FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. Of the Sons of Korah. A maskil.
1We have heard with our ears, O God;
our fathers have told us
what you did in their days,
in days long ago.
2With your hand you drove out the nations
and planted our fathers;
you crushed the peoples
and made our fathers flourish.
3It was not by their sword that they won the land,
nor did their arm bring them victory;
it was your right hand, your arm,
and the light of your face, for you loved them.
4You are my King and my God,
who decrees victories for Jacob.
5Through you we push back our enemies;
through your name we trample our foes.
6I do not trust in my bow,
my sword does not bring me victory;
7but you give us victory over our enemies,
you put our adversaries to shame.
8In God we make our boast all day long,
and we will praise your name forever.
Selah
9But now you have rejected and humbled us;
you no longer go out with our armies.
10You made us retreat before the enemy,
and our adversaries have plundered us.
11You gave us up to be devoured like sheep
and have scattered us among the nations.
12You sold your people for a pittance,
gaining nothing from their sale.
13You have made us a reproach to our neighbors,
the scorn and derision of those around us.
14You have made us a byword among the nations;
the peoples shake their heads at us.
15My disgrace is before me all day long,
and my face is covered with shame
16at the taunts of those who reproach and revile me,
because of the enemy, who is bent on revenge.
17All this happened to us,
though we had not forgotten you
or been false to your covenant.
18Our hearts had not turned back;
our feet had not strayed from your path.
19But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals
and covered us over with deep darkness.
20If we had forgotten the name of our God
or spread out our hands to a foreign god,
21would not God have discovered it,
since he knows the secrets of the heart?
22Yet for your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.
23Awake, O Lord! Why do you sleep?
Rouse yourself! Do not reject us forever.
24Why do you hide your face
and forget our misery and oppression?
25We are brought down to the dust;
our bodies cling to the ground.
26Rise up and help us;
redeem us because of your unfailing love.
Original Meaning
IT IS CERTAINLY no accident that the first corporate prayer for help in the Psalter follows immediately upon the combined Psalms 42–43 with its pregnant description of an individual in crisis upheld by the memory and reality of God’s presence in the communal worship of Israel. Psalm 44 operates out of the same sense of bewilderment at the absence of God in a time of extreme need that characterizes the earlier two psalms. By effect of its position, Psalm 44 extends the sentiments of the earlier psalms to the life of the community and makes more clear that the context against which all are to be read is the exilic experience of Israel.
McCann has pointed out a persuasive set of literary links connecting these three psalms that suggest purposeful arrangement: “These links suggest in each case that the trouble of the ‘I’ and the expressions of hope in Pss. 42–43 . . . are meant to be understood in light of the experiences of exile and dispersion that lie at the heart of [Ps. 44].”1 While this does not mean that Psalms 42 and 43 were composed during the exilic period, it does suggest that the postexilic community came to see their own experience of dislocation and humiliation reflected in these psalms, even though they may have been written in an earlier time. As a result, when the individual in Psalms 42–43 longs to return to the temple and experience the joy of God’s presence there, he is heard to speak for the whole community in exile, who shares similar longing for restoration.2
Psalm 44 is arranged in five segments: the testimony of the ancestors (44:1–3), a contemporary appropriation of the tradition (44:4–8), a description of present suffering (44:9–16), a protestation of innocence (44:17–22), and a plea for deliverance (44:23–26). A major disjuncture of mood and viewpoint takes place after the first two segments and is marked by the appearance of the term selah.
The Testimony of the Ancestors (44:1–3)
PSALM 44 BEGINS almost as if the author had been reading Psalms 42–43! There the individual in crisis turned to the community of faith to remember those elements of past experience that affirmed God’s continued presence and good intent to his people. The present psalm begins with a community’s rehearsal of the ancestral history of God’s saving grace—what is commonly called “salvation history,” those events in Israel’s history understood to be God’s special working with and for her. In this case the rehearsal is primarily concerned with the conquest of the land of Canaan as described in the book of Joshua.
We have heard with our ears. The psalm begins by referring to the constant repetition of the patriarchal history and the mighty acts of God enjoined on Israel in the Deuteronomic literature. “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them” (Deut. 4:9).3
Israel took this injunction seriously, as demonstrated by the many rehearsals of the primary saving events of her history scattered through the Old Testament.4 Indeed, in a real sense, the Old Testament itself is the ultimate fulfillment of Israel’s commitment to preserve this testimony to God’s mighty acts in her behalf.5 Short of direct perception of God or of his incarnation in Jesus Christ, this testimony—whether spoken or written, proclamation or Scripture—continues to be the primary witness to God throughout the generations.
