Psalms 13 - Ellicott's Commentary On The Whole Bible

XIII.

In this short poem we see the power of lyric expression for rapid changes of emotion. In the compass of three short stanzas, decreasing in length as they proceed, we have an alternation from the deepest despair to the profoundest peace. Perhaps here is the record of an eventful period of David’s life, when he had to make a hundred shifts to escape from Saul, and feared often to close his eyes, lest he should never awake alive. But Psalms 13:3 sounds rather like the cry of one suffering from sickness. All we can be certain about is that the psalm is intense in its record of personal feeling.

How long?... for ever? — Comp. Psalms 74:10; Psalms 79:5; Psalms 89:46. The double question in the Authorised Version is unnecessary, though, as M. Renan (Les Langues Sémitiques, 2 § 4) explains, it shows how ill writing the poet has begun on one plan, and finished on another. (Comp. Psalms 9:3.) Translate, “How long wilt thou continue to forget me?”

Take counsel. — Literally, put plans unto my soul. The plans (LXX., βουλὰς) formed in the mind turn to sorrows as they are frustrated. It is, however, so doubtful whether nephesh can stand for the mind, that it is better to render, how long shall I form plans against my soul (having) sorrow in my heart all the day? The next verse confirms the suspicion that suicide had been in the psalmist’s mind.

Daily. — There is a doubt about this rendering; but so Symmachus, and many moderns, relying on Ezekiel 30:16, “distresses daily.”

Lighten. — Literally, give light to my eyes that I may not go to sleep in death, i.e., go to sleep and never wake; “sleep unto death,” as the LXX. (Comp. for the nature of the fear, Psalms 6:5; and for the form of expression, 1 Samuel 14:27; 1 Samuel 14:29.)

But I. — Emphatic, but as for me. The most complete peace has taken the place of the despair with which the psalm opens. The rhythm of the Hebrew seems to express the restfulness of the thought. “It hath a dying fall.” The LXX. and Vulg. (comp. the Prayer Book version) have an additional clause not found in any MS., “Yea, I will praise the name of the Lord most high.”