Psalm 44:15

Psalm 44 is a lament spoken by the whole community, one of the psalms of the sons of Korah, and it stands in the second book of the Psalms (Psalms 42–72). Its first eight verses (Psalm 44:1–8) look back with confidence. The fathers told how God drove out the nations and planted Israel in the land, and the psalm gives that victory wholly to his power.

Verse 9 opens with “But”, and the whole mood changes. The God who once won their battles has, they say, cast them off. What follows is defeat in every form: the army in flight, the people plundered, scattered and sold, and the nations laughing.

Two things make this lament especially hard. After it, the people insist that they have kept faith with God: “All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant” (Psalm 44:17–22). Many laments confess the nation’s sin, but this one sets terrible loss beside a people who have stayed true to the covenant, and so it asks why the faithful suffer. And the psalm still ends in prayer, calling on God to awake and “redeem us for thy mercies’ sake” (Psalm 44:23–26).

The psalm leaves the disaster unnamed. Suggestions range from the Assyrian and Babylonian invasions to the Maccabean period, and its words fit any time when God’s people were beaten by their enemies.

The first charge is the heaviest. “Thou hast cast off” translates zânach, to push aside, reject or forsake, a strong word for casting someone away. The people who had boasted in God’s help now tell him that he has rejected them, and that is a shocking thing to say to the LORD of the covenant.

“And put us to shame” is kâlam, to be ashamed or disgraced, and in this form to put to shame or humiliate. A lost battle was a public disgrace. The surrounding nations saw it and mocked both Israel and Israel’s God, as verses 13 and 14 go on to describe.

“And goest not forth with our armies”: yâtsâʼ is the common verb to go or come out, and here it pictures God marching out at the head of Israel’s forces as he had done before. Israel knew him as the God who fought for them. Scripture calls him “a man of war” (Exodus 15:3), and the law told the army before battle, “For the LORD your God is he that goeth with you, to fight for you against your enemies, to save you” (Deuteronomy 20:4). Now the army marches out and he is absent.

Among Israel and the nations round about, victory in war was taken as a sign of a god’s favour and presence, and defeat as a sign that he had turned away or was too weak to help. So defeat brought Israel lost lives and land, shame among the nations and a crisis of faith at home, all at once.

“Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy” uses shûwb, the ordinary verb to turn back or return. On a battlefield, to turn back from the enemy is to retreat, and the picture is of an army breaking and running. The enemy here is tsar, which most often means an adversary. It comes from a root meaning to cramp, and it can also mean a narrow place or distress, a fitting word for a foe who presses God’s people hard.

“And they which hate us spoil for themselves”: shâçâh means to plunder or rob. Plundering the beaten side was a normal part of war in that world. It enriched the victors and left the defeated poor, humbled and under their power. The plunderers are named by what drives them, “they which hate us”, and they take the spoil “for themselves”.

The psalmist lays even the retreat at God’s door: “Thou makest us.” He passes over the soldiers, the generals and the enemy’s strength and speaks to the one he knows to be in charge of every battle. That conviction runs through all these verses, and the questions it raises are taken up further on.

“Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat” uses nâthan, the everyday verb to give, used very widely for putting, setting and handing over. Here God is the one who has handed his people over. The word tsôʼn names a flock of sheep and goats, and maʼăkâl is the noun for food. These are defenceless animals kept to be slaughtered and eaten.

The picture hurts because Scripture so often calls God’s people his flock and the LORD their shepherd. Psalm 23 sings of him as shepherd, and Isaiah says, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd” (Isaiah 40:11). Here the flock speaks as if the Shepherd himself had given it up to be eaten.

The same picture returns a few verses later, “we are counted as sheep for the slaughter” (Psalm 44:22), and Paul quotes that line in Romans 8:35–39. He sets it among the troubles believers face for Christ’s sake, asks “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?”, and answers that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us.”

“And hast scattered us among the heathen”: zârâh means to toss about, to winnow or disperse, and it pictures a flock broken up and driven every way. The heathen are the gôwy, the foreign nations. To be scattered among them meant losing land, safety and life together as a nation, and living among peoples who worshipped other gods. Lamentations mourns the same loss when Judah has gone into captivity and “dwelleth among the heathen” (Lamentations 1:3).

“Thou sellest thy people for nought” uses mâkar, to sell or hand over in exchange, and figuratively to surrender. The picture is of a master selling slaves or captives. They are still “thy people”, ʻam, a people gathered as one body, and the complaint is that God has disposed of his own as if they were goods.

“For nought” renders a Hebrew phrase built on hôwn, wealth or substance, so the sense is “without wealth”, for no gain at all. The second line says the same thing again: “and dost not increase thy wealth by their price”. The price is mᵉchîyr, a price or payment, and the words “thy wealth” are supplied in English to fill out the sense. A seller expects to come away richer. God, the psalmist says, has handed his people over without gain to himself, which makes their suffering feel pointless as well as bitter.

This is a hard thing to hear from a people God had called “a peculiar treasure unto me above all people” (Exodus 19:5) and “a special people unto himself” (Deuteronomy 7:6).

