In the words of H. Gunkel, the pioneer of form-critical study of the Psalms, Psalm 13 is “the model of a ‘lament of the individual’ . . . , in which the individual components of the genre step forth most clearly” (Einleitung in die Psalmen [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1933], p. 46). It exhibits a compact, tightly woven structure.

13:1–2 The opening lament names all the parties involved in the distress: Yahweh, the speaker, and the speaker’s opponents. The psalm gives worshipers occasion to lament their foes’ having the upper hand (v. 2b) and their personal grief (v. 2a). Hardship often causes introspection that amounts to “spinning one’s wheels”: How long must I wrestle with my thoughts? Questions of guilt and longing to change the past plague the mind. But the psalm also goes a st…