1. For the concertmaster; a psalm belonging to David.
How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me indefinitely?
How long will You hide your face from me?
2. How long will I [have to] put advice into my soul, will there be sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy rise above me?
3. Look this way;
answer me, Yahweh my God,
cause there to be light toward my eyes,
otherwise I will sleep the [sleep of] death.
4. Otherwise my enemy will say, “I have bested him!” My adversaries will rejoice that I am overthrown.
5. But as for me, it is in Your lovingkindness that I have trusted.
My heart will rejoice in Your salvation.
6. I will sing to Yahweh
because He has conducted business satisfactorily by me.[1]
· This cry, “How long?” or literally, “Until when?” is a Biblical prayer echoing God’s own question to Man (NASB citations follow):
o Exodus 16:28 Then the LORD said to Moses, "How long do you refuse to keep My commandments and My instructions?
o Numbers 14:11 The LORD said to Moses, "How long will this people spurn Me? And how long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed in their midst?
o Matthew 17:17 And Jesus answered and said, "You unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you? How long shall I put up with you?”
o Job 19:1-2 Then Job responded, "How long will you torment me And crush me with words?”
o Jeremiah 47:6 "Ah, sword of the LORD, How long will you not be quiet? Withdraw into your sheath; Be at rest and stay still.
o Habakkuk 1:2 How long, O LORD, will I call for help, And You will not hear? I cry out to You, "Violence!" Yet You do not save.
o Revelation 6:10 and they cried out with a loud voice, saying, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, will You refrain from judging and avenging our blood on those who dwell on the earth?"
· Do you feel that way? Do you feel that God has turned His face away from you and forgotten about you? Has he withdrawn His protective arm from you so that you are getting beat up by bad things happening to you, and you don’t know if you can last much longer?
· “Is this some kind of cruel joke or cosmic game? Doesn’t God know how fragile we are? (Ps. 103:14) Is this how He treats His own people? Like trash? Like some rag doll that is played with for a little while and then is abandoned to the corner of a toy box? Is there even any point in praying? Is He even listening? God, if you’re out there, why have you forsaken me? How long am I going to have to wait until I experience the salvation You say You provide? I don’t think I can hold out much longer.”
· This is a heartrending cry. Even Jesus cried it from the cross, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
· Now, of course, we have already seen the answer to this question back in Psalm 9:18 “For it will not be that the needy is forgotten indefinitely [or that] the hope of lowly ones will perish for ever” (NAW).
· In the words of Isaiah 49:15 “Can a woman forget her nursing baby - from having compassion on a son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I, I will not forget you. 16. Look, I have engraved you on my palms, your walls are always before me” (NAW).
· The fact that David even says these things to God belies the fact that he is not truly forgotten. God will hear his prayer. (Calvin) When we feel depressed and abandoned by God, that is the very time we should go to God in prayer! Write it out in your journal; write a poem or a psalm, go for a walk in the woods and yell it at God. Open the conversation with Him!
· “A hidden face is no sign of a forgetful heart. It is in love that his face is turned away; yet to a real child of God, this hiding of his Father's face is terrible, and he will never be at ease until once more he hath his Father's smile.” ~Spurgeon
· We are time-bound creatures. We feel the passage of time. The minute-hand of the clock can move painfully slow. God, on the other hand is not time-bound, yet He passes into time to deal with us. This cry, “How long?” expresses the tension between eternity and immediate time, between the ideal goal and the particular point in the process we are in now.
· Veteran pastor James Boice, who published a commentary on the Psalms with Baker Books, wrote that his decades of counseling had led him to believe that it is very common for Christians to experience feelings of abandonment. He observed that it is usually when we have been abandoned by other people that we project this feeling on God.
o Maybe it was a parent who left you,
o maybe it was a spouse who betrayed you,
o maybe it was a church relationship that went sour.
o And then there’s children: “You may remember the early days when it was comparatively easy to rear them. You family had many good times together, but now one or more of your children is antagonistic and rebellious, and everyone else in the family suffers under the inevitable strain. Nobody has fun anymore. Has God forgotten? Have the blessings of God been taken away forever?” (J.M. Boice)
o For me, my most intense feelings of abandonment came from being rejected by a ministry team. I left everything to join them. It was a tight-knit team, and over the course of a decade of serving with them, they basically became my extended family. Then there was a falling-out. One friend called it a “comedy of errors,” but I never saw anything funny about it. For approximately a whole year, every day, it took pretty much the first hour that I was awake to get over the paralyzing feelings of abandonment by that team, as my mind re-lived the painful memories, trying to make some sense out of them all.
