Psalm 13

Trusting invisible God

A psalm of David. For the music leader. [1]

“Hello, anybody up there?”

A psalm of David. For the music leader. [1]

1LORD, how long are you going to keep this up?
Are you going to ignore me forever?
When are you going to come out of hiding and look me in the face?
2Do you have a schedule for how long you want me to feel miserable
Or how long my enemy gets to beat me up and run me down?
3LORD my God, look at me when I’m talking to you. Answer me.
Energize me. I’ve got nothing left. The lights are going out.
4My enemies will brag, “We beat that loser.”
And they’ll celebrate my defeat with parties.
5But you love me. I’m trusting in that.
So, I’m going to celebrate the joy of salvation.
6I’m going to sing to you, LORD.
For you’ve been good to me.

Footnotes

Intro Notes for Psalms

Intro Notes for Book 1 of 5 in Psalms

113:1

The subtitle wasn’t part of the original psalm. And the possible byline “of David,” isn’t necessarily a byline. The vague phrase could mean the song was written by David, about David, or was inspired by David. Almost half of the psalms are attributed to David in this way, 73 of 150. Ancient Jewish history tells of David playing a lyre and writing songs. For one, he wrote a song of mourning at the battlefield death of King Saul and his sons: “How have the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19-27 New American Standard Bible). An ancient Jewish scroll from about the time of Jesus, discovered among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, reports that David wrote 3,600 songs.