I. (13:1–2) How Long? The psalm begins with the question “How long?” (repeated three more times). The questions move from God’s apparent indifference (v. 1) to the singer’s circumstances of anguish (v. 2).

The Hebrew expression “How long?” (ʿad-ʾanah), much as in English, is used rhetorically more often than simply as a request for information. It typically conveys some kind of impatience with the length of time the person addressed is taking, with perhaps a tinge of implication that the delay is unreasonable (addressed from one man to others: Josh. 18:3; Job 8:2; 18:2; 19:2; Ps. 62:3; addressed from God to man: Ex. 16:28; Num. 14:11; from man to God: Jer. 47:6; Hab. 1:2). Here it expresses bluntly the feeling of being unable to endure any longer.

For God to “forget” and “hide [his] face” from someone (Ps. 13:1) is for him to abandon that person deliberately, to withhold his loving care; it is not a description of God’s own mental state. If psalms were theological treatises, they would affirm that the faithful have the assurance that God will not forget them (as in 9:12), and thus they would clarify that the abandonment is only apparent. But a song, whose goal is to describe one’s feelings in the situation, does not require the same level of precision and detachment as a treatise.

The “enemy” is typically one who hates (13:2, 4; ʾoyebi, “my enemy” [lit., “he who hates me”]). Often in the Psalter hatred leads an enemy to want to do violence to the singer; in other places, as here, it leads the enemy to gloat over the singer’s misfortunes. Since the psalms presuppose that their singers are faithful to the covenant, readers may safely assume that the enemy hates the singer’s faithfulness. In such a case the singer easily keeps his hurt to himself (“my soul . . . my heart”); what else can he do?

II. (13:3–4) Prayer for Help. The psalm moves from description to prayer, calling upon God to provide relief and protection.

For God to “consider and answer” (v. 3) would be for him to relieve the singer’s circumstances. Some take the request to “light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death” to imply that the psalm originated during a severe illness; however, while the words could apply to such a case (e.g., 1 Sam. 14:27, 29; where the eyes’ becoming “bright” implies physical refreshment), they are general enough to apply to a wider variety of situations, especially in a poem (Ps. 19:8; Ezra 9:8).

The singer fears that his enemy might gloat over him (Ps. 13:4). The OT, which is set in a community in which all of its members belong to the covenant people, assumes that the ideal is for the faithful to be held in esteem (e.g., Prov. 11:10); for them to be disgraced is to dishearten the other faithful. At the same time, those who hate and oppress the faithful should ideally be humiliated (which might indeed lead to their repentance; Ps. 83:16). These ideals display God’s preferences for all to see.

III. (13:5–6) Reaffirming His Trust in the Lord. After the intensity of the first two stanzas, the psalm ends in quiet confidence, a confidence founded on each singer’s recollections of what God has done for him in the past.

The stanza opens with “But I” (Hb. waʾani, using a subject pronoun, which, strictly speaking, is unnecessary since the verb inflection of “I have trusted” already implicitly contains it). This shifts the focus to how the singer will seek to respond.

The first three verbs (vv. 5–6a) denote the actions of the “I” who sings. “I have trusted in your steadfast love”—the steadfast love that is revealed in God’s covenant with his people (Ex. 34:6) is worthy of one’s trust. The past tense allows each person in the congregation to reflect on how he has begun trusting and to renew himself in the life of such trust. “My heart shall rejoice” and “I will sing” indicate intention for the future (the verbs are exhortational in mood). God’s “salvation” (Ps. 13:5) is the Lord’s answer to the prayer (as in 3:2, 7–8).

The foundation of this confidence comes in the very last phrase of the psalm, namely, in the past deeds God has done: “because he has dealt bountifully with me.”133 Each one singing this can reflect on past instances of God’s care and take heart for the future.