The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"their own sword," Hebrew charbam (חַרְבָּם). The people begin by rehearsing what their fathers told them (v1), and their theology of the conquest is emphatic: Israel "got not the land in possession by their own sword." The weapon was in their hands, but the victory was not in it.

"their own arm," zeroam (זְרוֹעָם). "Neither did their own arm save them." The denial is doubled -- not their weapon, and not their strength. Whatever Israel contributed, it was not what won the land.

"thy right hand," yeminkha (יְמִינְךָ). Against their sword and their arm the psalm sets God's own: "thy right hand, and thine arm." The victory was not theirs but God's.

"light of thy countenance," or panekha (אוֹר פָּנֶיךָ). To the hand and the arm is added the shining of God's face. What conquered Canaan was not only God's power but God's presence turned toward His people.

"favour," retzitam (רְצִיתָם), thou wast pleased with them. And the ground of it all was pure grace: "because thou hadst a favour unto them." Not their worth, but God's good pleasure, explains the whole history they have been taught.

Explanation

Notice first how this faith is transmitted: "We have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us" (v1). It is handed down, one generation telling the next what God has done. Faith lives by memory carried across the years, and a people who stop rehearsing God's works to their children will soon have nothing left to lean on in the dark. But there is something sharper going on here as well. This careful confession that the past victory was all of God, "not by their own sword... but thy right hand", is exactly what makes the coming lament so painful. They are not fair-weather believers who credited themselves in the good days; they gave God all the glory then, which is precisely why the present defeat bewilders them now. If it was your arm that saved us before, they are about to ask, then where is that arm today? Rightly remembering God's past grace is what gives their complaint its ache: they know defeat cannot be blamed on a strength they never trusted in.

Gospel Focus

"Not by their own sword... but thy right hand", the conquest of the land is a picture of the whole way of salvation, which is God's work and not ours. As Israel did not win the land by their own arm, so no sinner wins heaven by his own righteousness: "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us" (Titus 3:5), "not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9). Our salvation, like theirs, rests on "thy right hand, and thine arm," the mighty arm of the LORD revealed in Jesus Christ, "to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?" (Isaiah 53:1). And it rests on "the light of thy countenance" and God's free "favour", His unearned grace, "accepted in the beloved" (Ephesians 1:6). The believer boasts not in his own sword but in the cross: "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). So we teach our children, as these fathers did, to remember not their own strength but the saving arm of God in Christ, and to rest every hope, in victory and in defeat, on His right hand and the light of His countenance, which He has turned toward us for ever in His Son.

Word Study

"for thy sake," Hebrew aleikha (עָלֶיךָ), on account of thee. Here is the hinge of the whole psalm's protest. They have just insisted, "all this is come upon us; yet have we not forgotten thee, neither have we dealt falsely in thy covenant" (v17). Their suffering is not the wages of sin; it is on account of God Himself.

"killed," horagnu (הֹרַגְנוּ). The word is blunt: they are being killed. They are being cut down precisely because they belong to God.

"all the day long," kol-hayyom (כָּל־הַיּוֹם). This is not one disaster but an unbroken condition, going on without pause from morning to night.

"counted," nechshavnu (נֶחְשַׁבְנוּ), reckoned, regarded. They are reckoned as something -- their enemies have made an assessment of them, and the psalm reports it in the next phrase.

"sheep for the slaughter," ketzon tivchah (כְּצֹאן טִבְחָה). That assessment is: livestock. Defenceless, herded to the knife, valued only for the killing.

Explanation

This verse breaks the tidy rule most of us secretly hold, that suffering is the payment for sin, so that the suffering must have done something to deserve it. Psalm 44 flatly denies it here. These people can find no unfaithfulness in themselves to explain their defeat (vv17-18); their affliction comes not despite their loyalty to God but because of it, "for thy sake." That is a hard and important truth: the faithful sometimes suffer not as punishment but as the cost of belonging to God, "counted as sheep for the slaughter", valued by their enemies as no more than animals bound for the knife. The psalm does not resolve the mystery of why God allows it; it simply refuses the false comfort of pretending the sufferers must have earned it. And by placing this raw, unanswered protest in the inspired prayer book, Scripture gives the faithful sufferer permission to say the same: this is not my punishment; this is the price of being yours.

