Home Lessons
May 3, 2015
Tom Lowe
Title: PSALM 44
A psalm of Hezekiah?
Psalm 44 (KJV)
1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
2 How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.
4 Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.
8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah.
9 But thou hast cast off, and put us to shame; and goest not forth with our armies.
10 Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy: and they which hate us spoil for themselves.
11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.
12 Thou sellest thy people for nought, and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.
13 Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.
14 Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,
16 For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and avenger.
17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;
19 Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
21 Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.
Introduction
There is little agreement among scholars as to when this psalm was written. Some think it was written when David reigned as king of Israel. Others assign it to the days of the Maccabees. Possibly it was written during the Assyrian invasion. But one thing is certain; it was written during a time of great national disaster and humiliation. It was a national lament which was originally used on a day of fasting called by the nation’s leader in order to appeal to God for help (2 Chronicles 20:4[1]). It can logically be placed alongside the songs written by King Hezekiah. Psalm 45 seems to be Hezekiah’s wedding song. Following that there are three psalms (46, 47, 48) which deal specifically with the Assyrian invasion. Since we cannot say exactly when the psalm was written, and since the circumstances in Hezekiah’s Judah form a suitable background for it, we shall break it down in that light.
If ever there was a man who needed a note of grace, guidance, and gladness struck for him, it was King Hezekiah in the days when the dreaded Assyrian army was rampaging throughout his land.
The Jewish people sang praises to God after their great victories (Exodus 15; Judges 5), but this psalm was sung after a humiliating defeat (44:9-14, 22). Although Israel finally won great victories over their enemies, there must have been some defeats along the way that greatly disturbed the people. After all, Jehovah was their King (44:4) and had enabled Israel to conquer the land; so why would He desert His people as they sought to protect their inheritance? The pain of defeat is made bitterer by the memory of former victories, and we never value our fellowship with God so much as when His face seems to be hidden from us.
This psalm will show us how to pray for our country. Hezekiah’s country was in dire peril. The enemy was victorious in every encounter, but in his country’s hour of desperate need, Hezekiah prayed. We can be certain he prayed again and again as he saw the foe advancing and God, for some reason, remaining strangely silent and aloof. As we look at our own country in light of its increasing need, let us keep this psalm in mind. It is a useful intercessory psalm for a country in growing peril. A nation, in its hour of need, has only one true defense against the foe: the prayers of those citizens who know how to lay hold of God.
This psalm, like Psalm 42, bears a superscription dedicating it “to the chief Musician for the sons of Korah[2]” and identifying it as a Maskil[3], meaning instructional. From this psalm we can see how much that generation still had to learn about the ways of God.
Commentary
1 We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
2 How thou didst drive out the heathen[4] with thy hand, and plantedst[5] them; how thou didst afflict the people[4], and cast them out.
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.
“We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us, what work thou didst in their days, in the times of old. How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand.” It was a fact, so written into Israel’s history that it was obvious to anyone who knew that history. This sense of history is frequently seen because God is best known by what He has done. The exodus from Egypt and the conquest of Canaan had been mighty demonstrations of God’s power and presence in the days gone by, and these basic facts had been incorporated into the annual feast of Passover. But the primary vehicle for commemorating God’s great works was, and always has been, the witness of His people, telling those who don’t know, what great works the Lord has done. It is a debt which every age owes to posterity to keep an account of God’s works of wonder, and to transmit the knowledge of Him to the next generation. Those that went before us told us what God did in their days, we are bound to tell those that come after us what He has done in our days, and let them do the same to those that shall succeed them; thus shall one generation praise His works to another, “The fathers to the children shall make known His truth, (Isaiah 38:19). Our past experiences of God’s power and goodness strengthens our faith and bolster our confidence in prayer.
In Hezekiah’s day, the feast had been restored as a national event. His tremendous reformation of Judah’s religious life was followed by the celebration of what has come to be known as “the great Passover” (2 Chronicles 30). The facts of Israel’s history were theological facts.
