Psalm 44

To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah. 

1 O God, we have heard with our ears, our fathers have told us, what deeds you performed in their days, in the days of old:

The first communal lament of the Psalter begins with a recitation of God’s saving acts on behalf of his people. It reminds us of this important fact about the Jewish religion. It is a religion that is rooted in history, not philosophical or theological propositions. This is true of Christianity as well, making them unique among world religions. (Islam has some of this because it borrowed heavily from Christianity and Judaism, but it is in essence more propositional than historical). There is plenty of philosophy and theology in the scriptures, but these are communicated through narrative and poetry that is rooted in historical events. Hence the psalmist begins by recalling the stories that have formed Israel as a nation. These stories were passed down from generation to generation through the smallest but most powerful unit of culture: the family. My parents taught me what God has done in history and I have taught my children as well. This is the way that it is supposed to work in a healthy culture. The psalmist recalls hearing the stories, whether that was around the table at Passover or in weekly Sabbath worship gatherings. To quote Rich Mullins, “stories like that make a man grow bold, stories like that make a man walk straight.” The psalmist is such a man because of these stories. How are you doing at telling these stories? When was the last time you told them to your children or to anyone for that matter? Sometimes as we age in the faith we tend to focus on the doctrines and theology to the neglect of the story. When the psalmist is in despair, as he is in this psalm, he remembers the stories. In this psalm, these stories from the past will clash with the psalmist’s present, but this is where he begins nonetheless, with a statement of God’s essential nature in light of his past deeds. Suffering can tempt us to doubt God’s essential nature, but in those moments let us, like the psalmist, remember what God has done for us in the past, his grace and presence ultimately expressed to us in Jesus. 

2 you with your own hand drove out the nations, but them you planted; you afflicted the peoples, but them you set free;

3 for not by their own sword did they win the land, nor did their own arm save them, but your right hand and your arm, and the light of your face, for you delighted in them.

The two primary events that formed Israel as a nation are alluded to in these verses. The exodus and the conquest were two of the most improbable events in ancient history. Consider what we are asked to believe: an enslaved population managed to overthrow their captors, wander in the wilderness for forty years, and then proceeded to wipe out one walled city-state after another while having no military experience or tradition. It’s not too hard to see why sceptics reject both of these events and look for other explanations for the origins of the Jewish people. The “scholarly” assumption is that these stories developed centuries later as tall tale origin stories. The problem is that they are the best stories to fit the facts. How else do you explain the migration of a vast group of people from slavery in Egypt into dominance in a hostile land? The psalmist certainly believed that these stories were true. God drove out the nations before them and planted Israel in their land. God afflicted the Egyptians but set Israel free. The powerful fled and the captives were set free. It is a turn of fate that can only be explained by the hand of God. It was an act of God’s power and grace that created and then saved his people. This text is the gospel in a nutshell. God’s own right hand and arm (Jesus) set us free and gave us the land. The reason God acted was simply that he delighted in us. It was an act of his grace, not anything we had done. Elsewhere in scripture, the “light of his face” is an expression of God’s favor and it is invoked in the priestly face, “May the LORD make his face shine upon you.” Thus the psalmist begins his complaint with a solid statement of confidence in God’s power and grace expressed in authentic historical actions. And so our story with Jesus begins as well, rooted in our own experience of encountering God’s grace in the person of Jesus, seeing the likeness of God revealed in the words and actions of Jesus as recorded in the gospels. He saved us by his own right hand and arm, not by anything we had done or could do. We were as powerless as the Hebrew slaves in Egypt, as weak as the homeless wanderers in the wilderness and yet God chose to set us free and set us up to rule in his kingdom. 

4 You are my King, O God; ordain salvation for Jacob!

5 Through you we push down our foes; through your name we tread down those who rise up against us.

The psalmist moves from third person to first person: “You are my King”, “through you we push down our foes...we tread down those who rise up against us.” He includes himself among God’s people and speaks of the victories of the community. With God’s help they have driven back enemies and stomped on those who have risen up against us. These sound like defensive actions -- Israel was generally not an expansionist regime. His prayer is simple, “command salvation for Jacob!” Typically telling God what to do is not a good idea, but this command is based on God’s past actions. Afterall God pushed down the Egyptians and trampled on the Canaanites on behalf of Jacob, why shouldn’t he do so now if he is to be consistent? The use of the name Jacob may just be done for poetic variation, it also may suggest youth, Jacob the child, more dependent on God than the adult version of the man who wrestled an angel. The language of treading down those who rise up against us reminds us of Jesus’ promise to his followers in Luke 10:19 -- they would trample on snakes and scorpions and overcome all the power of the enemy. As we will see, this lament of Israel would become a lament for the persecuted church (Paul quotes it as such in Romans 8:36). This can be our prayer today as citizens of God’s kingdom -- command salvation for your church, push down our foes, trample on our enemies. We don’t pray this in the political power grabbing sense, but we pray against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly realms. Often the Enemy will use peace and pleasure to have his way with us, and the church is oblivious to her peril. In this psalm the community of God faces an existential threat as well as an internal threat, an external threat from a superior military that has already slaughtered a good portion of the population and the internal threat that is a crisis of faith, why has God abandoned his people?