Gospel Focus

"For thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter", the Apostle Paul lifts this very verse into the triumphant close of Romans 8, and Christ transforms its meaning. Paul quotes it exactly, "As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (Romans 8:36), and then, instead of despair, cries, "Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (Romans 8:37). The sufferings that looked like abandonment become, in Christ, the badge of those from whom nothing "shall be able to separate us from the love of God" (Romans 8:39). And the reason the sheep for the slaughter are safe is that their Shepherd became a sheep for the slaughter first: Jesus "is brought as a lamb to the slaughter" (Isaiah 53:7; Acts 8:32), the innocent One killed truly for our sake. Because the Lamb of God was slain and rose again, His people's slaughter is no longer the end but the pathway to glory, "if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together" (Romans 8:17). So the faithful who suffer for Christ's sake are not forsaken but honoured, sharing the sufferings of the Lamb, and made more than conquerors through Him who loved them and gave Himself for them.

Word Study

"awake," Hebrew urah (עוּרָה). The lament reaches its most daring point. To God, who "shall neither slumber nor sleep" (Psalm 121:4), the people cry, "Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?"

"sleepest," tishan (תִּישָׁן). It feels as though God is asleep on His throne while His people are slaughtered, and they say so, boldly. Yet the very boldness is faith: they would not shout at a God they thought absent.

"arise," haqitzah (הָקִיצָה). They do not merely want God awake; they want Him on His feet. They command God to rouse Himself and act because they still believe He is there and able to save.

"cast us not off," al-tiznach (אַל־תִּזְנַח), do not reject. Beneath the daring lies the real fear: not that God is powerless, but that He has rejected them.

"for ever," lanetzach (לָנֶצַח). Even at their boldest they set a limit on what they dread. They can bear being cast off for a time; what they beg against is that it should be final.

Explanation

This is about the most audacious thing a creature can say to his Maker, to tell God to wake up. And yet it is not unbelief; it is faith at full stretch. You do not bother shouting "Awake!" at someone you have given up on, or at a God you think is not there. The command to wake is aimed at a God the sufferers are certain is real, present, and able, which is why they can be angry that He seems to be doing nothing. Real faith is often more shocked and more outspoken than polite religion, because it takes God's power and promises so seriously that His apparent inaction is intolerable. Scripture does not rebuke this prayer; it prints it. And there is a wonderful answer to it hidden in the Gospels, for the day came when God, in the flesh, truly was asleep, in the stern of a boat, while His people cried out in a storm, "carest thou not that we perish?" (Mark 4:38). He awoke, rebuked the wind, and stilled the sea. The God this psalm begs to wake did once sleep among us, and rose to save.

Gospel Focus

"Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?", the God who seemed asleep answered this cry finally at the cross and the empty tomb. For one dark day it must have seemed to all heaven and earth that God was asleep indeed, as His own Son hung dying and the sky went black; and Christ Himself lay in the sleep of death in the tomb, the true "why sleepest thou?" of the ages. But on the third morning God "awoke": He raised Jesus from the dead, and death's apparent victory was overturned forever. The Lord who slept in the boat and rose to still the storm, who slept in the grave and rose to conquer death, is the God to whom His suffering people still cry, "Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake" (v26). And He will arise: the same Jesus who was raised will come again, "the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout" (1 Thessalonians 4:16), to right every wrong and gather every sheep that was led to the slaughter for His sake. So when God seems asleep while His people suffer, we may pray as boldly as this psalm, and rest in this: the God who awoke on Easter morning is not indifferent, has never truly slept, and will surely arise to redeem us for His mercy's sake.