“And plantedst[5] them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out. For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, neither did their own arm save them: but thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance, because thou hadst a favour unto them.” The psalmist continues in retrospect, reviewing the wonderful works of God in behalf of the fathers. The poet speaks for people with a godly heritage. What they had is clearly seen to be, not the result of their own efforts or what they deserve, but the unmerited favor of God;
The writer glorified God for all He did to defeat the Canaanite nations and enable Israel to claim their inheritance (44:8). The Jewish parents were faithful to obey God and tell their children and grandchildren what the Lord had done (see 78:3; Exodus 12:26-27; 13:8, 14; Deuteronomy 6:1; 32:7; Joshua 4:6, 21). God had rooted out the godless nations, planted Israel in the land and enabled the nation to take root and grow (80:8-11; Exodus 15:17; Isaiah 5). All of this was done, not because Israel deserved it, but because of God’s love and grace (Deuteronomy 4: 34-37; 7:7-9, 19, 8:17; 9:4-6; 26:8-9). God’s power gave the victory and His countenance smiled upon His people (4:6; 31:16; 8:3, 7, 19). The psalmist affirmed that Jehovah was still their king (44:4; 10:16; 29:10; 47:6; 74:12) and could have easily command (Decree) victories for His people. The nation wanted no glory for itself; they wanted the Lord to receive all the glory.
“Thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.” “Them” must be the people (or “heathens”) who lived in Canaan, and were driven from the land by the power that God vested in Israel.
“The light of thy countenance,” i.e., Thy favor, as the next words explain it; Thy gracious and glorious presence, which went along with Israel for 40 years of wandering in the wilderness and the years of conquest.
All that we are, and have, and hope for, is the gift of God’s undeserved mercy. We have no reason to boast because everything comes from “Thy right hand.” It had not been human arms which gave them many victories over their enemies, it had been no less than the arm of the Lord.
4 Thou art my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.
5 Through thee will we push down our enemies: through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that hated us.
8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah.
In the first eight verses, the psalmist refers to God over a dozen times by the pronouns “Thee,” and “Thy” and “Thou,” alone. Uppermost in his mind is the truth that Israel owed everything to God. God was sovereign, God was sufficient, He was completely and comfortingly sufficient. No fear could haunt them, no foe could daunt them, and they had God! Such was the force of Israel’s history: “If God be for us, who can be against us?” Note, sometimes the psalmist wrote as if one person were involved (e.g., “my King”), but usually he wrote as if the entire nation were speaking (e.g., “our enemies”), indicating that the singular pronouns may be collective (combined).
The Psalmist turns to the present with a strong statement of his faith in God. Past deliverance will not suffice for the present. “Thou art my King, O God. . . Through Thee will we push down our enemies. . . I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me. . . In God we boast all the day long, and praise Thy name for ever.” To which the exuberant psalmist added a significant “Selah!” “There! What do you think of that!” That was the influence of Israel’s history. That is how to pray for one’s country. Go back through history, combing it for every instance when God in providential ways gave help in time of need. “O God, Thou art my King!”—We cannot expect deliverances till we have made Christ our King.
“Push down our enemies” means to subdue and destroy them. “Through thy name” means by the help of Thy power.
The religious ceremony now turns to give Glory to the God of “Jacob,” that is, the God who had been Israel’s (or Jacob’s God—two names for the same man) from earliest days. “Jacob” (44:4) is a poetic name for the entire nation of Israel.
Neither “bow” nor “sword” (44:6) can save. Only God is sufficient.
“Put them to shame” (44:7) means humbled or abased—made us ashamed of our boasting and trust in Thee, which we have so often professed to the face of our enemies.
“In God we boast” (44:8) may be translated, “Of God we boast.” Sometimes God takes away all sensible enjoyment and encouragement, to see whether we still cling to Him for Himself. We will be happy if we can adopt verse 8.
“Selah” would seem to be a musical term, perhaps indicating a pause in the chanting of the hymn while instruments played. For modern readers, the most useful interpretation would seem to be, “Pause—and meditate.”
“In God we boast all the day long”—God has made it very clear that He hates all boasting—but there is nothing wrong with boasting about Him. Let those that trust in God boast about Him, for they know whom they have trusted; let them “boast about Him all the day long,” because it is a subject that can never be exhausted. O Lord, “praise thy name for ever;” that is the name that has saved us, therefore, let us give unto Him the Glory due to Him.
9 But thou hast cast off, and put us to shame; and goest not forth with our armies.
10 Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy: and they which hate us spoil for themselves.