6 For not in my bow do I trust, nor can my sword save me.

7 But you have saved us from our foes and have put to shame those who hate us.

8 In God we have boasted continually, and we will give thanks to your name forever. Selah

The psalmist portrays himself as a soldier, one who carries a bow and sword. Yet he does not trust in these things. They cannot save him. The credit for salvation belongs entirely to God who has saved Israel from her foes and has put to shame those who hate her. Because of this, as a community we brag about God all the time and give thanks directly to him every day from now until the end of time. The confidence of this statement is stunning in the context of the remainder of the psalm which describes the complete lack of salvation from God and the utter shame that the nation feels before her enemies. The psalmist is making his strong case against God. These are his arguments: God has helped us in the past and we’ve expressed our gratitude. We’ve trusted in God as our defense against foreign invaders, even boasting of how we are invincible because of Him (just look at our glorious history). We have been faithful to God. Therefore, our stunning loss on the battlefield is unjust, it’s unfair. God has not held up his end of the bargain. We have been faithful to him and He has proven faithless to us. How can thi be? And what should be done about it? This is the cry of anyone that has experienced injustice through no fault of their own. Now Israel certainly wasn’t perfect, but the psalmist can’t think of a reason why God would abandon his covenant with the nation. When faced with tragedy and loss we always want to know the reason why. It’s a way of dealing with it in a logical way. It is the senseless tragedy that we cannot comprehend that causes us to question God and his ways. We can look back at this psalm and Israel’s history and see His hand at work even in tragedy. The same is true with tragedy today. In the midst of it there are no answers, there aren’t even any words. But looking back, we can often see the hand of God at work in surprising ways. I don’t expect that will comfort someone who’s experienced personal tragedy, but it does seem to be a thing that God does -- redeeming even our suffering for his ultimate glory and our ultimate good. 

9 But you have rejected us and disgraced us and have not gone out with our armies.

10 You have made us turn back from the foe, and those who hate us have gotten spoil.

The psalm takes a startling turn at this point. What has heretofore been a recitation of God as the Divine Warrior driving out nations before Israel and humbling the mighty Pharaoh transforms into a gut wrenching lament. The God who once went before the nation in battle has now stayed home, leaving the army marching into a trap. The psalmist speaking for the community describes their feelings of rejection and disgrace as they retreated before their enemies. There’s nothing more disheartening than a retreat. There had been prayers and parades as the king and his army marched out of the city of Jerusalem. They were regaled with stories of the great victories of the past and how they were invincible with God going before them. And yet here they were, turning their backs to the arrows of the enemy and scrambling for cover, leaving behind the wounded and dead, panicked and chaotic, anticipating the unimaginable horror that awaited them at the hands of their captors. Rather than returning to Jerusalem in victory, bringing the spoils with them, they will return exhausted and frantic, awaiting the arrival of an enemy that was thirsting for vengeance. They should have been collecting the spoils of battle, but now they are the spoils of battle. On top of everything else there is the theological question, “Why has God rejected us? What did we do to deserve this? How could God allow a pagan nation to triumph over his people?” What do we do when things don’t go as we plan them, when God disappoints, when we pray and pray and pray and our words seem to fall on deaf ears? This is the dilemma of the psalmist and the situation that many of us find ourselves in at various times in life. Note this, the psalmist hasn’t given up faith, and in fact, doesn’t throughout his entire lament. At the end of the psalm, his hope is still in God, even though he is disappointed in him. This is certainly one of the lessons of laments. They are not statements of unbelief. The psalmist never becomes an atheist. He is just honest with God and that apparently is okay -- it made it in the Bible, even though it is not a nice and neat story with a happy ending. In fact, we don’t know how this episode in the life of the nation ends exactly. We don’t even know what episode this is referring to. The Assyrian incursion into Israel in the late 8th century seems most likely, and it may be the context for this entire collection of Sons of Korah psalms (42-49). As is true with most laments, the lack of specifics makes the psalm more relatable to the reader who experiences similar feelings from a variety of causes. Rejected, disgraced, panicked, and fearful -- this is where this story begins, but it is not where it ends. 

