Psalm 27 explained

With an army camped against him, the one thing Psalm 27 asks of the LORD is to dwell in his house and see his beauty (27:4). The "he will hide me" of 27:5 is the same Hebrew verb as "Don't hide your face from me" (27:9). And the call "Seek my face" (27:8) is plural in Hebrew, answered by one heart: "I will seek your face, LORD."

Psalm 27 is titled "By David" (27:1). It opens with two questions, and before each one it says who the LORD is: "The LORD is my light and my salvation. Whom shall I fear? The LORD is the strength of my life. Of whom shall I be afraid?" (27:1) (tap light, salvation, strength). Salvation is yesha, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "deliverance, rescue, salvation". And strength is ma'oz, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives as "place or means of safety, protection", and Strong's as "a fortified place". Here is what almost everyone misses: the dangers come after the answers. Evildoers came "to eat up my flesh" (27:2), and the psalm goes on, "Though an army should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear. Though war should rise against me, even then I will be confident" (27:3). The prophet Micah has the same Hebrew word for light: "When I sit in darkness, the LORD will be a light to me" (Micah 7:8).

With an army camped against him (27:3), the one thing he asks is "that I may dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life, to see the LORD’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple" (27:4). His pleas come later, from "Hear, LORD" (27:7) on.

Psalm 27:3-4 · Psalm 27:7

Psalms 27:4→leads toLuke 10:42

Jesus was welcomed into Martha's house (Luke 10:38), and her sister Mary "sat at Jesus’ feet and heard his word" (Luke 10:39). When Martha, "distracted with much serving", asked him to tell her sister to help her (Luke 10:40), Jesus answered, "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things" (Luke 10:41), and "one thing is needed. Mary has chosen the good part, which will not be taken away from her" (Luke 10:42). The psalm says, "One thing I have asked of the LORD, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the LORD’s house all the days of my life, to see the LORD’s beauty, and to inquire in his temple" (Psalm 27:4). Luke doesn't name Psalm 27, so setting the two together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, one thing chosen above everything else, and that one thing being to be near and attend: to dwell in the LORD's house and inquire in his temple (Psalm 27:4), and to sit at Jesus' feet and hear his word (Luke 10:39). It doesn't rest on the words one thing alone. One reading hears in Mary, at Jesus' feet hearing his word, the one thing the psalm asks for. Another keeps each to its own setting: the psalmist asks to dwell in the LORD's house and inquire in his temple (Psalm 27:4), and Jesus answers Martha in her own house (Luke 10:41-42), without pointing to this psalm. These notes don't choose between them, and this line doesn't make the psalmist a picture of Mary or of Jesus.

בָּקַשׁbaqashsay ba-KASH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "seek", and "seek to find". Strong's: "to search out (by any method, specifically in worship or prayer)". The psalm has it three times. "One thing I have asked of the LORD, that I will seek after" (27:4), and twice in 27:8: "Seek my face" and "I will seek your face, LORD". Psalm 24 has it with face: "who seek your face" (Psalm 24:6), and so does "Seek his face forever more" (Psalm 105:4).

"One thing I have asked of the LORD" (27:4). If you could ask the LORD for only one thing this week, what would it be? How does it sit beside the psalmist's one thing?