BackgroundA communal national lament, possibly from the years around Sennacherib's invasion or a later defeat, when Israel feels punished beyond what its faithfulness deserves.
Psalm 44: We Have Not Forgotten You
For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 44
For the choirmaster. A Maskil of the Sons of Korah.
- We have heard with our ears, O God; our fathers have told us the work You did in their days, in the days of old.
- With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.
- For it was not by their sword that they took the land; their arm did not bring them victory. It was by Your right hand, Your arm, and the light of Your face, because You favored them.
- You are my King, O God, who ordains victories for Jacob.
- Through You we repel our foes; through Your name we trample our enemies.
- For I do not trust in my bow, nor does my sword save me.
- For You save us from our enemies; You put those who hate us to shame.
- In God we have boasted all day long, and Your name we will praise forever. Selah
- But You have rejected and humbled us; You no longer go forth with our armies.
- You have made us retreat from the foe, and those who hate us have plundered us.
- You have given us up as sheep to be devoured; You have scattered us among the nations.
- You sell Your people for nothing; no profit do You gain from their sale.
- You have made us a reproach to our neighbors, a mockery and derision to those around us.
- You have made us a byword among the nations, a laughingstock among the peoples.
- All day long my disgrace is before me, and shame has covered my face,
- at the voice of the scorner and reviler, because of the enemy, bent on revenge.
- All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten You or betrayed Your covenant.
- Our hearts have not turned back; our steps have not strayed from Your path.
- But You have crushed us in the lair of jackals; You have covered us with deepest darkness.
- If we had forgotten the name of our God or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
- would not God have discovered, since He knows the secrets of the heart?
- Yet for Your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
- Wake up, O Lord! Why are You sleeping? Arise! Do not reject us forever.
- Why do You hide Your face and forget our affliction and oppression?
- For our soul has sunk to the dust; our bodies cling to the earth.
- Rise up; be our help! Redeem us on account of Your loving devotion.
Theme
Psalm 44 is a communal lament. It is one of the boldest in the Psalter. The opening eight verses recite the conquest stories the worshipers learned at their fathers' knees. "With your own hand you drove out the nations." The Hebrew literally has God dispossessing nations and planting Israel as a vine, the same image that runs through the prophets. This is the oral history of Joshua's campaigns sung back to God as a reminder that he is the one who saves, not human swords.
Then the song pivots, hard. "But now you have rejected and humbled us." The verb "zanach" means to cast off as a husband might be accused of casting off a wife. The covenant language is being thrown back across the table. The psalm describes a real military defeat with sheep-for-slaughter imagery, scattered survivors. Neighbors are mocking too. Most scholars place this somewhere in the late monarchy. Some link it to the disasters that ended Hezekiah's father Ahaz's reign. Others see the shadow of 587 BCE.
What makes this psalm scandalous in a good way is verses 17-22. The community claims it has not been unfaithful. "All this has come upon us, though we have not forgotten you. We have not been false to your covenant." In the Deuteronomic framework, defeat usually meant Israel had sinned. This song refuses that explanation. The poet is willing to hold open the hard possibility that God has acted in ways the people cannot square with their own behavior. Paul will quote verse 22 in Romans 8:36 to describe the suffering church.
The closing cry is one of the rawest verbs in the Psalter. "Awake, O Lord. Why are you sleeping." Ancient Near Eastern peoples accused rival gods of sleeping. To use that language toward Yahweh, who in Psalm 121 "neither slumbers nor sleeps," is a deliberate provocation. It is faith pushing back against the silence of heaven. It trusts that the God of the covenant is big enough to bear the question.
Discussion questions
- How do verses 1-8 use the conquest narratives of Joshua to set up the rest of the psalm? What is the rhetorical effect of starting with remembered victory?
- What does the Hebrew verb "zanach" (to reject, cast off) imply about the psalmist's understanding of the relationship between God and Israel?
- Why is it striking that the community claims innocence in verses 17-22? Deuteronomy 28 typically connected national defeat with national sin.
- What kind of military and political setting fits this psalm best? Why might the Sons of Korah have been the choir to perform it?
- Paul quotes verse 22 in Romans 8:36 about Christians "being killed all the day long." How does Paul's use change or extend the original meaning?
- Sheep-for-slaughter imagery shows up in verse 11 along with verse 22. What did sacrificial sheep look and smell like in temple practice? How does that imagery cut both ways here?
- How does the accusation "awake, O Lord" compare with Psalm 121:4 ("He who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep")? What does it mean to pray a question Scripture elsewhere answers?
- When have you felt that suffering came in spite of your obedience rather than because of disobedience? How does this psalm give you words for that?
- Why does it matter that Scripture preserves a prayer that essentially argues with God? What does that say about what God welcomes in honest worship?
- What is the difference between blaming God versus complaining to God? How does Psalm 44 stay on the right side of that line?
Read this psalm in another translation
The inline text above is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Open in a new tab to compare with a modern licensed translation: