The psalm's superscription identifies it as "A Prayer of one afflicted, when he is faint and pours out his complaint before the LORD." Before a single word of complaint is uttered, the psalmist fires six rapid imperatives at God — a compressed, desperate invocation that tells us as much about the theology of prayer as it does about the psalmist's distress.
The text (ESV):
Hear my prayer, O LORD; let my cry come to you! Do not hide your face from me in the day of my distress! Incline your ear to me; answer me speedily in the day when I call!
The six imperatives, in order:
1. "Hear" (שִׁמְעָה, shim'ah) — The foundational petition. This is not a request that God physically perceive sound but that He attend to it with covenant responsiveness. The cohortative-lengthened form (the final -ah) adds urgency — it is a more emphatic, pleading form of the imperative. The psalmist's first instinct in affliction is to assert that God is a hearing God and to call Him to act consistently with that character.
2. "Let [my cry] come" (תָּבוֹא, tavo') — A jussive functioning as a second imperative. The psalmist asks not only that God hear but that his cry be granted access into the divine presence. The image is spatial: the prayer must travel from earth and arrive before the throne. This reflects an awareness that sin and divine hiddenness can obstruct the path of prayer, and the psalmist asks God to remove every barrier so that his שַׁוְעָה (shav'ah, "cry for help") reaches its destination.
3. "Do not hide [your face]" (אַל־תַּסְתֵּר, 'al-taster) — The single negative imperative (prohibitive) in the sequence. The "face" of God is the concentrated biblical metaphor for His favorable, attentive presence. A hidden face means wrath, abandonment, or covenantal displeasure (cf. Deuteronomy 31:17; Psalm 13:1; Isaiah 54:8). The psalmist is not asking God to begin something new but to refrain from doing the one thing that would make prayer meaningless — withdrawing His presence. The qualifying phrase "in the day of my distress" (בְּיוֹם צַר לִי) implies that this is precisely the moment when God's face is most needed and most feared to be absent.
4. "Incline [your ear]" (הַטֵּה, hatteh) — The image shifts from face to ear. "Incline" means to bend or stretch downward — the psalmist pictures God stooping to listen, as a parent leans down to hear a child's whisper. This is anthropomorphic language at its most tender: the infinite God is asked to close the distance. Combined with "your ear" (אָזְנֶךָ), this imperative asks for focused, deliberate attention — not a general awareness that someone is speaking, but the posture of one who means to catch every word.
5. "Hasten" / "Be swift" (מַהֵר, maher) — Often rendered adverbially in English ("speedily"), but in the Hebrew this is a distinct imperative verb: make haste. The psalmist has asked God to hear, to grant access, not to hide, and to lean in — now he asks for speed. This is the imperative of urgency. The affliction is not theoretical or eventual; it is present ("in the day when I call," בְּיוֹם אֶקְרָא). The psalmist cannot wait for an answer that arrives after the crisis has consumed him.
6. "Answer me" (עֲנֵנִי, 'aneni) — The climactic imperative. Everything converges here. Hearing, access, presence, attention, and speed are all means to this end: an actual divine response. עָנָה ('anah) in the Psalter is not merely verbal reply but God's active intervention — His deliverance, His rescue, His doing something about the situation. This is the goal of the entire invocation.
The Logic of the Sequence. The six imperatives move from perception (hear) → access (let my cry come) → presence (do not hide) → attention (incline) → urgency (hasten) → response (answer). They progressively close the distance between the afflicted psalmist and the God he believes is both able and obligated by covenant to respond. The theology embedded in this invocation is profound: the psalmist commands God — not from presumption but from covenant confidence. He knows the character of the God to whom he prays, and every imperative is an appeal to that character.
Logic sequence (one sentence): The prayer moves from asking God to notice (hear), to receive (let my cry come), to stay present (do not hide), to pay close attention (incline), to move fast (hasten), and finally to intervene (answer).