Psalms 44:9

THE CURRENT EMERGENCY

"But now thou hast cast us off, and brought us to dishonor,

And goest not forth with our hosts.

Thou makest us to turn back from our adversary;

And they that hate us take spoil for themselves.

Thou hast made us like sheep appointed for food,

And hast scattered us among the nations.

Thou sellest thy people for naught,

And hast not increased thy wealth by their price.

Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors,

A scoffing and a derision to them that are round about us.

Thou makest us a byword among the nations,

A shaking of the head among the people.

All the day long is my dishonor before me;

And the shame of my face hath covered me,

For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth."

These verses describe the situation which so troubled the psalmist. The mention here of Israel's being scattered among the nations (Psalms 44:11) seems to indicate a post-exilic period; and that no doubt influenced Calvin's finding a date for this psalm in the times of the Maccabees; but that "guess" like all the others is unacceptable because nearly a century before the Maccabees, the LXX published this psalm about 250 B.C.

If the psalm was written by David, these central verses are a prophecy, describing what is in store for Christians in the era of the Messiah, and probably inspired by some events in David's reign with which we are not familiar. The terminology here could be partially based upon what occurred at that time. Paul's application of these words to conditions that certainly existed in the first century of the Christian era harmonizes with this view. The reign that fit all those which are in evidence here is of no significance. There are innumerable things that men of today do not know.

Leupold called attention to "a possible period" in David's reign when the psalm might have been written.

The conditions reflected by this psalm seem to be met by what is recorded in 2 Samuel 8:13-14. David was defeated by the Assyrians, allied with the Edomites; and 1 Kings 11:15 mentions Joab's burying the dead secretly to conceal the extent of his weakness from the enemy.[6]

Despite such opinions, there is no evidence that Israel was at that time "scattered among the nations," and a byword all over the earth (Psalms 44:11,14).

Rawlinson was probably correct when he wrote that, "These verses imply not a single defeat, but a prolonged period of depression."[7] We believe that these verses represent `principles' that are fulfilled and illustrated many times over throughout the history of both the Old and the New Israel, as we shall more fully explain below.