“But thou hast cast off, and put us to shame; and goest not forth with our armies. Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy.” We must get the background into focus. Hezekiah’s father, King Ahaz, was a man with little common sense. He had refused the counsel of the prophet, Isaiah, and instead had pursued a disastrous foreign policy. To the north, the sister kingdom of Israel had joined hands with Syria to harass Judea. Isaiah had told Ahaz to be patient, but Ahaz ignored the prophet’s advice, foolishly appealed to Assyria, and asked that world power to come to his aid which, needless to say, Assyria was delighted to do. It was just the excuse she needed to meddle directly in the affairs of the Middle East.
Accordingly, the Assyrian armies swept down from the north, smashed the Syrians, and demolished Israel. Samaria fell after a long and stubborn siege; its people were put to the sword or else deported into captivity. But now, it was Judah’s turn. The army marched out without God’s presence and help, and soon they were retreating in panic, with the enemies looting all Israel’s wealth. The Assyrians, on one pretext or another, were ravaging Judea and taking city after city, and soon their armies would attack Jerusalem.
The phrase, “But thou hast cast off” (44:9) represents an abrupt transition from history to present reality. The strong complaint of these verses reminds us of a Job or a Jeremiah. Note, God’s people, when they are cast down, are tempted to think they are cast off and forsaken by God; but it is a mistake. “Hast God cast away his people? God forbid” (Romans 11:1).
“And they which hate us spoil for themselves” has been rendered, “They who hated us take plunder for themselves.”
11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.
12 Thou sellest thy people for nought, and dost not increase thy wealth by their price.
“Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; and hast scattered us among the heathen.” The British Museum in London contains Sennacherib’s cylinder[6] in which he boasts of his campaigns. Hexagonal in shape, it contains 487 closely written lines of cuneiform text. It records eight of Sennacherib’s expeditions, among them his invasion of Judea and his siege of Jerusalem. He boasts that he captured forty-six of Hezekiah’s fenced cities and captured 200,150 people. Hezekiah had good reason to be concerned. It seems from the statement, “Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat” that they didn’t think any more of killing an Israelite than they did of killing a sheep.
“And Thou sellest thy people for nought” (44:12), i.e., surrender them into the hands of their enemies. Why had the Lord allowed their defeat in battle to take place? Ezekiel 34 pictures Israel as sheep scattered in defeat over the hills. There the reverse had taken place from what God had once done for His people. In the past, He had rescued His people from slavery and had “concentrated” them in their own hill-country, not scattered them among the nations. Now He had permitted them to enter the field of battle alone (without His presence), as though they had hardly any value. They feel that God has let them down, has sold out His people “cheap,” to the lowest bidder. This kind of thinking is not only sad and regrettable, but could turn people against their God and religion; however, Israel, in her trouble kept their eye upon God—they looked above the instruments of their trouble—and they knew that their worst enemies had no power against them “but what was given them from above.” They recognized that it was God who delivered them into the hands of the ungodly.
13 Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.
14 Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,
16 For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and avenger.
They had been accustomed to proclaim to their pagan neighbors that their God was (a) Almighty, and (b) that he had made a covenant with their ancestors to be faithful to them forever. Yet now the strange thing was that, Israel was sure she had kept her side of the covenant, but God had broken His side. The result was terrible disillusionment. “Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head among the people.” The people were being butchered like sheep and those that remained were bodily uprooted and hauled away into captivity. The Philistines, the Edomites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, always bitterly jealous of Israel, were delighted. They were mocking the chosen people. Such was the background and international situation which Hezekiah inherited from his father; defeat, deportation, disparagement! That was the background when Hezekiah penned this psalm to describe Israel’s helplessness. The military disasters confronting the nation were evident. There was defeat everywhere.
“A reproach to our neighbours” (44:13) is rather “the taunt of our neighbors,” the object of their scorn and derision. “
A byword among the heathen” (44:14) is a phrase from the Hebrew of Deuteronomy 28:37, included as one of the results of disobedience which would come upon the nation.
“A shaking of the head” is a gesture of scorn (an insult), whichcan also be rendered “jeered at by the nations.”
“The shame of my face hath covered me, i.e., I am filled with shame for the dishonor I have done to God; I am ashamed to show my face in any place or in any company.