Verses 13 and 14 both open with “Thou makest us”, where the verb is sûwm, to put or set. God has set his people up as a spectacle for the nations to mock.

Verse 13 piles up words for it. A “reproach” is cherpâh, disgrace and contempt, the taunting that falls on someone brought low. A “scorn” is laʻag, derision and scoffing, and a “derision” is qeleç, a laughing-stock. The mockers are the “neighbours”, shâkên, the peoples living nearby, and “them that are round about us”, çâbîyb, around and on every side. Wherever Israel looks, someone is laughing. Another psalm uses almost the same words: “We are become a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and derision to them that are round about us” (Psalm 79:4).

Verse 14 adds a saying and a gesture. A “byword” is mâshâl, a saying, proverb or parable, and here Israel’s name has become a proverb of contempt. The “heathen” are again the gôwy, the same word as in verse 11, and “the people” in the next line is lᵉʼôm, a community or nation, naming the same foreign peoples in other words. “A shaking of the head” is mânôwd, a nodding or tossing of the head in derision, joined to rôʼsh, the head. The nations talk about Israel with contempt and toss their heads at them as well.

Scripture speaks of this kind of shame in other places. Jeremiah warns that the people would become “a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse” in the lands where they were driven (Jeremiah 24:9). Lamentations mourns Jerusalem’s shame (Lamentations 1:8), tells how all who pass by “hiss and wag their head” at the city (Lamentations 2:15), and says to God, “Thou hast made us as the offscouring and refuse in the midst of the people” (Lamentations 3:45–46). Job knew the same loss of honour when his brothers, kinsfolk and friends turned from him (Job 19:13–19).

In verse 15 the voice turns from “us” to “me”, and the shame becomes personal: “My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me.” The speaker is the psalmist, standing for the community whose disgrace he carries as his own.

Verse 16 finishes the sentence of verse 15 by naming the source of the shame: “For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the enemy and avenger.” The voice is qôwl, a voice or sound. The disgrace of the battlefield goes on in words the people have to hear.

“Him that reproacheth” is châraph, to reproach or taunt, to say sharp things against someone. “And blasphemeth” is gâdaph, to hack with words, to revile. The KJV’s “blasphemeth” fits, because these insults reach past the people to their God. “By reason of” translates pânîym, the same word as “face” in the verse before. “The enemy” is ʼôyêb, formed from a verb meaning to be hostile, the usual word for an enemy. “And avenger” is nâqam, to avenge or take vengeance, to do harm in return for a wrong, so the enemy acts as one taking revenge.

Another psalm brings the two charges together in a prayer: “O God, how long shall the adversary reproach? shall the enemy blaspheme thy name for ever?” (Psalm 74:10).

What this passage describes came upon the Son of God, and on him it fell for the sake of others. On the cross Jesus cried the words of Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), as he bore the judgment due to our sin. Psalm 22 also speaks of one who is “a reproach of men, and despised of the people” (Psalm 22:6), and Isaiah says of the Servant, “He is despised and rejected of men” (Isaiah 53:3) and “he was wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5).

The sheep of verse 11 point to him too. Isaiah says the Servant “is brought as a lamb to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7), and John the Baptist calls Jesus “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The Father “spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all” (Romans 8:32). Like the people of verse 12, Jesus was even sold, by Judas for thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 26:15). His death paid the greatest price of all, for in heaven the Lamb is praised because “thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood” (Revelation 5:9–10).

The shaking of the head in verse 14 met him at the cross. The soldiers mocked him (Matthew 27:27–31), and those who passed by “reviled him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39–44, Mark 15:29–32). All this happened “by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), and the cross the world mocked is the power of God to those who are saved (1 Corinthians 1:18–25). God “made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus “endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2), and by it he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15).

The scattered flock is gathered in him. Jesus is the good shepherd who “giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11), and he brings in other sheep so that there is “one fold, and one shepherd” (John 10:16). Those who were far off, Gentiles among them, are made nigh by his blood, and the wall between them and Israel is broken down (Ephesians 2:13–14).

His people still meet reproach for his name. Peter writes, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye” (1 Peter 4:14–16). Paul longs to know “the fellowship of his sufferings” (Philippians 3:10), says that we suffer with Christ “that we may be also glorified together” (Romans 8:17), and calls our trouble a “light affliction, which is but for a moment” that works for us “a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory” (2 Corinthians 4:17).

These verses give God’s people words for defeat. They describe loss and humiliation without softening them, and they say all of it to God. When believers feel cast off, through illness, ruin, betrayal or a long dryness of spirit, this psalm is already in their Bible, given for that hour.

The passage also shows who God is. He rules over the battle that is lost as well as the one that is won, so his people bring their complaint straight to him. His name is bound up with his people, so their shame is a matter of his honour. And the shame has an end. God promises that his people will “neither bear the shame of the heathen any more” (Ezekiel 34:29), and he says, “For your shame ye shall have double; and for confusion they shall rejoice in their portion” (Isaiah 61:7).

In Christ the psalm’s cry has its answer. He was cast off and put to shame in our place, and the hope he gives “maketh not ashamed” (Romans 5:5). Paul, who quoted this psalm, closed the same chapter persuaded that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”