11 You have made us like sheep for slaughter and have scattered us among the nations.

12 You have sold your people for a trifle, demanding no high price for them.

The psalmist makes several shocking accusations against God. The Lord who is the great shepherd has given his sheep for slaughter. It is the Hebrew word for “give” as well as the “sold for a trifle” that makes this accusation even more painful. It’s not as if the shepherd even valued his sheep. He gave them away. He sold them for pennies just to get them off his hands. And then they were slaughtered by the butcher to be consumed by the nations. It’s a graphic image that contrasts sharply with the pastoral image of Psalm 23. But this is how the psalmist feels about God -- worthless, abandoned, betrayed -- as if God could care less about his people. It’s striking that Paul picks up this verse and relates it to the suffering of the early church in Rome. They had already begun to experience persecution as a minority community in the Roman empire -- confiscation of property, unjust imprisonment, even executions -- and it was going to get worse. Paul’s point is that even though it feels like the Christians are being slaughtered (and will literally be fed to the lions for entertainment), the reality is that nothing can separate them from the love of God that is in Christ -- “conqueror” is not a strong enough word for what they are. Life or death, angels or principalities or powers, things present or things to come, height nor depth, or anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God. It is an all-encompassing reality that is true even in the midst of the slaughter. Paul takes his readers to this psalm and reminds them that even when Israel seemed to be abandoned by the Good Shepherd, they were not. They endured to this day and in fact God was working through their suffering to accomplish redemption for the entire world. He implores us to take the big picture view when dealing with suffering in our own lives. As Jesus reminds us, there are worse things than death (Luke 12:4-5 -- “Don’t be afraid of those who can only kill the body. Fear the One who has power to cast you into hell”). The worse thing that this world can do to you is slaughter you like a dumb animal. For the believer, this is early admission into the presence of Jesus. It’s a counterintuitive way of looking at the world, but it is what has enabled the kingdom to spread throughout the world. The blood of the martyrs has been the seed of the church. A group of people who have no fear of death are a mighty force. Paul turns this metaphor for weakness (slaughtered sheep) into one of insurmountable strength (more than conquerors). The psalmist isn’t there yet as he pours out his lament on behalf of the community. It’s hard to see the future when the present is so horrifying. We can look back and see that his prayer was ultimately answered in Jesus (some 700 years later?). Jesus is the answer to every prayer. He is “God with us” in every way. 

13 You have made us the taunt of our neighbors, the derision and scorn of those around us.

14 You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock [Hebrew a shaking of the head] among the peoples.

The psalmist focuses on the political cost of their apparent abandonment by God. The nation is now the subject of the taunting of the nations. They are literally a joke with people shaking their heads automatically at the mention of their names. “Those Israelites sure got slaughtered easily, not much of a fighting people, cowards all of them, retreating before the army. It’s no wonder, they don’t worship any gods, at least not any that we can see. Their invisible god didn’t seem to be of much help to them.” He can hear these and countless others in his head as he contemplates what seems to be the end of the nation. Could this be the end? Isn’t this how nations die, absorbed by their conquerors?  Note where he places the blame: “You have made us the taunt of our neighbors...You have made us a byword among the nations.” He is laying the responsibility fully on the shoulders of God. There is no reference to the behavior of the nation that might have led to this disaster. It is a theme that continues to the end of the psalm. This tragedy came completely out of the blue from the perspective of the psalmist. They were sucker punched by God and now they are the butt of jokes for it. It is the ultimate betrayal and the psalmist wants answers and action now. It never feels good to be laughed at. We have an inherent desire to fit in and be part of a community, even if it is a community of nations that we really don’t have much of an affinity with. Still it’s there. Peer pressure is a reality even on a global level. The desire to be liked and looked up to is universal, so anytime we’re embarrassed personally or communally there is a strong temptation to assimilate, to become what others want us to be. Israel is in this vulnerable state in this psalm, and they need to see that the truth of God trumps the taunts of the nations. Don’t listen to the taunts and jokes of those who don’t know God. Call out to Him, and in due time, He will answer. 

15 All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face

16 at the sound of the taunter and reviler, at the sight of the enemy and the avenger.

