Consider and hear me, O LORD my God: lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death;
Parallel translations
- WEB Behold, and answer me, Yahweh, my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death;
- BSB Consider me and respond, O LORD my God. Give light to my eyes, lest I sleep in death,
- NKJV Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
- NASB ¶Consider and answer me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, or I will sleep the sleep of death,
- NLT Turn and answer me, O Lord my God! Restore the sparkle to my eyes, or I will die.
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 pleads for God to answer and give light to his eyes, lest he die. He prays for God's reviving intervention.
Overview
Turning from complaint to petition, David asks God to look on him and restore his strength, picturing renewed life as light to the eyes. 'Lest I sleep in death' shows how near despair has brought him. The prayer for light anticipates Christ, the light of the world who gives life to those in darkness.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 15
- Ezra 9:8And now for a little space grace hath been shewed from the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant to escape, and to give us a nail in his holy place, that our God may lighten our eyes, and give us a little reviving in our bondage.
- Ps 18:28For thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.
- Jer 51:39In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice, and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the LORD.
- 1 Sam 14:29Then said Jonathan, My father hath troubled the land: see, I pray you, how mine eyes have been enlightened, because I tasted a little of this honey.
- Ps 5:1Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation.
- 1 Sam 14:27But Jonathan heard not when his father charged the people with the oath: wherefore he put forth the end of the rod that was in his hand, and dipped it in an honeycomb, and put his hand to his mouth; and his eyes were enlightened.
- Ps 25:19Consider mine enemies; for they are many; and they hate me with cruel hatred.
- Ps 9:13Have mercy upon me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death:
- Ps 31:7I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities;
- Lam 5:1Remember, O LORD, what is come upon us: consider, and behold our reproach.
- Ps 119:153Consider mine affliction, and deliver me: for I do not forget thy law.
- Jer 51:57And I will make drunk her princes, and her wise men, her captains, and her rulers, and her mighty men: and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the King, whose name is the LORD of hosts.
- Luke 2:32A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.
- Eph 5:14Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light.
- Rev 21:23And the city had no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to shine in it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
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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 13:3 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.