Sources on Psalms 27:8

(8) In Your behalf^-b my heart says:
“Seek My face!”
O LORD, I seek Your face.

On Your behalf, my heart says, “Seek My presence.” On Your behalf, as Your agent, my heart says to me, “All of you Israelites, seek My presence.” And I obey it. “Your presence, O Lord, I will seek.”

[The word] לך is like (Job 33:6): “Behold I am like your mouth to God (לא-ל),” [that is,] in His stead; (ibid. 13:8), “Will you contend for God (לא-ל)?” [that is,] in His stead. Here, too, “On Your behalf, my heart says,” in Your stead, my heart comes to me to say this.

AFTER YOU have advanced thus far, and truly comprehended that God exists without having the attribute of existence, and that He is One, without having the attribute of unity, I do not think that I need explain to you the inadmissibility of the attribute of speech in reference to God, especially since our people generally believe that the Law, i.e., the word ascribed to Him, was created. Speech is attributed to Him, in so far as the word which Moses heard, was produced and brought to existence by God in the same manner as He produced all His other works and creations. As we shall have to speak more fully on prophecy, we shall here merely show that speech is attributed to God in the same way as all other actions, which are similar to our own. When we are told that God addressed the Prophets and spoke to them, our minds are merely to receive a notion that there is a Divine knowledge to which the Prophets attain; we are to be impressed with the idea that the things which the Prophets communicate to us come from the Lord, and are not altogether the products of their own conceptions and ideas. This subject, which we have already mentioned above, will receive further explanation. It is the object of this chapter to show that the words "speaking" and "saying" are synonymous terms denoting (a) "Speech"; as, e.g., "Moses shall speak (yedabber)" (Exod. 19:19); "And Pharaoh said (va-yomer)" (ib. 5:5); (b) "Thought" as formed in the mind without being expressed in words; e.g., "And I thought (ve-amarti) in my heart" (Eccles. 2:15); "And I thought (vedibbarti) in my heart" (ib.); "And thy heart will imagine (yedabber)" (Prov. 23:33); "Concerning Thee my heart thought (amar)" (Ps. 27:8); "And Esau thought (va-yomer) in his heart" (Gen. 27:41); examples of this kind are numerous; (c) Will; e.g., "And he said (va-yomer) to slay David" (2 Sam. 21:16), that is to say, he wished or he intended to slay him; "Dost thou desire (omer) to slay me" (Exod. 2:14); "And the whole congregation intended (va-yomeru) to stone them" (Num. 14:10). Instances of this kind are likewise numerous.

“L’kha Amar Lee’bee (On Your behalf my heart has said), ‘Seek My countenance.’” (Psalms 27:8)

Likewise, [for] each person, commensurate with his level, this is an aspect of holy spirit. As it is written (Psalms 27:8), “To You my heart said”; which Rashi explains: “To You”—for Your sake and at Your charge my heart said to me. Everything the heart says <to a person, to do good or to speak good words before God,> is literally the word of God. This is an aspect of holy spirit.

The main purpose of food is to revive the heart, as it is written (Ruth 3:7), “he ate and drank and his heart was in good spirits”; and as our Sages, of blessed memory, said: Bread satiates the heart (Bereishit Rabbah 48:11). However, when the food is not refined or a person does not eat it in holiness, it brings evil to the heart. Evil-heartedness mars the countenance, as it is written (Nehemiah 2:2), “Why is your countenance so dour? It can only be [that you harbor] evil in your heart.” And the reverse is likewise true, seeking the countenance—i.e., that he should return and seek his countenance—is contingent upon rectification of the heart, as it is written (Psalms 27:8), “In Your behalf my heart says, ‘Seek My countenance.’”

We read in Psalms 27,8: לך אמר לבי בקשו פני את פניך ה' אבקש, "In your behalf my heart says: 'Seek My face! O Lord, I seek Your face'." The subject matter in this verse is the previous verse (4) where David had expressed the wish: לחזות בנועם ה' ולבקר בהיכלו, "to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord, to frequent His Temple." David says to G–d: "My heart says to You that there is no need for You to look at the lines in my face because my heart sends the message: "I am with You." David means that since G–d looks into all our hearts, why would He need to gauge from David's face whether he was loyal to Him. David claims לבי ובשרי "my heart and my flesh are one." Both my heart and my flesh shout for joy to the living G–d" (Psalms 84,3). Human beings, however, who cannot see what goes on in my heart must look at my flesh, i.e. at the lines in my face to gauge whether I am loyal and true to You. In verse 8 the words בקשו פני are in the plural because they are addressed to human beings, as if David were saying: "You mortal people seek out my face to determine if I am true and loyal to G–d. When did I want you to test me, says David? At the time when I expressed the wish to gaze upon the beauty of G–d, etc."

(28) Concealed acts concern the LORD our God; but with overt acts, it is for us and our children ever to apply all the provisions of this Teaching.