The psalmist moves his focus from the community to the individual with the reference to “my disgrace” and “my face”. He cannot escape it as it stares him in the face all day. In a shame/honor culture, shame is to be avoided at all costs. Saving face is one of the prime motivations for personal behavior. Even when he is not enduring direct taunts from his conquerors, just the sound of their voice and the sight of the presence is enough to send the psalmist into a tailspin of shame. He feels that his disgrace and shame are the result of God’s failure to protect, but deep down there is probably the nagging doubt about his own failure as well. Perhaps he did do something to deserve this. Perhaps he didn’t do enough to prevent it. These nagging questions plague anyone who has been a victim of crime, even though some of those questions are completely irrational. We are always looking for explanations as if a rational answer would satisfy us. When we are grieving such a loss, it is always before us and even the words and sounds of others can set us off. The laughter of others can unintentionally trigger memories of our own former joy. And while the psalmist may seem to be wallowing in his pain, he is doing something that will ultimately relieve him of it -- he is talking it over with God. The lines of communication are still open. He still believes that God is listening and that He is good and just. Otherwise, he wouldn’t still be talking. So it is in our grief that we must keep the conversation going. Tell God exactly how we feel. He can take it, and perhaps in the talking we will find answers to our questions, or at the very least, we will realize that he is listening and that he is here. 

17 All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you, and we have not been false to your covenant.

18 Our heart has not turned back, nor have our steps departed from your way;

19 yet you have broken us in the place of jackals and covered us with the shadow of death.

These may be some of the hardest verses of the psalm. The writer pleads the complete innocence of the nation. They have not forgotten God or lived God’s covenant falsely. They haven’t walked away from God either in heart or in action. And yet God still chose to break them and leave them like abandoned ruins, casting the shadow of death over them. Of course there is hyperbole here for no nation can claim perfection. When something bad happens to us, it’s quite natural to wonder, “What did I do to deserve this?”, so deeply wired is our sense of fairness and justice. “Surely there must have been something I did wrong to deserve this!” “If only I had done this or that...then this terrible thing may not have happened”. It is the false guilt that we place on ourselves when tragedy occurs. In the life of a nation, terrible things will happen. I recall after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 there was some soul-searching, particularly among believers that the event might have been judgment on our nation. But that is no consolation for the thousands of people who were just going to work that day when their world came to an end. If the event referred to by the psalmist is the Assyrian invasion, there is truth to his accusation. Judah was experiencing a revival of the worship of YHWH, so why would God allow an enemy to wreck the country at this time? (Of course, God would also show up and save the country in a miraculous way, so perhaps the tragedy was a set up for his greater glory). No no can know the mind of God or discern how today’s suffering can lead to tomorrow’s glory. We must simply trust that when God breaks us and casts the shadow of death over us He has not abandoned us, but is actually doing his strange work among us. The text also reminds us that serving God is not a simple exchange: I keep his covenant and I receive only blessings. The covenant is a relationship into which we willingly enter. Like marriage, there is no promise of ease and constant blessing. There is struggle, disagreement, and tension in marriage, so we should not be surprised at the same in our relationship with God. Of course, God is perfect and all-knowing, so the analogy breaks down at some point, but this text is a blow against the prosperity gospel that is peddled in America today. Keeping the covenant is not a guarantee that bad things will never happen to you. Consider Job. Perhaps keeping the covenant actually invites enemy attack.  

20 If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god,

21 would not God discover this? For he knows the secrets of the heart.

As the psalmist continues to plead innocence on behalf of the nation, he declares that as a people they have worshiped God exclusively. This was one of the distinctives of Jewish religion: YHWH demanded exclusive worship. Other ancient cultures had a collection of gods and goddesses and you could pick and choose whom you worshiped based on your needs and your trade. Farmers, herdsmen, soldiers, mothers -- they all had their own deities who promised blessing in exchange for sacrifice. But Judah had done none of this -- either outwardly or inwardly. It’s a strong statement that is impossible to prove, but this was the belief of the psalmist. Hidden in this statement by the defense is a theological nugget about the nature of God: He knows the secrets of the heart. I have secrets in my heart that no one knows -- not even my wife. My thoughts and sins of the heart are my own, known only to me -- or so I tell myself. God knows the secrets of the heart. There is nothing that is hidden from him (Psalm 139) and according to the writer of Hebrews, “everything will be laid bare before the eyes of him who sees everything and to whom we must give an account” (Hebrews 4:13). We fool ourselves into keeping secrets when there are no such things with God. He sees all and knows all, and there are therefore things that we should be ashamed of. Like the psalmist, I pray, “forgive my hidden faults” (19:12). They may be many things, but they are certainly not hidden. Help me to live in the awareness of your awareness Lord. There are no secrets with you, so may I live a life that requires no hiding. May my life be an “open book” with nothing to be ashamed of. Practice the presence of Christ. He knows your secrets and still loves you. That’s the kind of friend we all dream of. 

