 

Remember, that in the older languages – there is a consistent construction of implied politeness that has been lost in our contemporary age.  By that I mean, any outside of the family were once addressed in the terms, “Thee, Thy and Thou.”  Some European languages still maintain that tradition long lost in our language.  The supposed equality of democracy does have its limits.  “Hey You,” not only grates on the manners – but also gives the hearer little consideration to listen to the impolite address that must invariably follow.  Some years ago, I once stepped into a store to check out some shoes and was greeted me with “Hi Guy.”  I immediately turned to leave believing that this was no place for me.

 

In addition, we must remember that in prayer we are not talking to the local glad handing politician who makes only empty promises while his hand is rifling your pocket.  No indeed, David – a sovereign king himself: bows his head, his heart and his person before the Triune Creator of all that is.  Please, sir he simply asks:  will you attend to my humble request.  And if the Lord God of heaven and earth deigns to do so – any answer will be considered gracious in its blessed acknowledgement of our needs.

 

Development:  Our second verse for morning, the eighth:  is a verse of difficult composition.  Listen to several attempts to make grammatical sense of the words in the Hebrew:

 

NKJV:     “[When You said], ‘Seek My face’, My heart said to You, ‘Your face, Lord, I will seek.’”

NEB:       “‘Come,’ my heart says, ‘Seek his face.’”

NIV:       “My heart says of you, ‘Seek his face!’  Your face, Lord, I will seek..”

 

My Translator’s Handbook concludes the options on this verse with a paraphrase from the Hebrew Old Testament Text Project:  “My heart tells me that you have commanded, ‘Seek (plural) my face’; and so, O Lord, I seek your face.”

 

Commentator Joseph Alexander notes:  “The general meaning of this verse is obvious enough, although its syntax is exceedingly obscure.  The best solution is to take ‘seek ye my face’ as a citation of God’s own words.”  A.A. Anderson explains that “the translation of this verse can be only tentative.”  He then offers this translation:  “To you, O my heart, has he said: ‘Seek my face.’”  The German evangelical Delitzsch offers this paraphrase: “Since Thou has permitted and exhorted us, or in accordance with Thy persuasive invitation, that we should seek Thy face, I do seek Thy face.”

 

It is in the light of all of this that I offer my own translation, you will notice – that like many arrangements, I have included the first line of verse nine to complete the thoughts being expressed here: 

 

“[To my heart], You have said:

‘Seek my face.’

 Your face, Lord, I will seek.

Hide not Your face from me.”

 

While Calvin admits that the thought “My heart hath said of thee” is “an exposition to which the majority of interpreters incline.”   He would prefer to consider the verse as a conversation and thus he outlines it.  However, it appears to me that the ordering and wording chosen, better reflects the Calvinist doctrine that God works in and through the heart to bring us into conversation with the Almighty.  I once saw a motto ascribed to Calvin, which read: “To You or Lord, I give my heart promptly and sincerely.”  That, I believe gets us to the heart of the matter before us today!

 

David acknowledges the invitation of the Lord that predates his own turning to and loving of the Father God.  The invitation is simple and timeless:  “Seek my face.”  And in answer to the divine invitation, all of God’s elect respond “Your face, Lord, I will seek.”  And yet, knowing the absolute otherness of the Almighty Creator God, we as well as David must plead “Hide not Your face from me.”  Otherwise – what hope would we ever have of finding Him?

 

Now, we may turn our attention to the last four lines of verse nine, where David pleads in detail the possibility noted in the previous line of the same verse.

 

“Turn not Your servant away in anger

You have been my helper.

Cast me not off  forsake me not,

O God of my salvation!”

 

Knowing that he was approaching an awesome and holy God, David pleads against the obvious treatment of his ordinary sinful condition.  After all, as we all must know – the God of glory is absolute in His goodness and must react with wrathful anger against every sin.  But, as David is working towards the correct doctrine, he understands that God is also a God of mercy because He has been David’s helper in so many times past.

 

And so David is hopeful – yet he still perseveres in confessing the obvious point of being in sin as he begs that he be not cast off or forsaken.  If you would beg the question of confession in these verses, please note that Calvin encourages us of “a tacit confession of sin; because, although David acknowledges that God must justly cast him off, he [turns aside] his anger.”

 

Spurgeon notes on the last lines of verse nine, that “the first petition “cast me not off” may refer to temporary desertions, and the second word to the final withdrawal of grace.”  However, David’s assurance is not in question, because he quickly notes his complete faith that God is indeed the God of his salvation.  Thus the final possibility is out of the question, if he be within God’s grace, so that leaves the first predicament of being temporarily out of touch with his Lord.

 

Many of you now carry cell phones and we have all learned that there are places where they are absolutely useless.  A few weeks ago Bob Ferrell was here at the church and I was driving up a hill in western Pennsylvania.  We talked for a short moment until I descended into the valley on the other side of the mountain and thereby we lost contact.  I realize that is a poor example, and most of the time when we loose touch with the God of our salvation, it is by choice or a lack of discipline to call home regularly in prayer.

 

Application:  The first line of our last verse, the tenth is perplexing to our hearts and minds.  It is a thought beyond our comprehension.  [If] my father and my mother forsake me.”  Please note that I have softened the rhetoric with a qualifying word: “[if].”  Most translations take the thought literal in this regard.  Now Calvin notes that if could have been possible during Saul’s hatred of David, that the family – like many in European history had to choose between their property and their children in times of internecine conflict.  In fact, in Scotland may noble Lords had to sent sons to both sides of any conflict just to guarantee the survival of the family inheritance no matter who won!

 

However, Calvin also notes that “as it appears from the sacred history, that Jesse, so far as his opportunity admitted, performed his duty to his son.”  My Translator’s Handbook observes that “it seems better, to take verse 10a as a possibility and not as a fact.”  Like several translations the qualification may be made “to express the possibility of being abandoned by parents by recasting this as an “if” clause.”

 

This, of course, is what I have chosen to do here.  But to be fair to the simple language – we must remember the New Testament observation that the acceptance of Christ may indeed separate sons and daughters from fathers and mothers.  In such and every case, David acknowledges the Lord’s grace in this matter:  “The Lord will take me in.”

 

And so we are left with the comforting knowledge that now matter who may reject us in the course of life, still the Lord will love His chosen people with an everlasting love, greater even than the strongest ordinary love known to humans: that between parents and children.  Spurgeon speaks pastorally in this regard:  “These dear relations will be the last to desert me, but if the milk of human kindness should dry up … there is a Father who never forgets.  Some of the greatest of the saints have been cast out by their families, and persecuted for righteousness sake.”

 

What more could we ask from our Father God – that He love us with an everlasting love, stronger than anything we have known in this life.  May we like David give Him honor, praise and glory for the great things God has done in loving us before we came to know Him.  Amen.

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PREACHING RESOURCES

 

Alexander, Joseph A.  Commentary on Psalms.

Anderson, A.A.  The New Century Bible Commentary: Psalms.

Calvin, John:  Commentary on Book of Psalms.

Delitzsch, F:  Commentary on the Old Testament – Psalms.

Spurgeon, C.H:  Treasury of David.

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