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Psalm 27:2-4
New English Translation
Psalm 27:2-4
New English Translation
2 When evil men attack me[a]
to devour my flesh,[b]
when my adversaries and enemies attack me,[c]
they stumble and fall.[d]
3 Even when an army is deployed against me,
I do not fear.[e]
Even when war is imminent,[f]
I remain confident.[g]
4 I have asked the Lord for one thing—
this is what I desire!
I want to live[h] in the Lord’s house[i] all the days of my life,
so I can gaze at the splendor[j] of the Lord
and contemplate in his temple.
Footnotes
- Psalm 27:2 tn Heb “draw near to me.”
- Psalm 27:2 sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).
- Psalm 27:2 tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.
- Psalm 27:2 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.”
- Psalm 27:3 tn Heb “my heart does not fear.”
- Psalm 27:3 tn Heb “if war rises up against me.”
- Psalm 27:3 tn Heb “in this [i.e., “during this situation”] I am trusting.”
- Psalm 27:4 tn Heb “for me to live.”
- Psalm 27:4 sn The Lord’s house. This probably refers to the tabernacle (if one accepts Davidic authorship) or the temple (see Judg 19:18; 1 Sam 1:7, 24; 2 Sam 12:20; 1 Kgs 7:12, 40, 45, 51).
- Psalm 27:4 tn Or “beauty.”
New English Translation (NET)
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