Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 43 · February 12
How Long
“How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?”
How long wilt thou forget me, O LORD? for ever? how long wilt thou hide thy face from me?
Four times in two verses. How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily? how long shall mine enemy be exalted over me? It is a question about duration, asked by somebody who has given up on an explanation and would settle for an end date.
That is what long trouble does to the vocabulary. Early on people ask why. Later they ask how long, the smaller question and the worse one, because asking it concedes that the thing is now a climate.
David is asking God to forget having forgotten him. Two of the four are about God himself, his memory and his face, and the face in the Psalms means attention, being looked at by someone. Forgetting and hiding are deliberate acts, and he assigns both to God, in a prayer Israel sang in company.
The rest of Scripture leaves the question open. Habakkuk starts his book with it: O LORD, how long shall I cry, and thou wilt not hear! And at the far end of the Bible the martyrs under the altar are still asking, already safe, already given white robes: How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? They are told to rest yet for a little season. That is the answer they get, and it is not a number.
Ask it in his grammar. How long has this been going on, and have you said so to him, out loud, in those words?
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 43 is Shelter and Tower (Psalm 61:3).