Psalms 13:1

Whence comes his knowledge that God had forgotten him, does the text say? Since he knew also when he remembered him, and he was wise enough to know what forgetting meant and what remembering. Not like the majority of people, who, when they are wealthy, when they enjoy a good reputation with people, when everything goes favorably for them, when they better their foes, then think God remembers them. Hence neither do they understand when it is God forgets them. They do not recognize the sign of God's remembering, you see, nor do they grasp the sign of his forgetting.… Nothing, after all, brings remembrance by God so much as doing good, being sober and watchful, practicing virtue; likewise, nothing prompts forgetting so much as living in sin and giving oneself to greed and rapacity. So for your part, dearly beloved, when you are in trouble, do not say, "God has forgotten me," but when you are living in sin and everything is going favorably for you. After all, if you knew this, you would quickly abandon evil things.

In the preceding Psalm the Psalmist set forth the stratagems of his adversaries; here he asks a remedy against them from God. The title: "unto the end, a Psalm of David." This has been explained above. This Psalm is divided into three parts. In the …

(1.) God's unkindness; so he construed it, and it was his infirmity. He thought God had forgotten him, had forgotten his promises to him, his covenant with him, his former lovingkindness which he had shown him and which he took to be an earnest of further mercy, had forgotten that there was such a man in the world, who needed and expected relief and succour from him.

How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? for ever?....

THIS is a very short Psalm, there are only six verses in it, but what a change there is between the beginning and the end of it! The first two verses are dolorous to the deepest degree, but the last verse is joyful to the highest degree. David begins many of his Psalms sighing and ends them singing, so that I do not wonder that Peter Moulin says, "One would think that those Psalms had been composed by two men of a contrary humor." If I were asked, "Are there two men here, or is there only one?"

"How long?" This question is repeated no less than four times. It betokens very intense desire for deliverance, and great anguish of heart. And what if there be some impatience mingled therewith; is not this the more true a portrait of our own experience? It is not easy to prevent desire from degenerating into impatience. O for grace that, while we wait on God, we may be kept from indulging a murmuring spirit! "How long?" Does not the oft-repeated cry become a very howling? And what if grief should find no other means of utterance? Even then, God is not far from the voice of our roaring; for he does not regard the music of our prayers, but his own Spirit's work in them in exciting desire and inflaming the affections. "How long?" Ah! how long do our days appear when our soul is cast down within us! How wearily the moments seem to glide O'er sadness! How the time Delights to linger in its flight!" Time flies with full-fledged wing in our summer days, but in our winters he flutters painfully. A week within prison-walls is longer than a month at liberty. Long sorrow seems to argue abounding corruption; for the gold which is long in the fire must have had much dross to be consumed, hence the question "how long?" may suggest deep searching of heart. "How long wilt thou forget me?" Ah, David! how like a fool thou talkest! Can God forget? Can Omniscience fail in memory? Above all, can Jehovah's heart forget his own beloved child? Ah! brethren, let us drive away the thought, and hear the voice of our covenant God by the mouth of the prophet, "But Zion said, The Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me. Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." "For ever?"

THIS is a very short Psalm, there are only six verses in it, but what a change there is between the beginning and the end of it! The first two verses are dolorous to the deepest degree, but the last verse is joyful to the highest degree. David begins many of his Psalms sighing and ends them singing, so that I do not wonder that Peter Moulin says, "One would think that those Psalms had been composed by two men of a contrary humor." If I were asked, "Are there two men here, or is there only one?" My answer would be that there is only one, but that one is two, for every man is two men, especially every spiritual man. He will find within himself an old man and a new man, an old nature and a new nature—and even the new nature, itself, is subject to strange changes—so that, like April weather, we have sunshine and showers blended. Sometimes it seems as if all the showers were poured on top of the sunshine and the sunshine, itself, were quenched and could scarcely gladden us. David was a wonderful man for changes of experience. God permitted him to go through many experiences, not so much for himself, as for the good of succeeding generations. Whenever you look into David's Psalms, you may somewhere or other see yourselves. You never get into a corner but you find David in that corner. I think that I was never so low that I could not find that David was lower—and I never climbed so high that I could not find that David was up above me, ready to sing his song upon his stringed instrument, even as I could sing mine! These are two instantaneous photographs. The first one gives us the man complaining, the second one gives us the man rejoicing.

How long wilt thou forget me - The words עד אנה ad anah, to what length, to what time, translated here how long? are four times repeated in the two first verses, and point out at once great dejection and extreme earnestness of soul. Hide thy face from me? - How long shall I be destitute of a clear sense of thy approbation?

How long wilt thou forget me, O Lord? - literally, “until when.” The psalmist breaks out into this cry “in the midst” of his troubles. He had apparently borne them as long as he could. It seemed as if they would never come to an end. We may presume that he had been patient and uncomplaining; that he had borne his trials long with the hope and belief that they would soon terminate; that he had waited patiently for deliverance, uttering no words of complaint; but now he begins to despair. He feels that his troubles will never end. He sees no prospect of deliverance; no signs or tokens that God would interpose; and he breaks out, therefore, in this language of tender complaint, as if he was utterly forsaken, and would be forever. The mind, even of a good man, is not unfrequently in this condition. He is borne down with troubles. He has no disposition to murmur or complain. He bears all patiently and long. He hopes for relief. He looks for it. But relief does not come; and it seems now that his troubles never will terminate. The darkness deepens; his mind is overwhelmed; he goes to God, and asks - not with complaining or murmuring, but with feelings bordering on despair - whether these troubles never will cease; whether he may never hope for deliverance. Forever? - He had been forgotten so long, and there appeared to be so little prospect of deliverance, that it seemed as if God never would return and visit him with mercy. The expression denotes a state of mind on the verge of despair. How long - Referring to a second aspect or phase of his troubles. […]