Psalms 13: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

A person cries out to the LORD, asking four times how long God will forget him, hide from him, leave him with daily sorrow, and let his enemy win. He asks God to look at him and answer, and to give light to his eyes so he does not die, which would let his enemy claim victory. The psalm ends with the speaker saying he has trusted in God's steady love, and that he will rejoice and sing because God has been good to him.

Claim by Claim

1. 13:1
   • The speaker asks the LORD how long he will forget him.
   • The speaker asks whether that forgetting will be permanent.
   • The speaker asks the LORD how long he will hide his face from him.
2. 13:2
   • The speaker asks how long he must lay up plans within himself.
   • The speaker asks how long he must have sorrow in his heart daily.
   • The speaker asks how long his enemy will be raised over him.
3. 13:3
   • The speaker asks the LORD to look at him.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to answer him.
   • The speaker calls the LORD his God.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to give light to his eyes.
   • The speaker asks this so that he will not sleep the sleep of death.
4. 13:4
   • The speaker asks this so that his enemy will not say he has prevailed against him.
   • The speaker asks this so that his foes will not rejoice when he is shaken.
5. 13:5
   • The speaker has trusted in the LORD's steadfast love.
   • The speaker's heart will rejoice in the LORD's deliverance.
6. 13:6
   • The speaker will sing to the LORD.
   • The speaker gives as his reason that the LORD has dealt bountifully with him.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

13:1

"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew letters usually written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided saying it aloud and substituted the ordinary word for "lord," and English translations follow that custom by using capitals. "Hiding the face" is a standard Hebrew idiom for withdrawing attention and favor. It pictures a king or patron who will no longer look at a petitioner, and so no longer acts on his behalf. The complaint is about being ignored, not about God being invisible. The Hebrew of the first line is compressed (literally "How long, LORD? Will you forget me forever?") and "how long" is repeated four times across the first two verses, a set pattern in Hebrew laments.

13:2

"Take counsel in my soul" translates a Hebrew phrase meaning something like "set plans in myself." It can mean turning a problem over and over without resolving it, or laying out one escape plan after another; the wording is open to both. "Soul" in Hebrew usage means the whole self (the person, their life and appetite), not an immaterial part housed inside a body. "Be exalted over me" is the language of a victor standing above a defeated opponent, as in a battle or a lawsuit.

13:3

"Lighten mine eyes" is an idiom for restoring strength and life. In Hebrew, bright eyes mean vigor and health; eyes that grow dim or dark signal exhaustion, grief, or approaching death. The request is to be kept alive, not to be given insight. "Sleep the sleep of death" uses sleep as a plain euphemism for dying, common in Hebrew and in the surrounding cultures.

13:4

"When I am moved" translates a verb meaning to be shaken loose or knocked off one's footing, the image is of something firmly set that finally slips. It is used elsewhere for a person's position collapsing, and here it stands close to death without being simply a word for it.

13:5

"Mercy" here renders the Hebrew word *chesed*, one of the hardest words in the Bible to put into English. It means loyal, committed kindness, the sort owed within a binding relationship, and gets translated variously as mercy, steadfast love, loving devotion, or faithful love. "Salvation" translates a Hebrew noun meaning rescue or deliverance from concrete danger: enemies, illness, death. It does not carry the later sense of salvation after death that the English word has picked up.

13:6

"Dealt bountifully with me" means treated me generously, gave freely and without stinting. Notice that the verb is past tense even though nothing in the psalm says the trouble has ended; laments often close this way, speaking of the rescue as already done while the speaker is still waiting for it.