· Have you ever had that experience of every day being stuck on something?
o Maybe it’s a sin from your past that you have confessed and put away, but when things are spiritually dry you wonder, “Is God dredging this sin up again and putting me on hold because of it?”
o Maybe it is a physical condition: you’ve been up all night with a crying baby and are feeling abandoned by God. Charles Spurgeon suffered terrible pain from gout, which triggered severe bouts of depression[2].
· But these experiences are not “necessarily the result of personal sin. Often when one is most firmly in the center of God’s purpose and will are attacks most severe and God seems most distant” (G.H. Wilson).
· Now, when you are uncertain about something, you seek advice;
o either you are not sure what is the right thing to do and you need counsel
o or else you are not sure whether doing the right thing is going to do any good, and you need to be reminded to trust that things will turn out right if you do what is right, because it doesn’t look like there will be any good result from obeying God. It looks like the liars and cheaters and two-faced and mean people are the ones who will be exalted and rewarded.
o “God, I don’t understand; it’s not fair! When I try to do what I believe is right, people despise me, my heart is heavy, and I begin to question whether God is just after all.”
· It’s one thing for me to feel this way, but it’s scary that a great man of God like David has felt this way too!
o J.J. Perowne, in his commentary on the Psalms, advanced his opinion that this psalm was set during King Saul’s persecution of David, writing, “…he knew not where to betake himself, at one time seeking refuge among the Moabites, at another in the wilderness of Ziph; now an outlaw hiding himself in the cave of Adullam, and anon… in the service of the King of the Philistines; and amid all his projects, haunted by the mournful conviction, ‘I shall now one day perish by the hand of Saul.’”
o “I am at a loss, and am inops consilii - without a friend to advise with that I can put any confidence in, and therefore am myself continually projecting what to do to help myself; but none of my projects are likely to take effect, so that I am at my wits' end, and in a continual agitation.” ~Matthew Henry
o “By night he proposes plan after plan, each one as worthless as the other; and by day, or all the day through[3], when he sees his distress with open eyes, sorrow… is in his heart.” ~Delitzsch
o “Herein we have often been like David, for we have considered and reconsidered day after day… Ruminating upon trouble is bitter work. Children fill their mouths with bitterness when they rebelliously chew the pill which they ought obediently to have taken at once.” ~Spurgeon
· But David shows us the way forward. First he told God his problem, and now he asks God for help:
· In Psalm 10:14 we saw that first word in Hebrew: God “takes a good look at” (תביט) trouble, but now David wants God to look his way.
· He feels like
o the child whose Dad patronizingly glances at her coloring page over which she has labored long and hard with special love for him, but he doesn’t really look at it or notice the special things she put on there for him,
o or maybe like the wife who asks her husband, “Are you even listening to me?” and the husband says, “… mmm hm.”
o David’s words reflect the fear that we feel in our hearts that maybe those who mean the most to us don’t really care about us.
· I translated the paragogic he’s on the ends of the two commands “look” and “enlighten” as directional indicators – “Look this way” and “let there be light in the direction of my eyes” –
o the latter of those two phrases could perhaps be a request for God to inject David with vitality that would make his eyes shine instead of being listless (as the word is used in 1 Sam 14:27),
o but I think it’s more likely that David is envisioning the eyes of the Lord figuratively like spotlights (as the word is used in Num. 8:2, cf. 18:28, 31:16, 67:1, etc.) that would turn towards him and light up the dark, mysterious surroundings that David is experiencing and give David understanding of where he’s at and what he can do.
o At any rate, David is begging for some sign that he is not forsaken by the God to whom he has dedicated his whole life.
· And David gives God two reasons:
o First: “God, if you don’t pay me some attention, I’m going to die.”
o And second: “God, if you don’t do something quick, my enemy is going to be happy and think he won.”
· Now, on the one hand, this seems manipulative: God doesn’t really get into pickles; He’s not going to panic and have to change His plans if you die; and we can’t really tell Him what’s going to happen or prove to Him that His plans were faulty. He never takes His loving gaze off of us.
· On the other hand, if we are faced with scary prospects, there is something to reasoning backward from what we know is not God’s will and praying for the opposite. It looks to David like bad guys are attempting to kill him, but David knows it is not God’s will for him to die at this point,
o perhaps because God has not yet fulfilled His promise to make David king,
o or perhaps because God has not yet fulfilled His promise to give David a descendant to carry on the line of the Messiah.
o Or perhaps he just knows that this victory would be interpreted by a godless enemy as confirmation that God did not exist or that God did not care about His people,
o So David reasonably concludes that it must be God’s will to deliver him from this particular threat on his life, and he argues this before God in his prayer.
· “[D]istress has in it a kind of claim upon compassion, not a claim of right, but a plea which has power with grace… Note the cry of faith, ‘O Lord my God!’ Is it not a very glorious fact that our interest in our God is not destroyed by all our trials and sorrows? We may lose our gourds, but not our God. The title-deed of heaven is not written in the sand, but in eternal brass.” ~Spurgeon
· The word Hebrew word מּוֹט that ends v.4 has to do with “shaking” that puts things “out of their proper place,” and indeed the word צָרַי for “adversaries/ foes/ troublers” is the same word used in Psalm three[4] to describe Absalom’s coalition that “overthrew” David[5].
· The Hebrew word translated “prevailed/overcome” is the word yakal which, at root, means “to be able to.” It paints the picture of a contest over proving who is more “able” – the king whose God is the Lord or the king who ignores God’s law.
o Whoever prevails in this contest is proving that their God is better.
o This is no simple athletic contest or petty rivalry; this is about whose God is better, and that is why it is appropriate for David to pray for God to intervene.
o David turns this whole situation from it being all about whether or not he stays in power into an opportunity for God to prove how much greater He is than other gods.
o That way God gets the glory when he overcomes! “[O]ur salvation and God's honour are so intimately connected, that they stand or fall together,” wrote Spurgeon.
o So, are there ways that you can frame your challenges so that they become opportunities for God to be glorified rather than you merely defending yourself?
o I’m reminded of The Pineapple Story told by Otto Koning, missionary to Papua New Guinea, how the natives kept stealing his pineapples. It got to where Mr. Koning hated the people he was supposed to be serving because they kept stealing this fruit from his garden. So he found his solution by formally giving his pineapple garden to God and re-framing the issue. He became a caretaker for God’s garden, and when the natives stole pineapples, they were no longer stealing Mr. Konin’s pineapples, they were stealing God’s pineapples, and it was God’s business to defend His own glory. And defend it He did. Every woman in the village became barren until the men of the village asked God to forgive them of their sin of stealing God’s pineapples! Thus God’s glory was revealed.
· The enemy’s goal here was to overthrow David; that is what would make them rejoice if they could achieve it. David’s goal is to experience salvation by God; that is what will make him rejoice. What is it that would make your heart rejoice? What is your goal?
· David has emphatically trusted in God’s חַסְדְּ/ mercy/ lovingkindness/ steadfast/ unfailing love –
o that chesed mentioned in Psalm 5:7 by which he would enter God’s house and worship while the wicked would be destroyed and abhorred[6],
o that chesed mentioned in Psalm 6:4 which would save him from God’s wrath against his sin and deliver his soul into God’s presence[7].
o This is basically the gospel in the Old Testament which was believed by the saints of old and by which they were saved.
o This chesed was especially associated with covenantal relationships. Gerald Wilson explains in his commentary on the Psalms, “The covenant partner who demonstrates enduring loyalty to the covenant relationship and faithfully fulfills his covenant obligations, not because he is forced to but because of a sense of commitment to the relationship – such a person is said to do chesed.”
o That’s what God does, and that’s what David trusts in.
· Now, at the beginning of the psalm, David asked God, “How long?” But we have no indication that God revealed to David the answer to his question.
o God usually doesn’t answer that sort of question.
o If you find yourself saying something like that to God, you’re probably being like that dog who is chasing squirrels and finds himself barking up the wrong tree. There ain’t no squirrel there anymore, and barking certainly ain’t bringing him back.
· But here in the latter part of the psalm, David hits upon the answer to the problem: The answer to “How long?” is “I trust.”
o I have placed my trust in God in the past, so “though He slay me, yet will I worship Him” (Job 13:15).
o I have placed my trust in God, therefore He is my God and I am His charge, and nothing is going to change the fact of that relationship I have with Him, no matter what kind of crazy circumstances I find myself in, He is still my God.
o And furthermore, I have trusted in God, so I will rejoice in His salvation and sing His praises.
§ (Once again the fact that there are only two verb tenses in Hebrew makes it a matter of interpretation whether David is speaking of a future time when he will sing and rejoice after he has seen the completion of his salvation and the fullness of God’s blessings,
§ or if, as the NIV puts it[8], David is even now rejoicing in God’s salvation even though He hasn’t seen the fullness of it yet because he is confident that it will come for him.
o Joy and peace come by believing,(Rom 15:13 Now the God of hope will fill you with all joy and peace as you believe, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.” 1 Peter 1:8b-9 “though you do not see Him now, but believe in Him, you greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, obtaining as the outcome of your faith the salvation of your souls.” NASB)
o As we trust in God’s covenant love for us, we will find ourselves able to persevere and even to rejoice and sing!
· “[How long will You forget? was] a peevish expression of prevailing fear, which yet, when it arises from a high esteem and earnest desire of God's favour, though it be indecent and culpable, shall be passed by and pardoned, for the second thought [“He has dealt bountifully with me”] will retract it and repent of it” ~Matthew Henry
· The Hebrew word gamal, translated “dealt bountifully/been good to” occurs most frequently in the context of “weaning” a child, and, in a few cases of “ripening” a grape. Also in a few cases it indicates business dealings.
o So it is a relationship word, not merely indicating that there has been a good thing done, but that there have been transactions over time which have benefitted you and satisfied you.
o Later in Psalm 119:17, David explains what happens when God “gamals” someone in His service: “Deal bountifully with Your servant, That I may live and keep Your word” (NASB). God is good if I’m still living and obeying Him; that’s good enough for me.
o Isaiah 63:7 also mentions God’s “gamalling” in terms of compassion and lovingkindness “awarded” to His people, “I will cause to remember the lovingkindnesses of Jehovah, the praises of Jehovah, as upon everything which Jehovah has awarded us, even the great goodness to the house of Israel which He awarded according to His compassions and according to the greatness of His lovingkindness:” (NAW)
· “What a surprising change is here in a few lines! In the beginning of the psalm we have him drooping, trembling, and ready to sink into melancholy and despair; but, in the close of it, rejoicing in God, and elevated and enlarged in his praises. See the power of faith, the power of prayer, and how good it is to draw near to God. If we bring our cares and griefs to the throne of grace, and leave them there, we may go away like Hannah, and our countenance will be no more sad, 1Sam. 1:18.” ~Matthew Henry
· “All God's people should here begin the work of praise, and so tune their souls to immortal songs” (Plumer).
· One of the lessons of this psalm is that when we find ourselves at the end of our rope, we need to be patient. “God's time of deliverance is commonly further off than man's ignorance esteems best… We must guard our souls against the great error of inferring refusal from postponement of deliverance. We must give God his time… How marvellous it is that God should often permit his people to be for a time under the power of cruel, tyrannical husbands, parents, masters and rulers... Daniel and his pious cotemporaries must live under those capricious Chaldean monarchs. Abigail lives with a husband, who is such a son of Belial that a man cannot speak a word to him. Such is the school, where the saints are often disciplined for usefulness and even for glory. Intolerable hardship leads to bliss and victory… Blessed be the name of God, he never leaves himself without witness, nor permits his people to be tempted beyond what they are able to bear.” ~Plumer
· But when we are tempted to fear that God has abandoned us, tempted to sink into depression, despairing that we can hold out any longer through difficulty, we need to bring our case before God in prayer, just like David did and open the conversation with God.