“My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me, For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and avenger.” In the face of bitter persecution, the psalmist urges the innocence of wrongdoing. This is the heart of his problem, as it was with Job. God seems to have permitted persecution to come without cause. The people were “Confused” (perplexed; literally, “dishonored,” “disgraced”) (44:15). If God gave them the land in His grace and enabled them to defeat their enemies, why was He now forsaking them and allowing the idolatrous nations to win the victories? He seemed to have forsaken his people and abandon his covenant. Israel was God’s precious flock (74:1; 77:20; 8:1; 100:3; Numbers 27:17; Ezekiel 34), but He was permitting them to be slaughtered by the enemy and treated as worthless (Judges 2:14; 3:8; 4:2, 9).
17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way;
19 Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.
Whenever there was trouble in Israel, the first explanation was usually, “Somebody has sinned.” Certainly this was true when Israel was defeated at Ai (Joshua 7), when there was a three-year famine in David’s time (2 Samuel 21), and when David numbered the people (2 Samuel 24). But as far as the psalmist knew, there was no sin to be confessed because the people were faithful to the Lord, therefore, he makes the claim, “Yet have we not forgotten thee.” The claim is repeated over and over, but history shows that at no time in Israel’s existence was this literally true. The psalmist must have in mind a comparative loyalty based on generalities.
“All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.” If the disaster to Judea had taken place in the reign of Hezekiah’s father, then it could have been explained, for Ahaz was an apostate. But it hadn’t; it had overtaken the nation in the days of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah was a godly man, probably the godliest man to set on the throne since the days of David. Hezekiah had brought the nation back into covenant relationship with God; he had swept away idolatry and false worship, cleansed and restored the Temple, revived the offerings and the feasts. So why had this happened? The calamity which had overtaken Judea seems so unfair, so unmerited. And what about God’s covenant? Was not God pledged to keep faith with Israel? The “covenant” (44:17) was the basis of the Hebrew faith, executed at Sinai and embracing the law as its condition from the human side. The writer claims for himself and his fellows not to have “dealt falsely with thy covenant”; i.e., they had given complete conformity to God’s law, both outward and inward. The psalmist makes no admission that the Lord’s people have sinned. They evidently are not burdened with a sense of guilt. They do not acknowledge that in any sense they deserve what they are suffering. Instead they assert their faithfulness. They had not been renegades from God unto the worship of other gods.
No nation on earth has had a covenant relationship with God except Israel. The sign of the covenant was circumcision; the symbol of that covenant was the ark of the covenant, the sacred chest which contained the law of Moses, the pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded; the solidity of the covenant was symbolized in its being engraved on tablets of stone by the finger of God; the substance of the covenant was the Decalogue, the Ten Commandments. God had entered into covenant agreement with Israel, and Israel alone. No other nation enjoys this special status.
The covenant warned that disobedience on Israel’s part would result in punishment, even in banishment from the Promised Land. The Ten tribes to the north had just paid that very penalty. But Judea had put away her idols and had returned to the foundations of the covenant where alone blessing, prosperity, and protection were to be found. Yet the Assyrians, who were as fierce and cruel as dragons, were ravaging Judea and the country had become what the psalmist calls a “place of dragons,” (literally, “crushed us in the place of jackals”). This may refer either to the location of a decisive defeat, in the wilderness far from the haunts of men; or the meaning may be figurative, “And thou hast crushed us and made us to dwell in wasted or waste places, which are the haunts of jackals”—a proverbial expression for complete and utter desolation, a howling wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts. This is an Israelite picture of hell on earth, of utter desolation.
What made it all appear unfair was that Hezekiah’s troubles seemingly stemmed from his obedience to the Word of God. His father had defied Isaiah, but Hezekiah had obeyed Isaiah—and look at the result! The dreaded Assyrians were victorious everywhere. The moral dilemma, then, resulted from the religious revival. They had done what God demanded and yet the results were opposite of what they had expected under the terms of the covenant.
Israel’s defeat didn’t mean that God loved them less; it meant that He was permitting this to happen so that He could carry out a purpose known only to Him. Like the martyrdom of Stephen (Acts 6:9-8:3), Israel’s defeat gave their enemies further opportunity to come to know the Lord. Saul of Tarsus was greatly moved by Stephen’s death (Acts 22:17-21), and this undoubtedly helped to prepare him for his meeting with Christ on the Damascus Road. No matter how their lives may end, God’s servants never die like beasts, for “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (116:15, NKJV).
