Discovery BoxPsalms 13:1-4 
ContextFor the music director; a psalm of David.
13:1 How long, Lord, will you continue to ignore me? 2
How long will you pay no attention to me? 3
and suffer in broad daylight? 5
How long will my enemy gloat over me? 6
13:3 Look at me! 7 Answer me, O Lord my God!
Revive me, 8 or else I will die! 9
13:4 Then 10 my enemy will say, “I have defeated him!”
Then 11 my foes will rejoice because I am upended.
1 sn Psalm 13. The psalmist, who is close to death, desperately pleads for God’s deliverance and affirms his trust in God’s faithfulness.
2 tn Heb “will you forget me continually.”
3 tn Heb “will you hide your face from me.”
4 tn Heb “How long will I put counsel in my being?”
5 tn Heb “[with] grief in my heart by day.”
6 tn Heb “be exalted over me.” Perhaps one could translate, “How long will my enemy defeat me?”
7 tn Heb “see.”
8 tn Heb “Give light [to] my eyes.” The Hiphil of אוּר (’ur), when used elsewhere with “eyes” as object, refers to the law of God giving moral enlightenment (Ps 19:8), to God the creator giving literal eyesight to all people (Prov 29:13), and to God giving encouragement to his people (Ezra 9:8). Here the psalmist pictures himself as being on the verge of death. His eyes are falling shut and, if God does not intervene soon, he will “fall asleep” for good.
9 tn Heb “or else I will sleep [in?] the death.” Perhaps the statement is elliptical, “I will sleep [the sleep] of death,” or “I will sleep [with the sleepers in] death.”
10 tn Heb “or else.”
11 tn Heb “or else.”
