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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.

23 Arise, O Lord! why sleepest thou? Here the saints desire that God, having pity upon them, would at length send them help and deliverance. Although God allows the saints to plead with him in this babbling manner, when in their prayers they desire him to rise up or awake; yet it is necessary that they should be fully persuaded that he keeps watch for their safety and defense. We must guard against the notion of Epicurus, who framed to himself a god who, having his abode in heaven, ¹⁵⁴¹⁵⁴ “Lequel estant au ciel.” — Fr. delighted only in idleness and pleasure. But as the insensibility of our nature is so great, that we do not at once comprehend the care which God has of us, the godly here request that he would be pleased to give some evidence that he was neither forgetful of them nor slow to help them. We must, indeed, firmly believe that God ceases not to regard us, although he appears not to do so; yet as such an assurance is of faith, and not of the flesh, that is to say, is not natural to us, ¹⁵⁵¹⁵⁵ “C’est dire, en nostre sens naturel.” — Fr. the faithful familiarly give utterance before God to this contrary sentiment, which they conceive from the state of things as it is presented to their view; and in doing so, they discharge from their breasts those morbid affections which belong to the corruption of our nature, in consequence of which faith then shines forth in its pure and native character. If it is objected, that prayer, than which nothing is more holy, is defiled, when some froward imagination of the flesh is mingled with it, I confess that this is true; but in using this freedom, which the Lord vouchsafes to us, let us consider that, in his goodness and mercy, by which he sustains us, he wipes away this fault, that our prayers may not be defiled by it.