Psalm 44

Psalm 44 is a strange one.

We are used to prophetic diatribes accusing the people of having forsaken their covenant with God.  This is a little bit different. 
It is obvious from the content that it speaks from a time of defeat in battle or war, although it has no detail for us to fix on a specific occasion.  This time the content creates its own context.

verses 1 - 4
These comprise that style of ancient literature that has been called 'The Appeal to History', restating the ways in which God has helped the Hebrews in seizing the land from its former inhabitants.  The psalmist fully accepts that victory had nothing to do with the nation, but rather had depended on divine intervention.

verses 5 - 8
elaborate on the theme, and make it clear that the people have given God the glory, and have not claimed it for themselves.

Then the psalm turns, completely.

verses 9 - 12
are a cri de couer, the anguish of rout and defeat, of flight and pillage, of a refugee community who feel that they are defenceless prey in the path of any assailant.  The psalmist makes plain that it is God who has abandoned Israel.




verses 13 - 16
pile on the pain, describing a people without pride, self-confidence, or hope of vindication.  Again, the psalmist is accusing God as the one responsible for all this.

verses 17 - 19
Here it comes.  'We have not forgotten you or been false to your covenant.'  God has broken the covenant, not Israel,  What an accusation, what a dangerous declaration!  The reliability and trustworthiness of God is decried as worthless, 'you have broken us'.

verses 20 - 22
The people haven't been unfaithful in worship, and yet God has left the people vulnerable to slaughter.




verses 23 - 26
Hey God, shift yersel'. 
We've kept our part of the covenant agreement, it's not too late for you to redeem yourself in our eyes.  This isn't the way the psalmist normally addresses the Lord of all the Earth.  God doesn't reply.



Commentaries have a tendency to call this psalm strange, or odd, or difficult, because the attitude towards God is startling and without a justifying reply.  This doesn't mean that it can be ignored.  After all, it was thought so appropriate by the ancient Jewish community that they put it in their hymn book!  Which means that it was meant to be used.....   Which implies that similar circumstances might arise again.....  Which says a great deal about the people's ideas concerning the faithfulness of God!

The reason the commentators find this psalm hard to cope with is that its very presence within the Book of Psalms is a powerful contradiction to the generally accepted idea of God as utterly reliable and trustworthy.  The psalmist doesn't believe it, and the compilers of the book take his point.




How can we use it?
There are times when our experiences lead us to say 'What did I do wrong now?'  Sometimes the answer is, quite simply, nothing.  Then we need to blame someone or something, because we don't like to think that our lives are prey to chance. 
Why did Israel lose the war?
War is unpredictable, and the losers will never accept that it was they who failed.  There is always a scapegoat, and on this occasion it was God.

Our lives are uncertain and dangerous.  We can blame the Lord, naming Covid-19 an 'Act of God'.    We can blame Chinese food markets, the secretiveness of dictatorial governments, unrestricted international travel, global population density, premiers who are slow to react, or the convenient target of your choice.

Alternatively, we can say that sometimes the worst happens, and that we have to rely on God and each other to make it through.  Psalm 44 is in the Bible because it speaks to a basic human need, to lay blame.  That doesn't make it right, or appropriate.  It is only the beginning of the argument, not the end.  In the end, it is only through faith that we can come to understand how God is an implicit part of every human life and interaction.

Every blessing,
                        stay safe and stay well,
                                                             Ali                          (Rev Alistair Jones)







Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Psalm 114 Well, we certainly have skipped ahead!  The reality is that many of the later psalms don't appear to have any specific context, or the commentators profoundly disagree as to what it is.  Here we have a psalm which refers to the story at the heart of the Jewish consciousness of salvation, the Exodus. However, that in itself causes us problems, as we will see. verses 1 and 2 The idea of 'coming out of Egypt' here and elsewhere in the scriptures encompasses everything through to the entry into Canaan.  The psalmist is content to point to a difference in language as that which distinguished the Hebrews from the Egyptians - not culture, not deities, but simply an inability to communicate.  Verse 2 causes a lot of conflict between the commentators - does it mean the kingdoms of Judah and Israel, or Judah as part of the kingdom of Saul, David and Solomon?  Either way, we see God's blessing of the people by being present in Jerusalem, and by elevating them to be
Read more
Image
Psalm 137 is an absolutely ghastly song of vengeance to be meted out upon innocent children, and yet, thanks to a 1970s hit song, has an implicit part in our culture.  It is very much a song of two halves, and the second half is normally as avoided by preachers as it was by Boney M.  (the singers of that song, for those too young to know it!) Therefore we will try to understand the whole psalm. The historical context is that of the community who returned from Exile, a community who have returned to find that those they left behind have inter-married with other peoples, and that the homes and lands remembered in a blissful haze of nostalgia are actually in ruins.  They are self-righteous and racist, 'purifying' the people by casting out the mixed race children and their non-Jewish parent. They are not nice people, and it will repay us well if we remember that. verse 1 Babylon was a city of numerous waterways.  The Tigris and Euphrates rivers were linked by a variety
Read more
Psalm 54 It is very helpful when the heading to a Psalm is absolutely explicit.  Shame about this one, then! The instruments implied are generally agreed to be stringed, but there is no certainty.  'Of David' comes with its usual warnings, and as for what a maskil is, well there are several contending ideas. A skilled composition, an effective song, a wisdom psalm, a teaching psalm, or a meditation. As my parents would have said, 'Pays your money, takes your choice.'  We simply don't know. However, what follows is quite explicit.  "When the Ziphites went and said to Saul 'Is not David hiding among us?'"  1 Samuel 23 is but one element in a long line of  'flee-be discovered-flee again' episodes in the life of David and his relationship with King Saul.  It is worth reprising what we know of this relationship. Firstly, Saul is the first of a new concept - the monarch of Israel.  As such he is both a proud man and very insecure
Read more