“Our heart is not turned back, neither have our steps declined from thy way; Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons, and covered us with the shadow of death.” “Covered us with the shadow of death” is literally “covered us over with a deadly shade” or “deep darkness.” The light in which they had walked had given way to darkness and gloom, even deadly horrors and miseries. Since God knows “the secrets of the heart” (44:21), “the dark corners of the heart,” He is challenged—again in the mood of Job—to indicate where even in heart or hidden purpose the people have sinned.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
21 Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.
“If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god; Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.” “We have [not] forgotten. . . . our God,” shouts the psalmist.He challenged God to search the nation to see whether or not its revival was sincere and satisfactory. We only have to go back to the historical narrative to see with what thoroughness Hezekiah had cleaned house. He now invited the Lord to come and inspect the country for he believed he had done all that could be done. After all, if Israel had forgotten the name of their God or worshipped idols, wouldn’t God have known it? He knows the innermost thoughts and motives. No, that was not the cause of God’s seeming desertion. The people were suffering because of their connection with Jehovah. It was for His sake that they were enduring a living death, abused like animals destined for the slaughterhouse.
“Stretched out our hands” denotes a gesture of worship (Exodus 9:29; Psalm 88:9).
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.
The psalmist pleads to God, we suffer because of Thee. The enemy that is tracking us down and slaughtering us like sheep marked for killing stems from our loyalty to Thee. “Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.” In other words, “We are going to trust You, Lord, even if You allow every last one of us to be killed.” It is a magnificent stand of faith. Again and again in history God has brought nations, churches, and individuals to the same place.
Paul quoted verse 11 in Romans 8:36[7] as part of his magnificent argument that nothing could separate God’s people from His love, not even defeat after a record of victories! The principle is the same for both God’s old covenant people and His new covenant people; those who give their lives in His cause are conquerors, not victims, and God can be glorified even in seeming defeat.
The psalmist could not understand why God was silent in the face of the foe when he had done all that mortal man could do to bring the nation back to God. He had made up of his mind, however. He would trust God at all costs: “Yea, for Thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.”
Poor little Israel has so much yet to learn of the ways of God, as we all have:
Israel must learn that, just because God has made a covenant of love with her, they are not the only nation whom God loves. Because they are God’s “special people” does not mean that they have taken out an insurance policy with God against any possible defeat in war.
Israel must learn what they had been chosen for. They were not chosen to be saved. They had been chosen to serve. They were chosen to take the Good News of the love of God to all men. As Isaiah 49:6 puts it: “I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.”
They must recognize that God wished her to be the Family of God, in fact, the “Church,” and so be something else than a political power.
This meant that God in his wisdom had ordained that Israel was to be His servant in defeat rather than in victory. Israel had to learn that she was meant to be the Suffering Servant of God rather than the victorious warrior people they had once been when Israel cried “rise up, come to our help!” (44:26). They were now to discover that God Himself was the Warrior, who was ready to give His own blood so that His people might be saved (Isaiah 63). But that kind of victory was a whole new world of experience which Israel was only now, in God’s love, being taught to understand.
This verse is not a picture of the church right now, wouldn’t you agree? There are many believers suffering for Christ’s sake; but by and large, the church is not under persecution—the exception being the ethnic cleansing of Christians taking place in countries where Islam is predominant. However, the remnant of Israel will be persecuted; and it is the remnant that is in view here, I want to keep that clear.
23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.
24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.
“Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.” Nowhere else in the Bible do we find so bold a statement. To dare to tell God, the living God, the eternal God, the uncreated, self-existing God, the God of the covenant—to dare to tell Him to wake up! This is the language of holy boldness; the language of a man who is absolutely sure that God must act or do the impossible—bring His name into disrepute. This is true enough, but the fact is, “GOD IS NOT ASLEEP.” The remnant (the true people of God in every generation) are crying out in their desperation. During the time of the Maccabees, between the Old and New Testament, the enemies of Israel came to the forefront. As far as the past is concerned, it was the time that Israel suffered more than at any other time in their history; but it will be nothing compared to the suffering they will endure during the Great Tribulation. But during the Maccabean period there was a group of priests called the “wakers.” They were the ones who cried out to God saying, “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?” During this time people felt like God was asleep. But John Hyrcanus, one of the great Maccabees, a high priest, put an end to this practice. He asked the people, “Does the Deity sleep? Hath not the Scripture said, ‘Behold, the keeper of Israel slumbereth and sleepest not?’” You don’t have to ask God to wake up even though there are times when you feel like it. In that future day the remnant will feel that He is asleep and say, “Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?” When that day comes, God will not be asleep. He will be ready to move. He will not cast off His people forever.
