Psalm Chapter 44

Psalm 44: The Complaint of the Faithful

This is perhaps the most audacious psalm in the Psalter — a corporate lament that dares to say what most prayers are too polite to say. "Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?" The sons of Korah remember what God did for their fathers: drove out nations, planted Israel, gave them the land not by their own sword but by His right hand and the light of His countenance. That was then. Now He has cast them off, scattered them like sheep for slaughter, sold them for nothing. And here is the line that lifts this psalm out of every other complaint: "All this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant." This is not the suffering of the guilty but the suffering of the faithful — and it bewilders them. Paul quotes it in Romans 8: "For thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." And his answer — that nothing can separate us from the love of God — is precisely the answer this psalm is groping toward in the dark. The psalm ends not with resolution but with raw need: "Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake." Sometimes the bravest prayer is the one that has no answer yet refuses to stop asking.

00:00 What God Did for Our Fathers
01:00 Cast Off and Scattered
02:00 Faithful in the Darkness
03:00 Awake, O Lord