How long, Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
Parallel translations
- WEB For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David. How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever? How long will you hide your face from me?
- KJV How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
- BSB For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
- NKJV How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
- NLT O Lord, how long will you forget me? Forever? How long will you look the other way?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
David cries, 'How long, Yahweh? Will you forget me forever?' He laments God's seeming forgetfulness and hidden face.
Overview
Psalm 13 opens with the fourfold 'how long' of a soul in prolonged distress, feeling forgotten by God. This honest lament shows that faith may wrestle with God's apparent absence without abandoning Him. Such prayers give believers language for seasons when God seems far, while still addressing Him in trust.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Job 13:24Why hide you your face, and hold me for your enemy?
- Lam 5:20Why do you forget us forever, And forsake us so long time?
- Ps 89:46How long, Yahweh? Will you hide yourself forever? Will your wrath burn like fire?
- Ps 94:3–4Yahweh, how long will the wicked, how long will the wicked triumph?
- Ps 22:1–2For the Chief Musician; set to “The Doe of the Morning.” A Psalm by David. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
- Ps 80:4Yahweh God of Armies, How long will you be angry against the prayer of your people?
- Ps 44:24Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?
- Ps 35:17Lord, how long will you look on? Rescue my soul from their destruction, my precious life from the lions.
- Ps 6:3My soul is also in great anguish. But you, Yahweh — how long?
- Ps 74:1A contemplation by Asaph. God, why have you rejected us forever? Why does your anger smolder against the sheep of your pasture?
- Ps 10:12Arise, Yahweh! God, lift up your hand! Don’t forget the helpless.
- Ps 85:5Will you be angry with us forever? Will you draw out your anger to all generations?
- Isa 59:2But your iniquities have separated you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.
- Ps 90:14Satisfy us in the morning with your loving kindness, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
- Deut 31:17Then my anger shall be kindled against them in that day, and I will forsake them, and I will hide my face from them, and they shall be devoured, and many evils and troubles shall come on them; so that they will say in that day, ‘Haven’t these evils come on us because our God is not among us?’
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Hebrew/Greek interlinear, word definitions, and cross-references for this verse.
Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 13:1 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.