Finally, the psalmist pleads that the Lord would rescue his people (44:26). God has seemed asleep (44:23); He has hidden His “face” and forgotten the plight of His people (44:24). “The idea of forgetting is one of the figures of speech adopted by the psalmist in order to express the ‘delayed action’ of God . . . God’s remembrance therefore means that God is taking action. . . . Remembrance did not mean ‘take note of and file away for reference for future action.’ It means remember and take action now.”
The nation felt that God should help them, because they were presently at their lowest, “For our soul is bowed down to the dust;” the dust being either the ground, where we lie prostrate at our enemy’s feet, or the grave. Though the nation was seemingly rejected by God and had apparently lost a battle (even though she had been faithful), she wholeheartedly trusted in the Lord to redeem her. This is the proper age-old response of the genuine believer to suffering—“Though He slay me, yet will I hope in Him” (John 13:15).
“Our belly (body) cleaveth unto the earth” (44:25) means that death itself is near.
“Hidest thou thy face” i.e., You do not regard our miseries, nor do You give us any pity or help.
26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.
From verse 26 we learn that Israel is not quite so impertinent as to tell God exactly what to do. All she asks is that God should do something—anything, and not just keep silent; rather let Him teach (maskil) His people what He is doing with them. It is we who are in the fortunate position to have hindsight sufficient to realize that God was actually teaching His people His will by letting them suffer defeat! For, with our hindsight, we now know that He who was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world was actually being slain in His covenant people when they suffered the defeat of which they were at this moment complaining to God.
“Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.” “For thy mercies' sake” is a reference to God’s faithful love. It suddenly dawned on him that an appeal to God’s mercy is a much more certain grounds for action than an appeal to God’s majesty.
That’s how to pray for our nation. We are aware that we dare not pray today that God will give us what we deserve. This country has been the bastion of freedom, generous with its money, its technologies, and its foreign aid. It has championed the weak and the defenseless. But it has turned its back upon the Christian ethic. It has become a pornographic society. It has exported filthy, soul-destroying movies all over the world. It has betrayed its Allies on the field of battle for the sake of peace at home. It has extended recognition to lesbians and homosexuals, and has even begun to attack its Christian institutions.
What can we plead before God but this: “Arise for our help, and redeem us for Thy mercies sake!”
Special Notes for Psalm 44
[1] (2 Chronicles 20:4, NIV) The people of Judah came together to seek help from the Lord; indeed, they came from every town in Judah to seek him.
[2] Sons of Korah—Korah was “the son of Izhar, son of Kohath. (Numbers 16:1)” Numbers 4:2-3 tells us that the Lord set aside able-bodied “sons of Kohath from among the sons of Levi ... from thirty years old up to fifty years old ... to do the work in the tent of meeting.” The Korah named in certain Psalms was evidently the same person as the one who, with others, “assembled themselves against Moses and against Aaron” and accused them of exalting themselves “above the assembly of the Lord” (Numbers 16:3). Moses in turn accused Korah of wrongly attempting to “seek the priesthood.
[3] Maskil. There are 13 psalms called maskils. They are 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89 and 142. Bible students think that "maskil" means:
either a psalm with something special to teach, like 32 and 78, or
a psalm that the *psalmist wrote in a very clever way.
[4] Heathen and people denote the nations who were driven out to make room for the Israelites.
[5] Plantedst gives the imagery of God’s planting His people in Canaan (2 Samuel 7:10; Isaiah 5:1; Jeremiah 12:2; also of their being planted and taking root in that land, Psalm 80:8-11).
[6] Sennacherib’s cylinder. This six-sided hexagonal clay prism, commonly known as the Taylor Prism, was discovered among the ruins of Nineveh, the ancient capital of the Assyrian Empire. It contains the Annals of Sennacherib himself, the Assyrian king who had besieged Jerusalem in 701 BC during the reign of King Hezekiah. On the prism Sennacherib boasts that he shut up "Hezekiah the Judahite" within Jerusalem his own royal city "like a caged bird." This prism is among the three accounts discovered so far which have been left by the Assyrian monarch of his campaign against Israel and Judah.
[7] Romans 8:36 “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
