Psalm 28 · a question people ask
"If you are silent to me" (28:1). Is God ever silent when people pray?
Psalm 28 fears it, and then says, "he has heard the voice of my petitions" (28:6). Other verses speak of both. Four other psalms ask God with the same two Hebrew words as 28:1's don't be deaf: "Don’t keep silent" (Psalm 35:22), "Don’t be silent at my tears" (Psalm 39:12), "Don’t keep silent, and don’t be still, God" (Psalm 83:1), and "God of my praise, don’t remain silent" (Psalm 109:1) (tap deaf). Psalm 22 says, "My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don’t answer" (Psalm 22:2). In Isaiah 42, after "The LORD will go out like a mighty man" (Isaiah 42:13), the words go on in the first person: "I have been silent a long time. I have been quiet and restrained myself" (Isaiah 42:14). There silent is the verb of Psalm 28:1's silent, and quiet is the verb of Psalm 28:1's deaf. And Psalm 31 looks back on a time the psalmist said, "I am cut off from before your eyes" (Psalm 31:22), and goes on, "Nevertheless you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you" (Psalm 31:22). These verses stand side by side in Scripture, and these notes don't choose how they fit together.
The verses
“By David. To you, LORD, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me, lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit.”
“Blessed be the LORD, because he has heard the voice of my petitions.”
“You have seen it, LORD. Don’t keep silent. Lord, don’t be far from me.”
““Hear my prayer, LORD, and give ear to my cry. Don’t be silent at my tears. For I am a stranger with you, a foreigner, as all my fathers were.”