John Calvin Commentary Psalms 27:8

"[When thou saidst], Seek ye my face; My heart said unto thee, Thy face, Jehovah, will I seek." — Psalms 27:8 (ASV)

My heart said to you. The change of person in the verbs has caused a variety of interpretations of this verse. But whoever closely examines David’s design will perceive that the text runs perfectly well.

Since it is not proper for us to rush rashly into God's presence until He first calls us, David first tells us that he carefully considered how gently and sweetly God anticipates His people by spontaneously inviting them to seek His face. Then, recovering his cheerfulness, he declares he would come wherever God may call him.

The sense of the Hebrew word לך, leka, is somewhat ambiguous. It may mean the same thing as tibi, to you, in Latin. But as the Hebrew letter ל, lamed, is often used for the preposition of, or concerning, it may properly enough be translated, my heart has said of you; an exposition to which the majority of interpreters incline.

More probably, however, in my opinion, it denotes a mutual conversation between God and the prophet. I have just said that no one can believingly rise to seek God until the way is first opened by God’s invitation, as I have elsewhere shown from the prophet’s declaration:

I will say, It is my people; and they shall say, The Lord is my God (Zechariah 13:9).

David accordingly says that in this way the door was opened for him to seek God: he brings forward this promise and thus responds, as it were, to God. And certainly, if this symphony does not precede, no one will properly conduct the chorus of the invitation.

As soon, therefore, as we hear God presenting Himself to us, let us cordially reply, Amen; and let us reflect on His promises, as if they were familiarly addressed to us. Thus true believers have no need to seek any subtle artifice or tedious roundabout ways to introduce themselves into God’s favor, since this preface prepares so easy a way for them: “However unworthy we are to be received by You, O Lord, yet Your commandment, by which You command us to come to You, is sufficient encouragement to us.”

The voice of God, therefore, should resound in our hearts, like an echo in hollow places, so that from this mutual concord confidence to call upon Him may spring.

The term face is commonly explained to mean help or succor, as if it had been said, seek Me. But I am persuaded that the allusion here is also to the sanctuary, and that David refers to the mode of manifestation in which God was accustomed to make Himself in some degree visible.

No doubt, it is unlawful to form any gross or carnal idea of Him, but as He appointed the ark of the covenant to be a token of His presence, it is, without any impropriety, everywhere called His face. It is indeed true that we are far from God as long as we remain in this world, because faith is far removed from sight; but it is equally true that we now see God as in a mirror and darkly (1 Corinthians 13:12), until He openly shows Himself to us at the last day.

Under this word, therefore, I am persuaded, are represented to us those helps by which God raises us to His presence, descending from His inconceivable glory to us and furnishing us on earth with a vision of His heavenly glory. But as it is according to His own sovereign pleasure that God grants us to look upon Him (as He does in Word and sacraments), it is proper for us steadily to fix our eyes on this view, so that it may not be with us as with the Papists, who, by means of the wildest inventions, wickedly transform God into whatever shapes please their fancy or their minds have conceived.