Psalm 13; Forgotten?

PastorRodney’s Weblog

2025 06/22 Psalm 13; Forgotten? ; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20250622_psalm-13.mp3

Have you ever felt abandoned? Like God is not listening? Like you’re alone, and your heart is heavy, but you still have to make decisions and move forward? Like those who don’t play by the rules get ahead, and you’re just stuck? Psalm 13 is a prayer you can resonate with.

The Psalms are prayers from real people facing real struggles with real emotion. But the Psalms are also God-breathed Scripture, God’s very word to us. Psalms is a divinely inspired prayer book that we can use in our own circumstances to pray back to God according to the will of God.

How Long, O YHWH?

Psalm 13

To the Choirmaster. A Psalm of David

1 How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul

and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?

How long? This can’t possibly go on any longer! I really don’t think I can hold on much longer. I’m losing hope. How long must this go on? How long can this possibly go on? Where is the hope? Could that be a light at the end of this long dark tunnel, or just another oncoming train?

David is frustrated, but he still brings his frustration to YHWH. Who else should he bring it to? Who else can do anything about it? Who else already knows all about it? There’s a lot of people you could complain to, but why? What good would it do? David brings his complaint to YHWH God, the only one really and truly able.

But he is real with his questions; Will you forget me forever? I feel forgotten. To be remembered in the biblical language is a promise for action; God remembered Noah (Gen.8:1); God remembered Abraham (Gen.19:29); God remembered Rachel (Gen.30:22); God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob (Ex.2:24). When God is said to remember, it means that he is stirred to take action on behalf of the one he remembers. To be forgotten is for God to seemingly take no action on my behalf.

How long will you hide your face from me? David knows that there is nowhere he can go to hide from God’s presence (Ps.139:7-8). But for God to hide his face means to withhold his greatest blessing. The blessing on Israel was this:

Numbers 6:24 The LORD bless you and keep you; 25 the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

David’s prayer in Psalm 4(:6) was “ Lift up the light of your face upon us, O LORD!” And in Psalm 31(:16) “Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love!” David’s one thing in Psalm 27 is this:

Psalm 27:4 One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

Listen to David’s longing in Psalm 63;

Psalms 63:1 O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. 2 So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory.

There is no greater blessing than to have the Lord’s face shining on us, to gaze upon his beauty, to behold his glory. A hidden face means relational distance, aloofness, alienation. How long will you hide your face from me?

“How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?” The Lord is the ‘Wonderful Counselor’ (Is.9:6); to be cut off from his counsel and be forced to take counsel within myself is to have great sorrow of heart.

“How long shall my enemy be exalted over me?” The Psalmist’s enemies are proud, gloating, exalting themselves over him. We don’t know the exact circumstances, but this complaint could fit multiple circumstances. In relation to God, I feel distant, cut off. In relation to self, I am filled with sorrow, feeling alone, trying to figure it out on my own. In relation to those hostile to me, this gives them grounds to boast, to look down on me in pride.

Prayer To YHWH

In the next two verses he addresses his prayer to YHWH.

3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God;

light up my eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death,
4 lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed over him,”

lest my foes rejoice because I am shaken.

Look, specifically look with favor, with grace and care. see me, notice me, pay attention. And answer; consider, and respond. Revive me; restore the light to my eyes.

And he gives three reasons; three consequences if God does not see, respond, and revive him. Lord, if you do not come to my rescue, I will sleep the sleep of death. I won’t make it through this one alive. If you do not save me, the enemy wins. He will proclaim victory. If you do not come to my aid, my foes will rejoice over me because I could not stand firm. There is ‘my enemy’ singular, and ‘my foes’ plural. There are enemies, and there is the enemy. I can only stand unmoved if you, Lord, come to my aid. God, if you don’t save me, you won’t get the glory; my enemies, the enemy, will revel in victory and get glory.

Do you see what the Psalmist is doing? He is arguing his case before YHWH God. In humility he is asking the Sovereign God for rescue, but he is boldly arguing his case, making the case that God will get glory, prevent the proud boasters from seeming to have the final word. YHWH, save me, because saving me displays your glory; you will be shown stronger than the enemy.

YHWH is Worthy

This Psalm begins with a desperate plea to YHWH, a fourfold ‘how long’. It continues with a bold prayer to YHWH for rescue, reasoned and rooted in the glory of God. It concludes with quiet confidence in YHWH, who is faithful, who saves, who is worthy of worship, who is abundantly gracious.

