Psa 27:1-3 | NETfull | STEP | The Lord delivers and vindicates me! I fear no one! The Lord protects my life! I am afraid of no one!

Psalms 27:1-3

1 The Lord delivers and vindicates me! ^{▼▼ Heb “the Lord [is] my light and my deliverance.” “Light” is often used as a metaphor for deliverance and the life/blessings it brings. See Pss 37:6; 97:11; 112:4; Isa 49:6; 51:4; Mic 7:8. Another option is that “light” refers here to divine guidance (see Ps 43:3).}
I fear no one! ^{▼▼ Heb “Whom shall I fear?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”}
The Lord protects my life!
I am afraid of no one! ^{▼▼ Heb “Of whom shall I be afraid?” The rhetorical question anticipates the answer, “No one!”}
2 When evil men attack me ^{▼▼ Heb “draw near to me.”}
to devour my flesh, ^{▼▼ To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).}
when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ^{▼▼ Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.}
they stumble and fall. ^{▼▼ 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.”}
3 Even when an army is deployed against me,
I do not fear. ^{▼▼ Heb “my heart does not fear.”}
Even when war is imminent, ^{▼▼ Heb “if war rises up against me.”}
I remain confident. ^{▼▼ Heb “in this [i.e., “during this situation”] I am trusting.”}