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44. Psalm 44

¹ We have heard it with our ears, O God;
   our ancestors have told us
what you did in their days,
   in days long ago.
² With your hand you drove out the nations
   and planted our ancestors;
you crushed the peoples
   and made our ancestors flourish.
³ It was not by their sword that they won the land,
   nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
   and the light of your face, for you loved them.

    ⁴ You are my King and my God,
   who decrees Septuagint, Aquila and Syriac; Hebrew King, O God; / command victories for Jacob.
⁵ Through you we push back our enemies;
   through your name we trample our foes.
⁶ I put no trust in my bow,
   my sword does not bring me victory;
⁷ but you give us victory over our enemies,
   you put our adversaries to shame.
⁸ In God we make our boast all day long,
   and we will praise your name forever. The Hebrew has Selah (a word of uncertain meaning) here.

    ⁹ But now you have rejected and humbled us;
   you no longer go out with our armies.
¹⁰ You made us retreat before the enemy,
   and our adversaries have plundered us.
¹¹ You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
   and have scattered us among the nations.
¹² You sold your people for a pittance,
   gaining nothing from their sale.

    ¹³ You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
   the scorn and derision of those around us.
¹⁴ You have made us a byword among the nations;
   the peoples shake their heads at us.
¹⁵ I live in disgrace all day long,
   and my face is covered with shame
¹⁶ at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,
   because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.

    ¹⁷ All this came upon us,
   though we had not forgotten you;
   we had not been false to your covenant.
¹⁸ Our hearts had not turned back;
   our feet had not strayed from your path.
¹⁹ But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals;
   you covered us over with deep darkness.

    ²⁰ If we had forgotten the name of our God
   or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
²¹ would not God have discovered it,
   since he knows the secrets of the heart?
²² Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
   we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.

    ²³ Awake, Lord! Why do you sleep?
   Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
²⁴ Why do you hide your face
   and forget our misery and oppression?

    ²⁵ We are brought down to the dust;
   our bodies cling to the ground.
²⁶ Rise up and help us;
   rescue us because of your unfailing love.

5. Through thee we have pushed, or smitten, with the horn our adversaries. ¹³⁵¹³⁵ The allusion is to the pushing, striking, or butting of oxen and other animals with their horns, and means to vanquish or subdue, (Deuteronomy 33:17; 1 Kings 22:11; Daniel 8:4.) “Literally,” says Dr Adam Clarke, “We will toss them in the air with our horn; a metaphor taken from an ox or bull tossing the dogs into the air which attack him.” The prophet here declares in what respect God had manifested himself to be the King of this people. He did so by investing them with such strength and power, that all their enemies stood in fear of them. The similitude, taken from bulls, which he here uses, tends to show, that they had been endued with more than human strength, by which they were enabled to assail, overturn, and trample under foot, every thing which opposed them. In God, and in the name of God, are of the same import, only the latter expression denotes, that the people had been victorious, because they fought under the authority and direction of God. It ought to be observed, that what they had spoken before concerning their fathers, they now apply to themselves, because they still formed a part of the same body of the Church.

And they do this expressly to inspire themselves with confidence and courage, for had they separated themselves from their fathers, this distinction would, in a certain sense, have interrupted the course of God’s grace, so that it would have ceased to flow down upon them. But now, since they confess that whatever God had conferred upon their fathers he had bestowed upon them, they may boldly desire him to continue his work. At the same time, it ought to be observed again in this place, that, as I have stated a little before, the reason why they ascribe their victories wholly to God is, that they were unable to arrive at such a consummation by their own sword or their own bow. When we are led to consider how great is our own weakness, and how worthless we are without God, this contrast much more clearly illustrates the grace of God. They again declare, (verse 7,) that they were saved by the power of God, and that he also had chased away and put to shame their enemies.