This is a paper that I wrote for my MA at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Florida for Dr. Howard.  This is an amateur effort at providing a poetry analysis of Psalm 13.

EXEGETICAL ANALYSIS OF PSALM 13

BY HANNAH LYN VENABLE

FEBRUARY 15, 2008

My focus in this paper will be on Psalm 13. It is a psalm of intense sadness and woe. Yet, there is a display of powerful hope as well. The author is King David as is shown by the title and it is written for the director of music. As I will argue, this psalm teaches us how to answer tough life questions. When we go through difficult times, we often want to ask the Lord, as David does in this psalm, how long we will have to suffer. This psalm demonstrates that real hope does not come from the specific answers to these tough questions but rather it comes from holding on to who God is. Let’s begin by looking at the text.

Psalm 13 [1]

For the director of music. A psalm of David.

With this basic outline of the psalm, let’s do some poetic and structural analysis. I’ll begin with looking at each line to discuss the poetical structure. For verse one, we have a synonymous complete structure. We can call “how long” A for both lines; we can call “will you” B for both lines. These are obviously the exact same words and match up perfectly. The idea of forgetting me forever and hiding your face are similar to each other and while they are not the same words, I think we can say that they are parallel and call them C and C’.

For verse two, we have a very similar structure to verse one with a bit of some implied text. I have placed in brackets in my outline what I think may be implied. So, I would label verse two’s parallel structure as synonymous incomplete. Again, we can call the “how longs” A. Then, we have the person who is doing the action next and we can call that B. For the actual actions, we can label C so we can call “wrestle with my thoughts” C and “have sorrow in my heart C’ and “triumph over me” C’’.

Taking a step back from verses 1 and 2, we can see an overall parallel structure of synonymous incomplete. There are five “how long” questions each including a person and an action being done. All these questions are directed to God.

Now, let’s look at verse 3. I see three requests here from David to God: “look”, “answer” and “give light”. I will call those A. David is requesting all these things to be done to him; so, I labeled “me” and an implied “me” and “my eyes” as B and B’. I think the phrase “or I will sleep in death” can be placed with verse four because it is describing a consequence if the Lord does not answer David’s request. Thus, we have a complete synonymous structure.

In addition to sleeping in death, there appears to be two other consequences to David if God does not answer his cry. The other consequences are from his enemies. We have “my enemy” and “my foes” as A. Then, we can call their actions: “will say” and “will rejoice” as B and B’, respectively. Then, the results are C which includes the phrase from verse 3 (sleeping in death) as well as his enemies overcoming him and him falling. So, although it doesn’t work perfectly, I would call this incomplete synonymous structure.

The response of the Psalm seems to be found in verse 5-6. Let’s look at their structure together. Each line seems to be portraying David believing in a certain aspect of God. So, we have David as A (written as “I” and “my heart”) and then we have his action as B (written as “trust”, “rejoices” and “sing”). This action is a belief in a particular attribute of God: His “unfailing love”, “salvation” and goodness. I labeled God’s attributes as C. Again, I believe we have a synonymous complete structure for these two verses.

Now that I have looked at the individual line structure for this Psalm, I would like to view the entire Psalm’s structure. As I mentioned above, I would put verses 1 and 2 together in one paragraph. I will call this the “How Long Paragraph”. There seems to be continuity between the verses as they ask the five “how long” questions. Let’s call the “How Long Paragraph” A.

In verses 3-4, we have David requesting three things from God and then describing three deadly results if the Lord does not come through. David will sleep in death; his enemies will overcome him and they will rejoice when he falls. I would call this the “If . . . then . . . Paragraph” because David is saying, “If you don’t do these things, then these things will happen.” Let’s call the “If . . . then . . . Paragraph” B.

The last paragraph is found in verses 5-6 which I will call the “Response Paragraph”. Here we see David responding to his previous questions in verses 1-2. But these are not the normal responses to “how long” questions. He doesn’t give a specific length of time or the exact dates when his trials are over but he does affirm the Lord’s attributes. Let’s look at the questions and the answers. I am paraphrasing the questions to help us understand the main points.

How long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you hide from me?
Response: But I trust in your unfailing love.

Rather than the Lord forgetting forever, David affirms that the Lord will love forever. His love never fails and never ends. It is not hidden but worthy to be trusted in.

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and have sorrow in my heart?
Response: My heart rejoices . . .

David affirms that his heart will no longer have such sorrow in it. He will not always wrestle with these thoughts. He will rejoice.

How long will my enemy triumph over me?
Response: . . . in your salvation.

His enemy will not triumph over him for long. For the Lord is a God who rescues and saves. He is David’s salvation and He will save Him from his enemy.

Summary Response: I will sing to the Lord for He has been good to me.

After addressing his initial questions, not with answers, but with an affirmation of the Lord’s character, David makes this final summary of how He will respond to God. He will respond with singing because the Lord is good. Due to the parallels that I have pointed out in verses 5-6 and verses 1-2, I think we can call the “Response Paragraph” A’.

