Psalm 13 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 13 (1928 BCP) is a short prayer of desolation which turns, without denying the trouble, to trust and praise. In the 1928 Book of Common Prayer it belongs to the Psalter and is therefore given to the Church as prayer, not simply as an account of a past crisis.
Prayer Book Text
HOW long wilt thou forget me, O LORD; for ever? * how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
2 How long shall I seek counsel in my soul, and be so vexed in my heart? * how long shall mine enemy triumph over me?
3 Consider, and hear me, O LORD my God; * lighten mine eyes, that I sleep not in death;
4 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him: * for if I be cast down, they that trouble me will rejoice at it.
5 But my trust is in thy mercy, * and my heart is joyful in thy salvation.
6 I will sing of the LORD, because he hath dealt so lovingly with me; * yea, I will praise the Name of the Lord Most Highest.
The repeated “How long?” makes lament an address to God. The speaker does not turn suffering into a theory or suppress it; he brings bewilderment, inward anguish, and the enemy's apparent advantage before “O LORD my God.” Then verses 3–4 ask for sight and preservation, while verses 5–6 answer that petition with mercy, salvation, song, and praise. The movement is from complaint to confidence, not from trouble to the claim that trouble never existed.
In the Daily Office
The Prayer Book places the Psalter in the public speech of Morning and Evening Prayer. It directs that a portion of Psalms follows “according to the Use of this Church,” and it permits the Gloria Patri at the end of each psalm while requiring it (or the Gloria in excelsis) at the end of the day's portion. Psalm 13 is thus prayed in a setting of doxology and with the whole worshipping body.
Then shall follow a Portion of the Psalms, according to the Use of this Church. And at the end of every Psalm ... may be sung or said the Gloria Patri; and at the end of the whole portion or Selection of Psalms for the day, shall be sung or said the Gloria Patri, or else the Gloria in excelsis.
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; Answer. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
The doxology does not erase the psalmist's plea; it locates lament within the worship of the triune God. This is particularly fitting for Psalm 13: the person who asks that God not hide his face is still taught to give glory to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
“Lighten mine eyes”
The petition is concrete: “lighten mine eyes, that I sleep not in death.” It asks God to make the praying person alert, living, and able to persevere, rather than giving spiritual self-confidence. Psalm 119 uses the same posture of dependence when it asks for opened eyes before it speaks of seeing God's law.
Open thou mine eyes, that I may see the wondrous things of thy law.
Augustine reads the image of light morally and spiritually, while retaining the psalm's character as prayer. He says that “the eyes of the heart must be understood,” and that they must not be closed by “the pleasurable eclipse of sin.” This supplies a Christian interpretation of the plea without turning it into a denial of the psalm's own distress.
The eyes of the heart must be understood, that they be not closed by the pleasurable eclipse of sin.
Mercy, salvation, and praise
The final two verses are not based on the psalmist's mastery of circumstances: “my trust is in thy mercy.” The sequence is important. Mercy is the ground of trust; salvation gives the heart joy; gratitude becomes song. This accords with the apostolic instruction that congregations teach and admonish one another in psalms as they sing to God.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Augustine identifies the salvation of verse 5 with Christ, but also safeguards the psalm's stress on mercy rather than self-congratulation.
But I have hoped in Your mercy. Because this very thing, that a man be not moved, and that he abide fixed in the Lord, he should not attribute to self.
J. M. Neale and R. F. Littledale likewise observe the psalm's decisive movement from mercy received to joy and praise. Their nineteenth-century Anglican synthesis is an interpretive witness, not a substitute for the Prayer Book text.
the mercy that spared shall enlarge itself into the grace that crowns: “He which hath begun a good work in you, will perform it.” My heart is joyful in Thy salvation. The mercy that spared on Good Friday: the salvation that triumphed on Easter Day.
For use in worship or pastoral prayer, Psalm 13 therefore gives words for a situation in which faith is real but consolation is delayed. It does not command a false cheerfulness. It teaches the Christian to name the apparent absence of God, ask for enlivening light, rest in mercy, and make praise the answer of a heart receiving salvation.
See Also
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer ... according to the use of The Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America (1928), The Psalter, Psalm 13, Psalms 1–50. The wording above was checked word for word against the local 1928 source,
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), The Order for Evening Prayer, rubric following the Psalms, Evening Prayer.
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (1928), The Order for Evening Prayer, Gloria Patri, Evening Prayer.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated out of the Original Tongues; and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised (Authorized Version, 1611), Psalm 119:18, Psalm 119:18.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 13, §4, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), anonymous translation, New Advent transcription. Augustine's internal biblical citations follow the Latin/Vulgate numbering (Psalm 12), corresponding to Psalm 13 in the 1928 Prayer Book.
- ↑ The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments: Translated out of the Original Tongues; and with the Former Translations Diligently Compared and Revised (Authorized Version, 1611), Colossians 3:16, Colossians 3:16.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 13, §6, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888), anonymous translation, New Advent transcription.
- ↑ J. M. Neale and R. F. Littledale, A Commentary on the Psalms: from Primitive and Mediaeval Writers, vol. 1 (London: Joseph Masters, 1869), p. 183, commentary on Psalm XIII, Internet Archive scan.