“How long, o Lord?”: from the cry of suffering to trust in the Lord in times of crisis and pandemic in the light of Psalm 13

Abstract

Inserted in Book I of the Psalter (Ps 3–41), Ps 13 is an individual lamentation in which the psalmist presents all his suffering before the Lord, pleads, and, finally, expresses his trust in the Lord. The observation of syntactic, semantic and stylistic elements facilitates the determination of its structure in three sections: in the first (Ps 13.1-3), after the title (v. 1), the lament is presented (Ps 13.2-3), which is heard before the Lord through the repeated and emphatic question “how long, o Lord?”; in the second (Ps 13.4-5), the psalmist raises his plea (Ps 13.4abc) and expresses the motivation for this request for help (Ps 13.4d-5c); in the third (Ps 13.6), there is a declaration of trust and praise, given to the Lord, who works in his life. The elements of section II seem to mirror section I. And, in general, this Psalm, which is a model of the Psalms of lamentation, reveals the movement established in the life of the person praying: the cry for help and a situation of torment (Ps 13.2-3) towards the definitive exit from this state of deep crisis. In the end, feeling heard by the Lord, the psalmist raises his “hymn of praise” sung in brief words (Ps 13,6cd), but grounded in the safe and firm action of the Lord. For all these reasons, Ps 13 presents itself as an important path of prayer for the human being who lives in the midst of crises in this time of the pandemic.