Psalm 13:4














This is one of those numerous psalms which come under the first division specified in our introductory homily. It belongs to those which give us an insight into the religious experiences of an Old Testament saint - probably David - but it matters not whose they were. For they are a precise reflection of the alternations of spiritual mood through which many a sorrowful believer since then has passed; yea, through the like of which many of our readers may be passing now. We can never be too thankful for such psalms as these, showing us, as they do, not so much the objectivities of Divine revelation, as the subjectivities of inward experience. Not that we are bound, in our experience, to find that which corresponds to every phase. By no means. Experienced nurses say that no two babes ever cried exactly alike; and certainly no two children of God ever went through precisely the same experience. Still, the course pursued by the early believers is a fine lesson-book for modern ones. We shall find our study of this psalm suggestive of much in the experience of believers and in the dealings of God with them.

I. HERE ARE REMARKABLE ALTERNATIONS OF MOOD AND EMOTION. There are seven notes in music; there are seven colours in light. If there are seven stages in religious emotion, surely this psalm notes them all. We have a believer:

1. Thinking himself shut off from God. "How long wilt thou forget me... hide thy face from me?" It does not follow that God had hidden his face; and assuredly he had not forgotten the troubled one. Had it been so, the afflicted one had not survived to offer this prayer. Note: It is not in the midst of sore anguish that we can rightly gauge the mind of God towards us. We may be the objects of tenderest compassion even when our sun seems to be eclipsed.

2. Fearing his adversaries. (See ver. 4.) He was evidently surrounded by those who lay in wait for him. He could have faced them boldly had it not been for the hiding of God's face. But that made him tremble, and no wonder.

3. Sorrowfully musing. (Ver. 2.) What a tumult of agitation was he now passing through! And what a bewildered and bewildering host of troublous thoughts and queries seize the mind at such times as these!

4. Sinking under the pressure. (Ver. 3.) The phrase indicates that the psalmist was at the very verge of despair. "Courage almost gone." So that his spirit is failing or his bodily frame is giving way. The writer may mean either or both.

5. Trusting. (Ver. 5.) "The darkest hour is just before the dawn." The woe reaches its deepest and bitterest; and then - trust prevents absolute despair. The renewed heart clings to God, even in the dark. And he to whom our spirit thus clings will appear for us at the right time, and in his own wonder-working way.

6. Trust leads to prayer. The whole psalm is a prayer. One of the greatest blessings in life is to have a friend who will never misunderstand us; and by whom all our unintelligible and contradictory words will be pitied, and not blamed; who will bury our follies in his own love. But there is only One in whom all this exists to perfection - even our God. He never misinterprets the language of broken hearts and bewildered souls - never! We may always tell him exactly what we feel, as we feel it; or, if words will not come, then "our groaning" is not hid from him. He will answer us, not according to our imperfection, but will do exceeding abundantly for us "above all that we can ask or think." The fourth verse may not and does not give us the highest style of pleading. But it indicates the burden on the heart. And whatsoever is a burden on a child's heart is to the Father an object of loving concern, and maybe rolled over on to God (Psalm 55:22; Psalm 142:1-7).

7. Deliverance comes in answer to prayer. And thus it ever will be. So that he who moans at the beginning of prayer may sing at the end of it. "I will sing unto the Lord, because he hath dealt bountifully with me." Thus does this psalm run through the various shades or stages of emotion. Having gone down to the depths of the valley of anguish, the writer comes at length to stand on the heights of the mount of praise!

II. SUCH A REHEARSAL OF EXPERIENCE THROWS MUCH LIGHT ON THE SECRET DEALINGS OF GOD WITH HIS PEOPLE. "The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him," says the psalmist elsewhere (Psalm 25:14). And this thirteenth psalm lets us into it. It teaches us:

1. That the child of God is the object of the Father's tenderest pity and love, even at the moment of tumultuous anguish and deep darkness of soul. The sun shines just as brightly on us, even when a film over the eyes obscures our sight of it. Saints are never nearer or dearer to the heart of God than when they are in trouble.

2. God graciously sanctifies the anguish, and makes it the means of quickening to intenser devotion. It is not when all is calm that prayer is at its best. Ah, no! It is when we are stunned, startled, half-paralyzed by some dreadful and unexpected trial, that we pray the most earnestly. It is quite possible that at such times words may fail; but God reads deep meaning in the tear, and hears heavenly eloquence in the sighs of those that seek him.

3. The anguish will be removed in God's own time. When the trial sent us has secured its needed end in the quickening of devotion, the strengthening of faith, and the improvement of the whole life, then will the pressure be taken off. Nor ought we to desire it otherwise. It is far more important to have our afflictions sanctified than to have them removed.

