"To the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
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:
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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 among the peoples.
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.
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.
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.
22 Yet for your sake we are killed all the day long;
we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
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?
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!"
Psalm 44
The link between this Psalm and the previous two lies in the fact that the Psalmist is once again remembering God and His mighty acts, and that it is this that enables him at the last to cry to God in such intense earnestness. Some consider the Psalm to be marred by an irreverent, almost blasphemous, attitude towards God and by the unseemly tone of the Psalmist's words, increased by his assertion of injured innocence in 17-19. But this is a superficial judgment, which fails to grasp the real point of the Psalm. The problem that it raises is enshrined in 9-16: in contrast to the mighty acts of God in the past on behalf of His people the Psalmist is now bewailing their defeat, and the query about the divine purpose of this suffering, which he does not understand, raises the afflictions of the people into a crisis of faith. This is very much Job's problem: if the affliction had come because of sin, unfaithfulness and disobedience, there would not have been a problem or crisis; the Psalmist would have understood this and accepted it, as Job would have, also. But the answer to the defeat was not so; the people had not on this occasion been unfaithful. And it was God's seeming forsaking of His people when they were faithful to Him that constituted this terrible trial and crisis of faith. A word needs to be said about this protestation of innocence and faithfulness. This is not to be interpreted as self-vindication or self-righteousness. As elsewhere in the Psalter, what it refers to is the general and substantial integrity of their position in the sight of God: the main direction of their lives was Godward and well-pleasing and faithful. There is simply no thought of either arrogance, complacency or self-righteousness here. We are on a deeper level altogether; and we either recognise this or we do not.