The overall structure of Psalm 13, according to my analysis would look like this:

Now that we have looked at the poetic structure of Psalm 13, I would like to discuss four theological implications of the psalm. First, in verse one, David describes the Lord in an unusual way. He feels the Lord has forgotten him. He also feels that the Lord has hidden Himself from David. This may seem puzzling to us as these attributes seem contrary to true character of God. Other verses in the Bible tell us that the Lord does not forget anything and that He knows everything! [2] Not only is the Lord omniscient, but He is also present everywhere. [3] How can He hide if His presence is everywhere? David is discussing a theological principle that some theologians call: “the dark night of the soul”. John of the Cross describes the dark night of the soul as a time “when those persons lose all the pleasure that they once experienced in their devotional life.” [4] We feel as though the Lord is no longer with us when we go to Him for our devotions; we feel that the Lord may have forgotten us or left us. While this is not the reality (as David affirms at the end of the psalm), we still can feel this way. This principle, although not discussed very often, is experienced by many believers in the Bible and in history and we need to be aware of these acute feelings of emptiness during times of great trial.

Second, David affirms that there is no true life outside of God. He states in verse 3, “Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death.” David reveals to us the theological truth that in the Lord, there is true life. Death is the only other option. Notice that David uses the word “light” as opposed to “life”. In the Psalms as well as throughout the Bible, the idea of light from the Lord is often connected with eternal life. The word “light” is used 24 times in the Psalms. Of those 24 times, 21 times refer to a description of the Lord either of His presence or His gift to the righteous. Life is often implied in these verses and is sometimes explicit using the phrase, “light of life”. [5] There is a Messianic element here as well since Jesus is the Light that comes into the world and proclaims, “I have come that they might have life, and have it to the full.”[6]

A proper perspective on enemies is the third theological element in this psalm. David feels like his enemies are triumphing over him and if the Lord does not answer him, his enemies will rejoice as he falls. David realizes that his only salvation from his enemies is not from himself but only through the help of the Lord. As in many of the psalms, personal vengeance is not advocated; rather, we ought to rely on our only True Rescuer to save us and bring justice to our oppressors.

For the fourth point, I see an overarching theological theme that connects this whole psalm. As we saw in the poetical analysis, there is a cohesiveness in the psalm connecting the initial questioning with the end affirming trust in the Lord. At the end, David answers his original questions, not in the ordinary way, but by declaring who God is. This reveals the truth that God often doesn’t answer our specific questions but reminds us what type of God He is. Certainly, we can think of Job here. Job was looking for specific answers for why he was suffering so deeply. And yet, the Lord reminds Job how big He is and how sovereign He is. [7] Here David seems to be practicing this very idea. He doesn’t know the specific answer of how long he will be suffering but he does know that the Lord has unfailing love, has saving powers, and is good. David clings to these truths about God when he cannot find answers anywhere else.

With this fourth theological truth, we can see the relevance of this psalm to our own lives. Like David, we can cry out to the Lord in complete honesty and ask Him whatever questions are on our hearts. Even though we may believe that God is omniscience and omnipresence, we can tell the Lord when we feel that He is far away from us and when we feel that He has forgotten us. The Lord desires to be intimate with us. He desires for us to share our hearts with Him. And yet, with this honesty, we can also remind ourselves of who the Lord is and what He has already done for us. David reminded himself at the end of the psalm the reasons for him to rejoice and sing to the Lord: His love, salvation and goodness!

Specifically, when we deal with death, we can often feel the way that David feels in Psalm 13. When a close family member or loved one dies, we have hard time understanding why the Lord would take them away from us. We may ask the Lord, “How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and every day have sorrow in my heart?” In my experience, grief over the death of my brother doesn’t seem to go away. While it has been over a year, sometimes I feel that the sorrow plagues my heart every day. I wonder whether it will always hurt this much. Even with death, we can follow David’s example of being honest with our questions before the Lord and then holding on to the character of God. Even though we don’t know how long we may suffer with grief or why the Lord would give us this grief, we do know that the Lord allowed the death in His unfailing love and amazing goodness.

In conclusion, through looking at the structure, the theological principles, and the relevance of Psalm 13 to our lives, we have seen the amazing power behind this six verse psalm. It reveals to us the power of feeling separate from God and the power of trusting in His promises. We see that while there may not be specific answers to our questions, we can have hope in the character of our all-loving and all-good Savior.

Footnotes

• [1] All scripture quotations are taken from the New International Version.
• [2] See Psalm 147:5 and 1 John 3:20 for evidence of God’s omniscience.
• [3] See Psalm 139:7-10 and Acts 17:28 for evidence of God’s omnipresence.
• [4] John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul from Devotional Classics ed. Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith (New York: HarperCollins, 2005), 33.
• [5] See Psalm 49:19 and Psalm 56:13.
• [6] John 10:10
• [7] Job 38-40