Biblion Bible Commentary
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How Long Will You Forget Me?
Psalms 13:1-6
1 For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? · WEB
Six verses that travel from abandonment to singing, and the whole journey is made without a single circumstance changing.
How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? Psalms 13:1.
Four times in two verses: how long, how long, how long, how long. It is the shortest lament in the collection and the most complete, and its structure is worth watching because most of the laments follow it.
The four questions move through four sufferers. God has forgotten him. God has hidden. He is exhausted by his own deliberation — how long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart every day — and the enemy is winning Psalms 13:2. Vertical, then internal, then external. The order is honest: the theological problem comes first, and the enemy who started it all comes last.
The phrase about taking counsel in his soul describes something anyone who has lain awake will recognize. It is the endless internal conference that produces no decision, and the psalm counts it among the afflictions rather than among the remedies.
Behold, and answer me, Yahweh, my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death Psalms 13:3.
Three imperatives, and the third is a request for life. Dimmed eyes were the visible sign of a person failing, and the psalm asks for the light in them to be turned back up. He is not being poetic about discouragement; he thinks he may be dying.
The reason given is again the one from the sixth psalm and it is again about the enemy rather than about himself: lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed against him" Psalms 13:4. What he cannot bear is not death but the conclusion others would draw from it.
But I trust in your loving kindness. My heart rejoices in your salvation Psalms 13:5.
The turn, and it is abrupt. Two verses of accusation, one of desperate petition, and then trust — with no new information, no answer recorded, and no change in the situation. This is the shape of nearly every lament in the Psalter, and its regularity is the point. The movement is not caused by circumstances improving. It is caused by the praying.
I will sing to Yahweh, because he has been good to me Psalms 13:6.
The last verb is past tense. Having asked how long he would be forgotten forever, he ends by remembering that he has already been dealt with well — which is what the accusation had made impossible to see.
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