· God may not tell us how much longer we will have to endure, but He will give us grace to endure[9].
o When my wife and I teach childbirth education classes, we can’t tell anybody how long they will be in labor because each birth is unique and the time can vary widely. All we can do is explain the big picture of the process of birth and teach the coaches and mothers to persevere through one contraction at a time. “Can you do one more contraction? Just one more.”
o In the Christian life, it comes down to, “Do I trust Jesus?” “Will I trust Him one more day?” “Yes, I trust in your unfailing love!”
· Finally David provides a powerful example of reviewing God’s past mercies to fight present anxieties,
o The final phrase of this psalm is, “for He has dealt bountifully with me.”
o After you have opened the conversation with God and affirmed your trust in Him, conclude by reviewing past blessings from God.
o What family and friends has He given you?
o How many meals have you eaten this week?
o Where did you sleep last night?
o What sins has He delivered you from?
o What did Jesus do for you?
o The singing and rejoicing flow right out of that!
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Psalm 13 |
NAW |
KJV |
NKJV |
ESV |
NASB |
NIV |
LXX |
Brenton |
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(א) לַמְנַצֵּחַ מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד. (ב) עַד אָנָה יְהוָה תִּשְׁכָּחֵנִי נֶצַח עַד אָנָה תַּסְתִּיר אֶת פָּנֶיךָ מִמֶּנִּי. |
1. For the concertmaster; a psalm belonging to David. How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me indefinitely? How long will You hide your face from me? |
1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me? |
1 To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? |
1 To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? |
1 For the choir director. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? |
1 For the director of music. A psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me? |
1 Εἰς τὸ τέλος· ψαλμὸς τῷ Δαυιδ. Ἕως πότε, κύριε, ἐπιλήσῃ μου εἰς τέλος; ἕως πότε ἀποστρέψεις τὸ πρόσωπόν σου ἀπ᾿ ἐμοῦ; |
1 For the end, a Psalm of David. How long, O Lord, wilt thou forget me? for ever? how long wilt thou turn away thy face from me? |
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(ג) עַד אָנָה אָשִׁית עֵצוֹת בְּנַפְשִׁי יָגוֹן בִּלְבָבִי יוֹמָם עַד אָנָה יָרוּם אֹיְבִי עָלָי. |
2. How long will I [have to] put advice into my soul, will there be sorrowful in my heart daily? How long will my enemy rise above me? |
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? |
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? |
2 How long must I take counsel in my soul [and have] sorrow in my heart all the day? How long shall my enemy be exalted over me? |
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart all the day? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? |
2 How
long must I |
2 ἕως τίνος θήσομαι βουλὰς ἐν ψυχῇ μου, ὀδύνας ἐν καρδίᾳ μου ἡμέρας; ἕως πότε ὑψωθήσεται ὁ ἐχθρός μου ἐπ᾿ ἐμέ; |
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrows in my heart daily? how long shall my enemy be exalted over me? |
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(ד) הַבִּיטָה עֲנֵנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהָי הָאִירָה עֵינַי פֶּן אִישַׁן הַמָּוֶת. |
3. Look this way; answer me, Yahweh my God, cause there to be light toward my eyes, otherwise I will sleep the [sleep of] death. |
3 Consider and |
3 Consider and |
3 Consider [and] answer me, O LORD my God; light up my eyes, lest I sleep the [sleep of] death, |
3 Consider and answer me, O LORD my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death, |
3 Look on me [and] answer, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep [in] death; |
3 ἐπίβλεψον, εἰσάκουσόν μου, κύριε ὁ θεός μου· φώτισον τοὺς ὀφθαλμούς μου, μήποτε ὑπνώσω [εἰς] θάνατον, |
3 Look on me, hearken to me, O Lord my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep in death; |
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(ה) פֶּן יֹאמַר אֹיְבִי יְכָלְתִּיו צָרַי יָגִילוּ כִּי אֶמּוֹט. |
