Psalm XLIV
To the chief Musician, for the sons of Korah. Maschil.
1 We have heard with our ears, 0 God, our fathers have tokl us, What work thou didst in their days, in the times of old.
2 How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; How thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.
3 For they got not the land in possession by their own sword, Neither did their own arm save them:
But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance. Because thou hadst a favour unto them.
4 Thou art my King, 0 God! command deliverance for Jacob.
5 Through thee will we push down our enemies:
Through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
6 For I will not trust in my bow, neither shall my sword save me.
7 But thou hast saved us from our enemies, and hast put them to shame that
hated us.
8 In God we boast all the day long, and praise thy name for ever. Selah.
9 But thou hast cast off, and put us to shame; and goest not forth with our
armies!
10 Thou makest us to turn back from the enemy; and they which hate spoil
for themselves
11 Thou hast given us like sheep appointed for meat; And hast scattered us among the heathen.
12 Thou sellest thy people for nought, and dost not increase thy wealth by
their price.
13 Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours,
A scorn and derision to them that are round about us.
14 Thou makest us a byword among the heathen, a shaking of the head
among the people.
15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face halh
covered me;
16 For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth; by reason of the
enemy and avenger.
17 All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, Neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant.
18 Our heart is not turned back, neither have ur steps declined from thy
way;
19 Though thou hast sore broken us in the place of dragons. And covered us with the shadow of death.
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a
strange God,
21 Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart.
22 Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep
for the slaughter.
23 Awake! why sleepest thou, 0 Lord? Arise! cast us not off for ever.
24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth. 2G Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies’ sake.
There is apparently a series commencing here and extending to Psalm 1., wherein the Head is addressed, and the various phenomena of his actings described, by the members of his body. This Psalm, committed to “the Sons of Korah,” is the cry of David and any other true followers of the Lord, in times of trial, when the witnesses prophesy in sackcloth. It is not so much a national Psalm, as one for the Church Universal, inasmuch as verses 17-22, humbly protest (what Israel as a nation could not) firm, unfaltering adherence to his name; and in Kom. viii. 36, are applied by Paul as expressive of the believer’s state in a persecuting world. The Maschil is a musical reference.
It is the cry, or appeal, of the slaughtered sheep to their Shepherd. They begin by recalling to mind his great deeds in behalf of his people coming out of Egypt. They lay all the stress of that deliverance on Himself, on his holy arm alone. (Ver. 2.)
“Thou (nrilj didst drive out the heathen,’’’ &c.
This “Thou” is emphatic, quite similar to the use of the pronoun in Ezekiel xxxvii. 3, “Thou (HjnSt), and none else, knowest;” and then verse 5, “I (‘’JN), and none else, will cause the Spirit of life to enter into you.” Or like the pronoun (Rev. iv. 11), “For tlioii {(Slj), and none else, hast created all things.” Then in verse 5, there is an emphatic S^H, “0 God, thou art he, my King.”
Not less significant is that other monosyllable (ver. 9), — “But (P|J^) thou hast cast off.” —
A A^eZa-pause (ver. 8) had for a moment brought the harp to silence; and when its strings are touched again, it is to breathe forth lamentation. It seems to reverse the case stated in Leviticus xxvi. 44, where, after long tribulation, there is hope of the removing of the calamity introduced by S]J«y which the Jews have marked on this account as “a golden ^)^,” speaking as it does of a change to prosperity. All different here! The tide has ebbed, and no prospect of its coming in appears! We are sold for the most trifling sum, as if the master were only anxious to get his sheep off his hand. (Yen 12.) We are a by-word (ver. 14), and are put to shame by “the enemy and the avenger,” whom thou couldest so easily still. (Psa. viii. 2.)
And yet the sheep own no Shepherd but Jehovah. Their protest is without reserve.
“Thou Jiast broJcen us, (and laid us helpless,) in tliejilace of dragons, And covered us with the sJiadoiv of death, If tee have forgotten the name of our God — Or (if) ive have stretched out our hands to a strange God” —
We are cut off from the society of our fellow-men, we are thrust out into dens and caves, we flee to where serpents are the only inhabitants, we are lingering on the brink of the grave. Yet we can appeal “If we have forgotten!” This “If” is a form of strong asseveration. It is the same form as our Lord employs in Luke xix. 42, “If thou hadst known” — then would blessing have come. It is like Exod. xxxii, 32, “Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin.” It is like Psa. xcv. 7, “To-day, if ye will hear his voice” — then ye shall enter into rest.
Having made this protestation, they add, “Shall not God search this out?” He knoweth all things; He knoweth that we love Him; He knoweth that “our belly is grovelling on the earth,” like the serpent.
“Awake, xchy steepest thou, 0 Lord?” (Ver. 23.)
Hope dawns. Their God shall hear. He allows them to awaken Him, and they in a manner cry through the curtains of his Pavilion, “Up! why sleepest thou?” (Prayer Book version.) The Banner of the Deliverer appears through the gloom. The sleeping Saviour awakes at the cry of his disciples, and is about to arise and still the storm “For his mercies’ sake” (ver. 26), — for the sake of the tender love he bears to them. In the Latter Day we shall see, what is meant by this arising, in its full glory.
Such is this Psalm —
The cry of the slaughtered sheep to the Shepherd.