Psalm 44: Why Have You Cast Us Off?

There are two things that are immediately obvious about this psalm. The first is that it was written in a time of military defeat and disaster for the people of God. The second is that the people were not, at the time of this defeat, in apostasy from God. It does not belong, for example, to the time of Zedekiah, the last king of Judah, when the people were suffering defeat at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar but were also under judgment for their idolatry. They say in verse 17:

	All this has come upon us;
	But we have not forgotten You,
	Nor have we dealt falsely with Your covenant.

We do not know to what time in Israel’s history it belongs, but, to illustrate the point just made, it could have been written at the time of Sennacherib’s invasion of Judah. Hezekiah was reigning over Israel at that time, and under him the people had returned to the Lord (2 Kgs 18:3-6). Nevertheless, during his reign this king of Assyria invaded the land and captured all the walled cities except Lachish and Jerusalem.

The psalm is entirely prayer. It is also a prayer of the people of Israel. The psalm uses mostly the plurals we and us as, for example, in verses 12, 13:

	You sell Your people for next to nothing,
	And are not enriched by selling them.
	You make us a reproach to our neighbors,
	A scorn and a derision to those all around us.

But there are a few places where we find the first person singular mixed in.

	You are my King, O God;
	Command victories for Jacob. 
	Through You we will push down our enemies;
	Through Your name we will trample those who rise up against us.
	For I will not trust in my bow,
	Nor shall my sword save me.
	But You have saved us from our enemies,
	And have put to shame those who hated us. (vv. 4-7)

In fact, here the psalm alternates between singular and plural. There is a similar change in verses 14 and 15:

	You make us a byword among the nations,
	A shaking of the head among the peoples.
	My dishonor is continually before me,
	And the shame of my face has covered me.

What is the explanation for it? Since this is a psalm about military victory and defeat, the best explanation is that this is Israel’s king praying for his people, sometimes in their name and sometimes for himself as their representative before God. This implies that the psalm is thoroughly Messianic. In it, Christ the Lord brings his own and his people’s petitions to God.

The outline of the Psalm is as follows.

• Confidence in God based on history (verses 1-8)
  • What our fathers told us (verses 1-3)
  • What is our confidence (verses 4-8)
• Complaint to God based on present experience (verses 9-26)
  • You have cast us off (verses 9-16)
    • You do not go out with our armies (verses 9-12)
    • You make us a reproach (verses 13-16)
  • But we have not forgotten you (verses 17-22)
    • We have not forgotten (verses 17-19)
    • If we had forgotten (verses 20-22)
  • Awake! Why do you sleep, O LORD? (verses 23-26)