Scripture Daily

Context No. 694 of 4322 · Psalms

Context · Reflection

Psalms 44:1-16: in context

1We have heard with our ears, God; our fathers have told us what work you did in their days, in the days of old. 2You drove out the nations with your hand, but you planted them. You afflicted the peoples, but you spread them abroad. 3For they didn’t get the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them; but your right hand, your arm, and the light of your face, because you were favorable to them. 4God, you are my King. Command victories for Jacob! 5Through you, we will push down our adversaries. Through your name, we will tread down those who rise up against us. 6For I will not trust in my bow, neither will my sword save me. 7But you have saved us from our adversaries, and have shamed those who hate us. 8In God we have made our boast all day long. We will give thanks to your name forever. Selah. 9But now you rejected us, and brought us to dishonor, and don’t go out with our armies. 10You make us turn back from the adversary. Those who hate us take plunder for themselves. 11You have made us like sheep for food, and have scattered us among the nations. 12You sell your people for nothing, and have gained nothing from their sale. 13You make us a reproach to our neighbors, a scoffing and a derision to those who are around us. 14You make us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples. 15All day long my dishonor is before me, and shame covers my face, 16at the taunt of one who reproaches and verbally abuses, because of the enemy and the avenger.

Psalm 44 is a prayer of the whole people, and it opens by remembering. We have heard with our ears, it says, what you did in the days of old; you drove out the nations and planted our fathers in the land. And it is careful to say how: not by their own sword or their own arm, but by your right hand and the light of your face. On that memory it builds a confession of trust. You are my King; I will not trust in my bow, and my sword will not save me. It is exactly the faith the rest of scripture asks for.

And then, at verse 9, the psalm wheels around and accuses God to his face. But now you have rejected us and put us to shame; you do not go out with our armies; you make us retreat, and hand us over like sheep for the slaughter, scattered among the nations, a byword and a reproach. What makes this lament different from most is that it does not confess a sin to explain the disaster. It insists the people have been faithful, and still they are crushed. Paul would later lift one of its lines, we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered, and press it into more than conquerors. But the psalm itself does not get there. It stays in the hard place, still calling God King, and still demanding to know why he has left.

The psalm keeps its faith and its accusation in the same breath, and refuses to pretend the defeat was deserved. When trouble comes that I did not earn, can I pray that honestly, without either blaming myself falsely or letting God off?

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