4. By the very trials through which we have passed we shall have learnt to be comforters of others. If the psalmist had known that the written experience of his sorrows and his songs would have gone down to hundreds of generations, to comfort sorrowing souls in all time, he would have been thankful for his trouble, sharp as it was. Note:

(1) It is only those who have gone through trouble that can effectually be comforters of others (2 Corinthians 1:6; cf. Hebrews 2:18).

(2) It is not to be supposed that merely because we have sorrow at one moment we shall have joy in the future. Only God's mourners can expect God's comforts. Matthew 5:4 is for those named in Matthew 5:3. The vast difference pointed out in Isaiah 50:10, 11 should be reverently and anxiously pondered.

(3) It is only the renewed soul that can possibly thus trust, pray, and plead, when in the midst of anguish. The supreme concern of each is to accept peace with God through the Lord Jesus Christ; to have sin forgiven, and the soul renewed. He who has first cast his burden of sin and guilt on an atoning Saviour, and who is being renewed by the Holy Ghost, may come every day and cast any care, and all his care, upon his Father, God.

(4) It is infinitely better to be in the depth of the valley of sorrow, as a good man, and to let our God lead us up to the height of joy, than, as a godless man, to be at the height of merriment and laughter for awhile, only to sink to the depths of despair. - C.

Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death.
The Psalmist's cry was for a physical deliverance from mortal danger — probably from a violent death at the hands of his enemies. With little or no straining of the words they may be turned into a prayer against the peril of moral and spiritual death. Under the emblem of death, virtuous and pious souls in all ages have been wont to depict a torpor, coldness, and inactivity of the moral and spiritual faculties. We dare not affirm that spiritual death is, like physical death, a final condition.

1. Moral death. The main point in bringing up children is to give moral life, so that at maturity conscience may be in them a living power. You must not only give your child rules of conduct, you must teach him likewise to hate evil and to love goodness. For moral death in the young man or woman there is but one remedy — the opening, lightening of the eyes. Another form of moral death is discoverable in those of maturer years, whose whole morality consists in simple imitation of others by habit, and in ruling the life by the ordinary customs and opinions of one's own little circle. Hundreds and thousands of quite respectable people are destitute of moral life. The essential conditions of moral life are absent. Such temptations as may come to then, are resisted from motives of self-indulgence rather than of self-denial and self-conquest. The worship of ease and respectability has gradually brought them into a state of moral torpor, indifference, and inactivity — has brought upon them, in fact, the sleep of death. Close akin to this is another form of moral death, into which some sink who once knew the nobility and the blessedness of the moral life. They began their worldly career not only innocent, but good, longing and striving to be good; but through adverse circumstances, through the pressure of the struggle for existence, they have been led to follow the evil example of the multitude, to copy their small dishonesties and their petty deceits in the matter of business, and to cease to have scruples in doing things and conniving at things which in their early days they shrank from as wicked. They become morally weaker from day to day, and at last the sleep of death comes over their hearts and consciences, and moral activity or heroic virtue is for them no longer possible. It is forgetfulness of God that most of all brings on this dreadful torpor. For the great mass of people, as they are, I can affirm, without fear of contradiction, that a religious life, a life of earnest prayer to God, is absolutely indispensable to a life of true and lofty morality.

2. Spiritual death. Moral death is widespread, even among respectable citizens. Spiritual death is equally prevalent among professedly religious people. Torpor, indifference, and inactivity of soul towards God is, I fear, the rule rather than the exception. And this is due to ignorance rather than to baseness, to a darkness which only the light of God can dispel. Spiritual death may be brought on by such means as these: by falseness in the creed detected, but not rejected; by superstition; by an unfounded fear of God; by undue regard for the mere externals of religious observances; by ignorance of what is really essential to true religion. These may be called the intellectual agents of spiritual disease and death. But there are other agents which are practical, such as being over-engrossed in worldly pursuits, giving up regular habits of prayer, seeking too eagerly the pleasures and indulgences of the flesh. We need a knowledge of the truth, which only God can give us, and which is much more than intellectual accuracy and consistency in our creed. The sleep of death may creel, over us when exhausted by the eternal problems which we make for ourselves, or find already made in our search after God.

(Charles Voysey, M. A.)

David was under no ordinary distress of mind, arising from some adversity into which he had fallen through the instrumentality of a fellow mortal. David knew that adversity is uniformly attended with one of two results: either a serious consideration of the causes which have brought down these inflictions and a consequent turning to God, or a reckless inattention to and a hardened disregard of the dealings of God's providence, which eventually lead to an utter disregard of Him here, and an eternal separation from His favour and presence hereafter. In the text we have three petitions —

1. That the Lord would condescend to make him the object of His most gracious consideration. He grounds his plea upon a sense of utter helplessness in the sight of God. How blessed are days of adversity, when they bring with them such distrust in ourselves, and such unshaken confidence in the protection of God!

