Copyright Ó 2013 J. Neely
Psalm 27:7
7 Hear [shama`], O LORD [Yahovah], when I cry [qara'] with my
voice [qowl]: have mercy [chanan] also upon me, and answer [`anah] me. KJV-Interlinear
7 Hear,
O Lord, when I cry with my voice, And be gracious to me and answer me. NASB
Hear, ‘shama,’ means to
pay attention, to listen with obedience, to consider, to discern, to give ear.
Lord, ‘Yahovah,’ means
self-existent, or eternal one.
Cry, ‘qara,’ means to
call out, to bidden, to proclaim.
Mercy, ‘chanan,’ means to
bend down or stoop in kindness as a superior would lean down to an inferior, to
provide favor, to bestow, to grant.
Answer, ‘anah,’ means to
pay attention and respond, to give account.
Throughout this psalm,
David has described his dwelling place and place of security, within the
tabernacle of God, which we know does not refer to a specific tent or even the
tabernacle within the temple of Solomon, which didn’t even exist at that time,
but refers to the symbolized tabernacle that exists within the soul when the
individual believer is in fellowship.
Fellowship is the place
of direct interaction with God. It is not a physical place, not a building, not
a geographical place, but a place within the soul which is attained
positionally, when the believer confesses his sins to God the Father. The
mechanics of this is described in 1 John.
The spiritual life
functions only when the individual believer is in fellowship, or symbolically,
within the tabernacle and thus face-to-face with God.
This is the place of
interactive prayer. And in prayer we are commanded to come boldly before the
throne of grace. And that is what David is doing in this verse.
When the individual
believer is in fellowship, God hears prayers. And David is demanding that
hearing, which is an entitlement that God grants to every believer who is in
fellowship.
All prayer is directed toward
the Father, and to no one else. No legitimate prayer can be directed toward
angels, toward ancestors, toward animals, toward ghosts, or toward inanimate
objects such as the wind or fire or the moon, and so forth.
Mercy is grace in action.
Grace is the favor of God, and mercy is the fulfillment of that favor, or God
actually doing something for the believer.
In every prayer, every
legitimate prayer, that is asked in accordance with Gods plan, will receive an
answer of one sort or another. The answer may be, no, but nevertheless, every
legitimate prayer offered by every believer, does get answered.
