The Song of Questions

In the first two verses of Psalm 13, David asks 5 questions, four of which begin with the words, “How long?” Even repeating those words itself communicates the prolonged suffering that David is experiencing: “How long? How long? How long? How long?” David focuses on his relationship with God in the first three questions: “How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?” That last line is a painful reversal of the famous Aaronic blessing in Numbers 6; as opposed to the LORD making his face shine upon you, David feels as though God has turned his back on him. In the third “How long,” David reveals his inner turmoil: “How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” When we suffer, we are not only wrestling with spiritual, existential questions like, “Where is God?”, but we are also carrying the weight of mental and emotional struggles. And on top of all this, David acknowledges external conflicts as well: “How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” We don’t know the circumstances that led to this string of questions, although some suggest that it was an encounter with one of David’s many enemies or perhaps a physical sickness. Either way, what’s clear is that David is in painfully, emotionally, urgently pleading with God to do something. It’s not quite the stark cry of Psalm 22 (“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”), but Psalm 13 does have a sense of long-suffering similar to Psalm 6. One scholar rephrases the questions as “how distressingly long?” David is frustrated, confused, even angry because it seems like he is suffering day after day while God is doing nothing. He vents his emotions… and yet we must also remember that this is a poem with structure and repetition. David is expressing his pain with a pattern. He also uses the covenantal name Yahweh (which appears in our Bibles as “the LORD” in all-caps). This is not David raving against the unknown divine; he is still connected with his God, and that gives him the relational foundation to ask these bold, even uncomfortable questions.

The questions of verses 1-2 turn into a prayer in verses 3-4, and this prayer has two sets of three phrases. First, David asks God to (1) consider, (2) to answer, and (3) to light up my eyes. The first two are connected; David wants God to stop ignoring him and to listen, like a child asking their parents to put away any distractions, turn toward them, and give them undivided attention. The last request, “light up my eyes,” means to brighten the soul, to restore him spiritually and emotionally, to refresh and energize him completely. It’s also another clever connection back to the same line of the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6 that David had referenced before, the LORD’s face shining on you. It’s a direct link between the hard questions of the previous verses to his petitions here. After the first set of three requests, David follows it with three things that will happen if God does not act: “Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death, lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,” lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.” He worries that if all of his fears come true about God abandoning him, David’s inevitable end will be lying down in the sleep of death, with his enemies dancing on his grave in joy because David, the strong king who united the tribes of Israel, is shaken, toppled, and gone. It’s like David is clinging to the rope of divine grace, and he’s hoping that the rope will hold. This is what trust and faith truly means; reaching out and holding for dear life onto God’s goodness, faithfulness, and sovereign power even when everything around you says, “You’re lost. It’s done. Give up.” That’s the tension we feel as we transition to the final two verses.

Psalm 13 ends with these words: “But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” For all that David has said so far, the bitter questions and the foreboding threat of what would happen if God doesn’t answer, this ending is a bit surprising. Is David just putting on a religious mask, stuffing down his feelings with a chipper, insincere faith? I don’t think so, and here’s a few reasons why. First, the word “I” is emphatic in the first line: “But I have trusted in your steadfast love.” This is David stepping forward, standing firm, staking his life on the God whom he believes will not let him down. As we’ve already seen, even in his questions and prayers, David uses the covenantal name Yahweh, and he also uses the important word hesed, which we’ve discussed previously on the podcast and means “faithful, loyal love.” David puts his trust in the faithfulness of the God who made promises to his people to love them and save them forever, and those promises don’t go away just because we are suffering. There’s another clue that David isn’t simply brushing his troubles under the religious rug, and that’s the last line: “I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me.” “Bountifully” means “he has treated me well” or even “he has paid me what I am due.” Notice that David speaks in the past tense (“he has dealt bountifully with me”). The idea is that David feels like God has done good to him, that he has not left him hanging on a rope but that, when he looks back at the whole tortuous journey of his life, God has done right by him. He has answered his prayers. He has brought David back to a place of hope. One commentator uses the imagery of a storm over the sea that begins to wane: Psalm 13 begins with terrible lament, then it moves to a less agitated prayer, then finally, the waters become calm and still as David comes back to the certain truth that the LORD is worthy of our trust, no matter what.