5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love;

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.
6 I will sing to the LORD,

because he has dealt bountifully with me.

The ‘I’ in this verse is emphatic; the enemy will not have the final word. As for me, I have trusted, I have run for refuge, I have placed my confidence in you. This is a resolved action, to live by faith in the all faithful God, to walk in dependent trust. The word translated ‘steadfast love’ is a rich and frequent one, the Hebrew word ‘chesed’ which includes the ideas of grace an mercy, favor and kindness, covenant faithfulness and committed covenant love. It is the centerpiece of God’s self-definition in Exodus 34;

Exodus 34:5 The LORD descended in the cloud and stood with him there, and proclaimed the name of the LORD. 6 The LORD passed before him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

God has revealed himself as a God of ‘chesed,’ a merciful and kind commitment to his covenant love. When the Lord gives us his word, he can be trusted, and David is counting on God to be faithful to his covenant love.

His resolute confidence in YHWH overflows into appropriate responses. ‘My heart shall rejoice in your salvation’. Salvation is what he has asked for in verse 3. Salvation is what he is desperately waiting for in verses 1-2. Having voiced his complaint, having requested a response, having stated his confidence, he now is ready to respond with joy.

The foes were set to rejoice because of his instability, but he says ‘my heart will rejoice in your salvation.’

He says ‘I will sing to YHWH’ and he gives a reason ‘because he has dealt bountifully with me.’ Song is appropriate response to abundant and overflowing covenant love, but how does this square with how he started the Psalm? ‘How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?’ This doesn’t sound much like ‘he has dealt bountifully with me.’

It could be that David is looking further back beyond the present circumstances, back to his prior experiences of God’s covenant love and abundant blessings. And this gives him not only ground for song but also ground for confidence that God will again extend his steadfast love. It could be that David is stepping back to look at his present circumstance from a broader perspective; he is confident that this ‘momentary light affliction’ will soon be past, and God’s faithfulness makes it as good as done that he will be able to look back and sing of God’s bountiful blessings.

Gospel Connection

Here’s another way to look at it: David is the anointed one, YHWH’s anointed king. David concludes Psalm 18 this way,

Psalm 18:49 For this I will praise you, O LORD, among the nations, and sing to your name. 50 Great salvation he brings to his king, and shows steadfast love to his anointed, to David and his offspring forever.

Psalm 2 introduced us to YHWH’s anointed, the begotten Son of YHWH. ‘Anointed’ in Hebrew is ‘mashiach,’ where we get our word Messiah. David was YHWH’s anointed king, but David was a foreshadow of the greater David, the coming only-begotten, the Messiah King. The Anointed one will rule the nations, but David takes up a different strain in Psalm 13. Not the reigning king, but oppressed and crushed by enemies, forgotten by YHWH, who hides his face from him. These very different strains are both woven together throughout the Psalms; conquering king and righteous sufferer.

The greater David was anointed with the Holy Spirit, and the Father spoke from heaven “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Mt.3:16-17). Jesus is the Christ, the anointed Messiah King. But Jesus is also the righteous sufferer, whose foes rejoiced because he was shaken, and the enemy said ‘I have prevailed over him’.

Luke 23:35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”

Jesus on the cross was forgotten, abandoned by the Father, who hid his face from him, as he cried out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt.27:46).

Jesus is both anointed king and righteous sufferer; it is precisely because he was forgotten, forsaken, abandoned, that he was exalted to the highest place:

Philippians 2:7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus was as it were forgotten of the Father, so that we would always be remembered before him. The Father hid his face as Jesus bore my sins, so that we can enjoy the greatest blessing of the face of the Father always inclined toward us. Jesus did sleep the sleep of death, so that our eyes could be enlightened, so we can trust in his steadfast love, so we can rejoice in his salvation, so we can sing to the LORD because he has indeed dealt bountifully with me.

It is in Jesus, YHWH’s Anointed, that we experience God’s covenant love and bounteous blessings when we trust in him.

Use/Application

What circumstance are you facing? Have you ever felt abandoned? Like God is not listening? Like you’re alone, and your heart is heavy, but you still have to make decisions and move forward? Like those who don’t play by the rules get ahead, and you’re just stuck? How do you typically respond? How does this Psalm invite you to respond? Does the good news of Jesus change your perspective on your present circumstance?

***

Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org