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Psalm 27 is the 27th Psalm from the Book of Psalms.
Contents
The Psalm is a cry for and ultimately a declaration of belief in the greatness of God and trust in the protection he provides. It may be a sequel of the preceding psalm.
Authorship
According to some modern scholars, Psalm 27 is a composite work by at least two authors brought together by an editor.
Tradition attributes Psalm 27 to King David. Protestant Christians have traditionally thought of it as written early in David's life, during his flight from King Saul, with Spurgeon suggesting the incident with Doeg the Edomite specifically. Jewish scholars, however, put it toward the end of his life.
Structure
Catholic doctrine has traditionally seen the Psalm in two sections. The first section declaring the power of God and a boundless hope that God will bring rescue, and protection from all enemies. The second portion has a clear shift in tone with declaration “I believe". Some scholarship contends it may have originally been two separate Psalms.
In Hebrew the first three verses increase numerically: Two parallel phrases of five words each, then six, then seven, (hinting at completion in Jewish numerology).
Judaism
Catholicism
In the Roman Rite liturgy, this Psalm is recited, divided into its two parts, at Vespers on Wednesday of the first week of the four-week cycle, as well as being used often as a responsorial psalm at Mass.
This psalm was traditionally performed at monasteries during Sunday Matins office after reading, according to the Rule of St. Benedict set to 530 which attributed the Psalms 21 (20) 109 (108) matins, in order numérique
A New Catholic Commentary on Holy Scripture says the first poem of which Psalm 27 is composed is an expression of confidence that God will bring help and of devotion to the Temple, and the second is a cry for help. Mary Kathleen Glavich's The Catholic Companion to the Psalms recounts how a woman wrote the first verses of Psalm 27 (boundless hope that God will bring rescue) on the wall of the brothel room where she was confined against her will. Pope John Paul II also spoke of the first part of the psalm as "marked by a deep tranquillity, based on trust in God on the dark day of the evildoers' assault". In the second part too, he said, "the decisive element is the trust of the person of prayer in the Lord", whose face the person seeks, an expression of "the mystical need of divine intimacy through prayer", an intimacy made possible even in this life through Christ.
Protestant
Matthew Henry similarly saw the Psalm as a metaphor for the Christian life, that “whatever the Christian is as to this life, he considers the favour and service of God as the one thing needful...” while Spurgeon sees the Psalm as at once the language of David, but also descriptive of the Church, and Jesus. Calvin saw it more as a prayer of thankfulness and composure.