2. That the eyes of his spiritual understanding might be lightened.

3. That he might not be permitted to sleep the sleep of death. By death the Psalmist does not exclusively mean the separation of soul and body. We are inclined to think he is praying for deliverance from that spiritual death in which all, though naturally alive, are involved, on whose heart the spirit of the living God has not wrought a saving work.

(James Robertson, A. M.)

A passer-by one day asked of an Irishman, whom he observed breaking a large hole in the wall of an old cellar, what he was doing. The answer of Barney was prompt, "Shure, an' I'm lettin' out the dark." We spend much time and energy in the same foolish idea; we attack the dark, instead of putting all our powers into the glorious work of letting in the light. Whether the darkness be that of uncivilised ignorance, or infidel prejudice, let us shine in the light of the glorious Gospel, and the darkness will fly.

(W. Luff.)

People
David, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Adversaries, Enemy, Fall, Foes, Glad, Joy, Joyful, Lest, Moved, Overcame, Overcome, Prevailed, Rejoice, Shaken, Trouble, Troubling
Outline
1. David complains of delay
3. He prays for preventing grace
5. He boasts of divine mercy

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 13:4

     5290   defeat

Psalm 13:1-6

     5945   self-pity

Library
Thirsting for God
'My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.'--PSALM xiii. 2. This whole psalm reads like the sob of a wounded heart. The writer of it is shut out from the Temple of his God, from the holy soil of his native land. One can see him sitting solitary yonder in the lonely wilderness (for the geographical details that occur in one part of the psalm point to his situation as being on the other side of the Jordan, in the mountains of Moab)--can see him sitting there with long wistful gaze yearning across
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Of Seeking Divine Help, and the Confidence of Obtaining Grace
"My Son, I the Lord am a stronghold in the day of trouble.(1) Come unto Me, when it is not well with thee. "This it is which chiefly hindereth heavenly consolation, that thou too slowly betakest thyself unto prayer. For before thou earnestly seekest unto Me, thou dost first seek after many means of comfort, and refresheth thyself in outward things: so it cometh to pass that all things profit thee but little until thou learn that it is I who deliver those who trust in Me; neither beside Me is there
Thomas A Kempis—Imitation of Christ

How is Christ, as the Life, to be Applied by a Soul that Misseth God's Favour and Countenance.
The sixth case, that we shall speak a little to, is a deadness, occasioned by the Lord's hiding of himself, who is their life, and "the fountain of life," Ps. xxxvi. 9, and "whose loving-kindness is better than life," Ps. lxiii. 3, and "in whose favour is their life," Ps. xxx. 5. A case, which the frequent complaints of the saints manifest to be rife enough, concerning which we shall, 1. Shew some of the consequences of the Lord's hiding his face, whereby the soul's case will appear. 2. Shew the
John Brown (of Wamphray)—Christ The Way, The Truth, and The Life

Introduction. Chapter i. --The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers.
St. Hilary of Poitiers is one of the greatest, yet least studied, of the Fathers of the Western Church. He has suffered thus, partly from a certain obscurity in his style of writing, partly from the difficulty of the thoughts which he attempted to convey. But there are other reasons for the comparative neglect into which he has fallen. He learnt his theology, as we shall see, from Eastern authorities, and was not content to carry on and develop the traditional teaching of the West; and the disciple
St. Hilary of Poitiers—The Life and Writings of St. Hilary of Poitiers

Elucidations.
I. (Sundry doctrinal statements of Tertullian. See p. 601 (et seqq.), supra.) I am glad for many reasons that Dr. Holmes appends the following from Bishop Kaye's Account of the Writings of Tertullian: "On the doctrine of the blessed Trinity, in order to explain his meaning Tertullian borrows illustrations from natural objects. The three Persons of the Trinity stand to each other in the relation of the root, the shrub, and the fruit; of the fountain, the river, and the cut from the river; of the sun,
Tertullian—Against Praxeas

Period ii. The Church from the Permanent Division of the Empire Until the Collapse of the Western Empire and the First Schism Between the East and the West, or Until About A. D. 500
In the second period of the history of the Church under the Christian Empire, the Church, although existing in two divisions of the Empire and experiencing very different political fortunes, may still be regarded as forming a whole. The theological controversies distracting the Church, although different in the two halves of the Graeco-Roman world, were felt to some extent in both divisions of the Empire and not merely in the one in which they were principally fought out; and in the condemnation
Joseph Cullen Ayer Jr., Ph.D.—A Source Book for Ancient Church History

Psalms
The piety of the Old Testament Church is reflected with more clearness and variety in the Psalter than in any other book of the Old Testament. It constitutes the response of the Church to the divine demands of prophecy, and, in a less degree, of law; or, rather, it expresses those emotions and aspirations of the universal heart which lie deeper than any formal demand. It is the speech of the soul face to face with God. Its words are as simple and unaffected as human words can be, for it is the genius
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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