Page:04.BCOT.KD.PoeticalBooks.vol.4.Writings.djvu/372

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'do not fear the myriads of people, who are encamped against me.” The situation, therefore, resembles that of David during the time of Absolom. But this holds good only of the first half, Psa 27:1. In the second half, Psa 27:10 is not in favour of its being composed by David. In fact the two halves are very unlike one another. They form a hysteron-proteron, inasmuch as the fides triumphans of the first part changes into fides supplex in the second, and with the beginning of the δέησις in Psa 27:7, the style becomes heavy and awkward, the strophic arrangement obscure, and even the boundaries of the lines of the verses uncertain; so that one is tempted to regard Psa 27:7 as the appendage of another writer. The compiler, however, must have had the Psalm before him exactly as we now have it; for the grounds for his placing it to follow Psa 26:1-12 are to be found in both portions, cf. Psa 27:7 with Psa 26:11; Psa 27:11 with Psa 26:12.

Verses 1-3


In this first strophe is expressed the bold confidence of faith. It is a hexastich in the caesural schema. Let darkness break in upon him, the darkness of night, of trouble, and of spiritual conflict, yet Jahve is his Light, and if he is in Him, he is in the light and there shines upon him a sun, that sets not and knows no eclipse. This sublime, infinitely profound name for God, אורי, is found only in this passage; and there is only one other expression that can be compared with it. viz., בּא אורך in Isa 60:1; cf. φῶς ἐλήλυθα, Joh 12:46. ישׁעי does not stand beside אורי