4. Otherwise my enemy will say, “I have bested him!” My adversaries will rejoice that I am overthrown. |
4 Lest mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him; and those that trouble me rejoice when I am moved. |
4 Lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed against him"; Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. |
4 lest my enemy say, "I have prevailed over him," [lest] my foes rejoice because I am shaken. |
4 |
4 X my enemy will say, "I have overcome him," [and] my foes will rejoice when I fall. |
4 μήποτε εἴπῃ ὁ ἐχθρός μου Ἴσχυσα πρὸς αὐτόν· οἱ θλίβοντές με ἀγαλλιάσονται, ἐὰν σαλευθῶ. |
4 lest at any time mine enemy say, I have prevailed against him: my persecutors will exult if ever I should be moved. |
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(ו) וַאֲנִי בְּחַסְדְּךָ בָטַחְתִּי יָגֵל לִבִּי בִּישׁוּעָתֶךָ |
5. But as for me, it is in Your lovingkindness that I have trusted. My heart will rejoice in Your salvation. |
5 But I have trusted in thy mercy; my heart shall rejoice in thy salvation. |
5 But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. |
5 But I have trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in your salvation. |
5 But I have trusted in Your lovingkindness; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. |
5 But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. |
5 ἐγὼ δὲ ἐπὶ τῷ ἐλέει σου ἤλπισα, ἀγαλλιάσεται ἡ καρδία μου ἐπὶ τῷ σωτηρίῳ σου· |
5 But I have hoped in thy mercy; my heart shall exult in thy salvation. |
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אָשִׁירָה לַיהוָה כִּי גָמַל עָלָי. |
6. I will sing to Yahweh because He has conducted business satisfactorily by me. |
6 I will sing unto the LORD, because he hath dealt bountifully with me. |
6 I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me. |
6 I will sing to the LORD, because he has dealt bountifully with me. |
6 I will sing to the LORD, Because He has dealt bountifully with me. |
6 I will sing to the LORD, for he has been good to me. |
6 ᾄσω τῷ κυρίῳ τῷ εὐεργετήσαντί με [καὶ ψαλῶ τῷ ὀνόματι κυρίου τοῦ ὑψίστου.] |
6 I will sing to the Lord who has dealt bountifully with me, [and I will sing psalms to the name of the Lord most high.] |
[1] Somehow a phrase got tagged on to the end of the Septuagint Greek translation of this psalm early on: “and I will psalm the name of the Lord Most High.” If I’m reading Field’s Origenis Hexaplorum correctly, in the 300’s Origen noted that it was not in the Hebrew text of the psalm, but that it was in some Greek versions, then Jerome included it in the Vulgate a few hundred years later, perhaps based on this. It doesn’t add anything novel, though, since it is a repeat of the ending of Psalm 7.
[2] According to Boice.
[3] Calvin thought yomam meant not “all day” but “every day,” and that was my conclusion as well.
[4] Ps. 3:1. A Psalm belonging to David during his flight from the presence of Absalom his son: Yahweh, how have my oppressors become [so] many? Many are rising up against me! 2. Many are saying to my soul, “There is no salvation for him in God.” Selah (NAW)
[5] Theodoret advocated for this position, and it holds a lot of merit, but probably can’t be proved for sure. Rashi and Kimchi took the speaker to be Israel at another time.
[6] Ps. 5:6-7 You will destroy speakers of falsehood; a man of bloodshed and deceit Yahweh will abhor. But as for me, through an abundance of your lovingkindness I will go to Your house (NAW)
[7] Ps. 6: 4. Return, Yahweh! Snatch away my soul; save me because of Your lovingkindness. (NAW)
[8] The French L2 is the only version besides the NIV that I’ve seen which places these verbs in the present tense. A couple of commentators opted for a cohortative sense, “Let me rejoice… let me sing.” All others I have seen opted for future tense, including Calvin, KJV, Plumer, NASB, NKJV, ESV, Spanish RVR, LXX, Aramaic, and Vulgate, and I think justifiably so.
[9] Hebrews 6:11 “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence so as to realize the full assurance of hope until the end,” James 5:7 “Therefore be patient, brethren, until the coming of the Lord.” Revelation 2:25 ‘Nevertheless what you have, hold fast until I come’ (NASB).