Start here · day 13 of 14 · Justice, mercy, and the bad days
נֶפֶשׁ
Two psalms, for two kinds of day
Psalm 23, then Psalm 13
First, read it
Psalm 23, then Psalm 13
Read it before the notes below. They are worth more once you have your own impression of it.
Open Psalm 23, then Psalm 13Then, the idea
Psalm 23 is the one people know. The LORD is my shepherd. Green pastures, still waters, a table set in front of enemies. Read it slowly; it is shorter than you remember.
Then read Psalm 13, which almost nobody quotes. It starts: how long will you forget me, O LORD? For ever? It is an accusation, and it is in the same book.
That is the point worth taking. This is not a collection of good moods. The people who kept these prayers kept the angry ones too, and used them.
One word of Hebrew
נֶפֶשׁ
nefesh — soul, throat, life, appetite
'He restoreth my soul' — but nefesh is also the throat, the part of you that gets thirsty. It means the whole living self, not a spirit trapped inside a body.
And one question
Is there room, where you are, to say the thirteenth psalm out loud?
Nobody is marking this. Sit with it on the way to work.