Bible verse wall art
Psalm 27: the Lord is my light and my salvation
It opens with two bold questions and ends with a plea to wait. In between, Psalm 27 holds fear and confidence side by side, and that honesty has made it a prayer for anxious seasons.
Psalm 27 prints
Psalm 27 · King James Version
1 The LORD is my light and my salvation
A psalm of David
David is named in the title. Verses 1 to 6 overflow with assurance: armies may camp against the speaker and war may rise, yet his heart will not fear. From verse 7 the tone changes to urgent prayer: hear me, hide not thy face, leave me not. The same person who says “whom shall I fear?” also admits he needs help. The psalm is honest about both.
What does Psalm 27:1 mean?
The complete verse reads: “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?” It is the first time in the Psalms that God himself is called light. Light in the Bible is presence, guidance and life. Darkness is where enemies hide and where a person loses the way.
The two questions are not really questions. They are a way of saying that fear has lost its object. The word translated strength can also mean stronghold, the refuge a person runs to. In Latin the first words are Dominus illuminatio mea, the motto of the University of Oxford.
One thing I desire
At the center of the psalm is its best-known wish: “One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after; that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple” (27:4). The speaker wants God himself, not only rescue.
Verse 10 is one of the tenderest lines in Scripture: “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the LORD will take me up.” And the last verse is a charge to be patient: “Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart: wait, I say, on the LORD.”
Light for the icon and for the season
Jewish custom recites Psalm 27 every day during the month of Elul and into the autumn holidays, a season of self-examination. In Christian reading the psalm meets John 8:12, where Jesus calls himself the light of the world, which is why our print pairs verse 1 with an icon of Christ holding the Gospel. It is a quiet companion for a prayer corner, a hospital stay or the first weeks of grief.