22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

This verse has to be one of the most stunning of the entire psalm. The psalmist is not merely describing what is happening to the nation -- people are being killed all day long, like innocent sheep penned up waiting to be slaughtered. This is bad enough. What is most disturbing is the first phrase, “yet for your sake”. What does God gain from the slaughter of his people? Some translations interpret this as “on account of you”, implying that it is God’s fault that they are being slaughtered (which is implied elsewhere in the psalm), but most translations follow the “for your sake” interpretation, as does Paul when he quotes this verse in Romans 8:36, which is the most natural interpretation in that context. Paul is writing to persecuted Christians, literally being slaughtered like sheep before the lions in the coliseum. This persecution is only beginning and it will get much worse. How will the church fare through this season? Paul says that even the wholesale slaughter of Christians will not prevent their ultimate victory. We are “more than conquerors” and such suffering will not separate us from the love of God. I’ve got to say that this is completely counterintuitive, not to mention countercultural. From a human perspective it doesn’t even make sense. How can the slaughter of innocent people be a thing that is done on God’s behalf? How is he honored in such a thing? The psalmist didn’t feel that this was honoring to God, and he will plead in the following verses for God to change course. If the psalm is based in the period of the Assyrian conquest, there is a great victory right around the corner where God will be completely vindicated. The psalmist cannot know this at the time, can’t even imagine it. The same is true for the church today. When we suffer for Christ, even as I think about the Christians who were slaughtered before our eyes by Isis, Paul would remind us that this is for God’s ultimate glory and our ultimate victory. We want persecution of Christians to end, but it seems that God doesn’t mind so much. This is one of those questions for heaven. 

23 Awake! Why are you sleeping, O Lord? Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever!

24 Why do you hide your face? Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?

God’s people are slaughtered while God is asleep. Psalm 121 tells us that God doesn’t slumber or sleep, that he watches over Israel day and night. God is not actually asleep of course, but it can feel like that at times. It feels like He’s not watching when someone is tragically killed in an accident. It seems like he is snoozing when a natural disaster strikes. It appears that God is taking a nap when criminals have their way with people. It makes us think that God is hiding from us, playing a perverse game of peek-a-boo with his children. And like an old man who has forgotten much of his life in the fog of old age, God seems to be oblivious to our affliction and oppression. And so we pray to wake him up. This is not a very flattering view of God, a doddering old man who naps and is too tired to really do anything on our behalf when ultimate power is at his disposal. No, theologically we understand that God is all-powerful and all-knowing, and entirely benevolent and just. So we must explain his inaction as his wisdom and sovereignty in action. He is still benevolent and just, even when it is not apparent to us. The psalmist is merely expressing how we as humans experience God’s inaction. It seems that God is sleeping, hiding and forgetting while we are being slaughtered literally and figuratively. To this accusation God only needs to say, “look at the cross”. God is not absent from our suffering, he is not hiding, he is not forgetful, and he is not asleep. He is suffering with us. Yes, He could prevent all human suffering if he chose, and someday he will. But for now, he is with us. And in the meantime, it’s okay to pray such harsh prayers toward God. For even in our anger towards him, he is still with us. Nothing can separate us from his love, not even our own anger and frustration. 

25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust; our belly clings to the ground.

26 Rise up; come to our help! Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love!

The devastating metaphors continue as the psalmist describes the nation prostrate, bowed to dust, belly rubbing the ground. To use a modern and recent image, there is a knee on their neck. From this position, the nation utters three prayers: rise up, come to our help, redeem us. The appeal for God to answer is based on his steadfast love. God made a promise to Abraham and through him to the nation. He made a promise to David. These covenants are invoked to call God to keep his part of the deal. Israel believes they have kept their part of the bargain -- they are as innocent as sheep, not it’s time for God to step up. Redeem is ultimately what God will do with Israel in this particular situation. If this psalm was composed during the Assyrian invasion, God responded with a miraculous delivery and the Assyrian army limped away with tens of thousands of dead soldiers left behind. Israel will live in freedom for the next hundred years, suffering through some terrible leadership, but they will be redeemed. And even after the Babylonians come and finish what the Assyrians started, and the nation is carried away into captivity, the nation will once again be restored. And God will use this small nation to redeem the entire world through Jesus. We can look back and see the hand of God in their suffering, and we praise him rightly for his steadfast love. The question is, can we do that with our own suffering in this moment? Can we look in faith to the ways that God will redeem our unjust suffering? Can we see that even though we are being slaughtered like sheep, we are the ultimate victors? It is absolutely counterintuitive, but it seems to be the modus operandi of God. God’s steadfast love endures forever, we must trust that to be true even when our immediate circumstances suggest otherwise.