Psalms 44

Psalms 44:1-26

Faith building on the testimony of past deliverances, and sustained, though in contrasted circumstances. To the chief musician, Maskil of the sons of Korah. In the forty-fourth psalm, faith goes back to the testimony of days long past, to build itself up on this, amid circumstances which yet are in such utter contrast. And this is what faith supposes, that the circumstances are, at least, not such as one can build upon. Faith is in “things unseen,” making that substantial which to mere sight and sense have no reality. Not that it has not foundations, but that these too are beyond natural sight, in the sphere of the spiritual, and thus, to the carnal, dreams.

1. The history of those days so long gone has indeed for Israel to bear the reproach of the meantime experience. Its testimony is of God acting in triumphant power, in behalf of a people now for long scattered and under the heel of the Gentiles, for whom how many vain hopes have kindled, only to be dispersed and put out in worse darkness than before. None more intense can be than that in which the period to which these psalms apply will find those whose exercises are recorded in them. The nation is lapsed into a condition of utter apostasy, for which the hand of God is necessarily upon them, and the remnant remaining true are yet under the shadow of this. From it they emerge at last, with the fruit of needed exercise secured by a discipline which divine love has ordained for them, into the apprehension of favor never to be lost again. The lesson here is of absolute dependence on God, which to a feeble and oppressed people is the only possible source of encouragement. To leave man out of the question is to leave out an incalculable element, always causing uncertainty and disappointment. To make God all is to make reckoning simple, safe, and the balance sheet an immense surplus, whatever the expenditure. Let things be as they may, His grace is such as to give one amplest title to reckon upon Him. Here boldness of faith is only simplicity of obedience. If this God is our God, we may claim Him wherever we find Him. All histories of His past ways become light for us. No laws of His in nature are so unchangeable as He Himself is. As He has ordained for us as His creatures a world of fixed realities amid which to walk, this spiritual world in which we find ourselves, living, and walking, and having our being in Him, is still as far beyond it as eternity beyond time, or heaven beyond earth. Here there is no caprice, but immutability itself, inviting absolute confidence. No dispensations -though they may variously reflect Him -change the Eternal. And this is how the very histories of Scripture become for us types and prophecies, and (in another sense than the Preacher meant it) “that which has been is that which shall be.” So the remnant go back here to the beginning of their national history, to that which had come down to them from their fathers, who not with their own swords took possession of the land. God had dispossessed the nations and planted them; He had broken up races, and cast them out. His right hand, His arm, the light of His countenance, had manifested His acceptance of them. All this abode with them for present wisdom. Man’s nothingness was just as certain; God’s sufficiency was just as perfect.
2. And so now they claim and proclaim this God as theirs. “Thou art He,” -Thou art the same, -“my King, O God: command deliverances for Jacob.” Yes, Jacob, this worm of the dust, can only be delivered by Him who can command deliverances for him. And then, falling upon that arm of strength, there is at once an outburst of confidence: “Through Thee will we push down our oppressors; and by Thy name will we tread down those that rise against us.” Here is the application of that past history; and a reckoning like this has in it no element of deception.
3. The remembrance becomes fruitful in the production of character. In self-distrust like theirs, the children of those conquerors of old proclaim their genealogy. “I will not trust in my bow: nor shall my sword save me.” Testified by deliverances all along their history, which only His hand could have effected, the divine sufficiency is their only and constant boast, and His name shall be their praise forever. This is that for which He works, that His people may know Him, to their ceaseless joy, this joy in Him being the spring of power in them, and what unites His creatures to Himself forever. The worship of eternity is the seal of its blessing and perfection too. God is in His place, and the creature in his happy place with God.
4. But now we have the testing of faith by those circumstances which seem so thoroughly in contrast with this claim of the divine favor. Here there scarcely needs comment. The facts are plain to all and speak for themselves. The recital naturally goes on gathering gloom as it proceeds. First, though their hosts still go forth, God is no longer with them, as of old. Then there follows necessarily defeat and spoiling. Then they become mere sheep for the slaughter, scattered among the victorious nations. God too acquires no glory by the giving up of His people: those who should have been for His honor have become a reproach; nay, far and wide, an evil proverb and a shaking of the head.
5. These are the circumstances; now they speak of their inward state, exercised by all this, feeling it keenly, covered with shame and confusion of face, able to answer nothing in the presence of those who reproach and blaspheme, of enemies and vengeful men. Yet in spite of all, they cleave to God, neither their heart nor their steps turned aside from Him, though crushed in the place of prowling jackals, covered with the shadow of death. Had they forgotten Him, would they, they ask, be able to conceal it from Him? Their appeal is to One perfect in knowledge.
6. Must there not be, then, a limit to this sorrow? can He forget forever? When their enemies are His enemies, and for His sake they are being slaughtered? Can the hiding of His face continue, and their affliction as if unknown to Him? Now in the utter prostration of their strength, they cry to Him to arise and for His mercies’ sake to redeem them. The next psalm shows the glorious answer to this prayer.