17 All this has come on us, but still we have kept you in our memory; and we have not been false to your word.
As it was recorded in the law of Moses, all this evil has come on us: but we have made no prayer for grace from the Lord our God that we might be turned from our evil doings and come to true wisdom.
Then take care that you keep your hearts true to the Lord, who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the prison-house.
The sinners and all the nations who have no memory of God will be turned into the underworld.
If the name of our God has gone out of our minds, or if our hands have been stretched out to a strange god,
Their hearts were turned back and untrue like their fathers; they were turned to one side like a twisted bow.
For you have not given honour to the God of your salvation, and have not kept in mind the Rock of your strength; for this cause you made a garden of Adonis, and put in it the vine-cuttings of a strange god;
Not like the agreement which I made with their fathers, on the day when I took them by the hand to be their guide out of the land of Egypt; which agreement was broken by them, and I gave them up, says the Lord.
For this is what the Lord has said: I will do to you as you have done, you who, putting the oath on one side, have let the agreement be broken.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 44
Commentary on Psalms 44 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 44
We are not told either who was the penmen of this psalm or when and upon what occasion it was penned, upon a melancholy occasion, we are sure, not so much to the penman himself (then we could have found occasions enough for it in the history of David and his afflictions), but to the church of God in general; and therefore, if we suppose it penned by David, yet we must attribute it purely to the Spirit of prophecy, and must conclude that the Spirit (whatever he himself had) had in view the captivity of Babylon, or the sufferings of the Jewish church under Antiochus, or rather the afflicted state of the Christian church in its early days (to which v. 22 is applied by the apostle, Rom. 8:36), and indeed in all its days on earth, for it is its determined lot that it must enter into the kingdom of heaven through many tribulations. And, if we have any gospel-psalms pointing at the privileges and comforts of Christians, why should we not have one pointing at their trials and exercises? It is a psalm calculated for a day of fasting and humiliation upon occasion of some public calamity, either pressing or threatening. In it the church is taught,
In singing this psalm we ought to give God the praise of what he has formerly done for his people, to represent our own grievances, or sympathize with those parts of the church that are in distress, to engage ourselves, whatever happens, to cleave to God and duty, and then cheerfully to wait the event.
To the chief musician for the sons of Korah, Maschil.
Psa 44:1-8
Some observe that most of the psalms that are entitled Maschil-psalms of instruction, are sorrowful psalms; for afflictions give instructions, and sorrow of spirit opens the ear to them. Blessed is the man whom thou chastenest and teachest.
In these verses the church, though now trampled upon, calls to remembrance the days of her triumph, of her triumph in God and over her enemies. This is very largely mentioned here,
Psa 44:9-16
The people of God here complain to him of the low and afflicted condition that they were now in, under the prevailing power of their enemies and oppressors, which was the more grievous to them because they were now trampled upon, who had always been used, in their struggles with their neighbours, to win the day and get the upper hand, and because those were now their oppressors whom they had many a time triumphed over and made tributaries, and especially because they had boasted in their God with great assurance that he would still protect and prosper them, which made the distress they were in, and the disgrace they were under, the more shameful. Let us see what the complaint is.
Psa 44:17-26
The people of God, being greatly afflicted and oppressed, here apply to him; whither else should they go?