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Great theological experience of the efficacy of prayer (Ps 13)
Stipe Jurič
Abstract
Ps 13 is the lamentation of the great sufferer and it is unique in the
psalter in beginning with an extremely forceful, almost desperate plea to Yahweh to intervene in his life. The four questions "how long?" adumbrates the seriousness of the problem. The terrible distress which he laments is probably the fear of death and absence of God. Yahweh has turned his face from him. The approach of death makes more accute the sense of God's distance, particulary for one who had known the confldence of his presence. Yet even in this desolation, the trusting believer cannot but help calling on God who is absent. So he moves from utter hopelessness and despair (vv. 2-3)
to prayer for deliverance from deadly peril (vv. 4-5), and finally to the expression of confldence and praise (v.6). This article raises a question about often-held conclusions in psalms studies: (1) that the supliant is asking for an oracul of salvation through a cultic prophet, and (2) that the "I" who speaks in the psalms is not an individual, but a personification of the community. The autor has tried to show: (1) that the content of the psalm does not give any explicit clue as to its
association with the cult, and that it did not araise in worship, but originated as a literary work; (2) that it was written out of the personal expirience of a pious Israelite and therefore is related to a specific person and bound to his presonal history. It deals with his needs, desires and hopes. The tone is quite familiar, even importunate.
Then the autor has tried to bring out the religious meaning of this praver in fear, followed by hope, which is the praver of ordinary man at odds with ordinary life and thus an edifying meditation. Its poetry expresses the most profound human feelings and insights: lament, prayer and praise. The effect of the afilicted man's praver, who is forgotten by God, which is a form of reaction of the sensitive human soul to a God who is both above and near, is to be seen in the actual, abrupt change from pitiful complaint against God to confident, jovful gratitude for deliverance. The speaker is convinced that God has shown him His goodness. The accused God has now become the praised God.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
52299
URI
Publication date:
21.9.1995.
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