To the chief musician, a psalm of David
13
📚How long 📖 will you forget me,O LORD?
Forever? How long will you
hide your face from me?
13:1 Evidently David wrote this Psalm when he was in danger and difficulties and was tempted to discouragement and depression. Compare Ps 42.⚜
2 📚How long will I take counsel
in my soul,
having sorrow
in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy
be exalted over me?
13:2 God’s people very often have intense inner struggles. Their thoughts bring them pain and sorrow. They cannot understand why things are happening as they are (see Job 3:1). First they think one thing, and then another. One explanation of events brings relief for a while, and then another explanation intrudes. We might say that often the real battle of believers is with thoughts, and not with outward circumstances or human enemies, and when they win the battle in their own mind and rest in God by faith, they can win everywhere. Compare 2 Cor 10:5.⚜
3 📚Consider and hear me,
O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes,
so that I do not
sleep the sleep of
death,
4 📚So that my enemy does
not say,
“I have prevailed against him”,
and those who trouble me
rejoice when I am shaken.
13:3-4 The thought that the wicked should triumph was unendurable to David. The thought that our greatest foe, Satan, should triumph over us should be unendurable to us.⚜
5 📚But I have trusted
in your mercy.
My heart will rejoice
in your salvation.
6 📚I will sing to the LORD,
because he has dealt bountifully
with me.
13:5-6 See what we should do when we are in difficulties, when we wrestle with our thoughts, when we seem to be defeated and are cast down in our minds, when God seems to have forgotten us. David shows the way. He rejoices even when he has sorrow in his heart, he trusts God’s love even when God seems to be at a distance and frowning on him. He remembers God’s goodness to him in the past and will sing to Him because of that. For the time being, at least, David has won the battle in his mind and his thoughts were again full of confidence. Trust in God’s grace is a great tonic for troubled hearts. Faith is the victory that overcomes the world (and everything else that is in opposition to God) – 1 John 5:4-5; John 14:1. For victory we must look away from ourselves and our troubles. An attitude of faith can conquer all discouraging, depressing thoughts.⚜