Psalms 44:9-16

9-16. The strain suddenly turns to lamentation and complaint, and the poet spreads the national distress before God. Psalms 44:9-12 clearly portray a state of war, of general defeat, and of the captivity and slavery of multitudes. See introduction, and reference there made.

Thou hast cast off All their distress results from this one cause.

Goest not forth with our armies In vain did they muster their hosts when God was not with them.

They… spoil for themselves That is, at will, to their heart’s content, with none to hinder.

Like sheep appointed for meat Hebrew, sheep of food, or, as Psalms 44:22, sheep for slaughter, sheep counted out for slaughter. The figure is expressive of great numbers and helplessness. Sheep make, when attacked, a feeble and vain resistance.

Scattered us among the heathen Anciently captivity and dispersion followed in the train of defeat.

Thou sellest thy people for naught The allusion is to the selling of captives as slaves. The market is overstocked, and the price is as nothing. See Deuteronomy 28:68 and Joel 3:3. The Hebrew reads, for no wealth. This was the last downward step in their degradation. The multitude of captives and the hatred of the nations towards the Hebrews, made them unvaluable as slaves. The northern and eastern tribes had gone into captivity, and the kingdom of Judah itself was invaded. [The final fall of the nation by the Romans, A.D. 70, was still more dreadful.]

Dost not increase A delicate figure of speech (the litotes) for thou decreasest. The idea, though not literally a parallel, is well expressed Proverbs 22:16. God is confessed as the author of the national judgments, and it is reverently pleaded that they appeared in excess of profitable chastisement. Psalms 44:13-14, show the extent of the humiliation of the people, by the terms reproach, scorn, derision, byword, shaking of the head, and how these had taken effect is confessed Psalms 44:15.

Enemy and avenger The words may mean any opponent or adversary of revengeful temper, (Psalms 8:2,) and may fitly apply to Sennacherib, who also “reproached and blasphemed.” Isaiah 37:17; Isaiah 37:23