Psalms 27:14

The instruction is repeated, and the repetition is the shape of the verse. Wait for Yahweh — then three words of encouragement — then, wait for Yahweh again.

David has to say it twice. That is the honest detail. He is talking to himself at the end of a psalm that began in complete confidence and collapsed into pleading somewhere in the middle, and by the last line he has arrived at an instruction he needs to give himself more than once.

And what sits between the two is not new information. Be strong, and let your heart take courage. No argument, no promise, no reason supplied. Just the encouragement, wedged between two identical commands.

The verb take courage is causative in Hebrew — closer to let your heart be made strong. It is not entirely something you do. It is something you permit, and the permitting is the only part available to you.

What makes this the right ending for this psalm is what came before it. Verse one is soaring. Verse nine is a man begging God not to hide his face. Verse thirteen says he would have fainted unless he had believed he would see God's goodness in the land of the living.

And then the last word is wait. Not resolve, not conclude. Wait, said twice, by someone who has been through the whole psalm to get there.