Job, for example, testifies, “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. . . . My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you” (Job 42:2, 5). Jesus declares, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9); and “blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (20:29). The Gospel of John concludes, “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (20:30–31). Despite the direct inward working of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we as the Israelites of old are still dependent on the testimony of those who have gone before—especially as embodied in the Scripture of Old and New Testaments.
You drove out. The psalmist, speaking for the community of faith, describes how the recorded and transmitted history of God’s activity with the ancestors of the faith provides the foundation of confidence to present believers. God’s mighty acts in behalf of the “fathers” are well known—here, the narratives recorded in the first half of Joshua. God displaced the inhabitants of Canaan and “planted our fathers . . . and made our fathers flourish” (44:2).
Not by their sword. The conquest of the land and the establishing of Israel in it were acts of divine grace, not events of national accomplishment. It was God’s arm that brought victory,6 not the sword and arm of the Israelites.
You loved them. The reason God acted in behalf of the Israelite ancestors is encapsulated in this brief phrase. The scriptural basis for this conclusion is provided in Deuteronomy (e.g., Deut. 4:37–38; 7:7–8; 9:4–6), where Israel is told that Yahweh has chosen them freely, not because of their greatness or righteousness but because he loved them and had a promise to keep.
Our psalm shifts the ground a bit by moving away from the “love” terminology of Deuteronomy (with the root ʾhb) to speak instead of God’s being favorable to his people (using the root rṣh [“be pleased with, accept favorably”]). The distinction is subtle but significant. The Deuteronomy accounts understand God’s actions in Israel’s behalf as entirely unmerited favor, the result of Yahweh’s love for Israel and his free choice to bless her. The choice of terms in Psalm 44 at least admits the possibility that God’s choice of Israel was founded in his pleasure with her—a conclusion that can lead to misunderstanding and disappointment.
Contemporary Appropriation of Tradition (44:4–8)
THIS SECTION DEPICTS the community of faith doing what Psalms 42–43 has recommended. Faced with a contemporary context of suffering, the people remember past evidence of Yahweh’s good intent and powerful action in behalf of their ancestors and in these verses seek to follow the advice of the repeated refrain of Psalms 42–43: “Put your hope in God, for [we] will yet praise him, [our] Savior and [our] God.” Having reviewed the ancestral traditions, the community now adopts and professes those traditions as their own.
You are my King and my God. Contemporary Israel reaffirms in the present the ancient commitment of the ancestors to Yahweh alone. The single voice that speaks at this point may well be the king who, by naming God, acknowledges that any human efforts at rulership and control must submit to the ultimate sovereignty of God. The singular voice reappears again and again in what follows (cf. vv. 6, 15–16) so that the king is pictured as leading the people in recognizing the absolute dependence of human kingship on the gracious mercy of God.
Who decrees victories. The king (44:4) and then the people (44:5) acknowledge that God is the source of any victories over their foes.7 This draws, of course, on the preceding description of the conquest of Canaan, which testified that God was the one who actively drove the inhabitants out before the armies of Israel. When the king declares that neither his bow nor his sword (44:6) are adequate guarantees of victory without God’s presence, he is appropriating the core theological expression of the earlier conquest: “Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go” (Josh. 1:9). In Psalm 44:8, both people and king affirm in their praise that God is the one deserving credit for any victory they experience.
Description of Present Suffering (44:9–16)
THE WORD ʾap (“also, yet”), with which verse 9 begins, introduces a radical shift in the tone and content of the psalm. It must in the context be translated as a strong “but now,” marking extreme contrast with what has preceded. In verses 1–8 all had been confidence and assurance. As Israel’s ancestors had experienced God’s powerful support in battle with their enemies, so the present community of faith could anticipate his engagement in their behalf. The song of anticipated victory was already floating on their lips.
But now. Israel’s experience did not live up to her expectation. Victory eluded them, and the reality of defeat took its place. Community and king alike felt rejected by God and humiliated by his obvious absence. While it is not possible to offer certainty regarding the setting for this lament (some suggest a preexilic defeat by Israel’s enemies while others opt for a late Maccabean date),8 the description suggests severe destruction, societal dislocation, and even deportation (44:11). Regardless of its origin, the psalm would have resonated with the ongoing circumstance of the Diaspora community. In particular, the phrase “scattered . . . among the nations [peoples]” is used throughout the Old Testament to refer to the dispersion as a result of the Exile.
With harsh and pointed language, the psalmist leaves no doubt that the cause of Israel’s suffering and disgrace is God himself. The emphatic litany of “You!” with which each verse (and some half-verses) begins in 44:9–14 is the result of a whole series of second-person singular verbal forms in the Hebrew text, all directed to God. God has rejected and humbled his people. He has caused them to retreat and be plundered. God gave them up and scattered them. He sold them for no personal profit and made them a reproach and a byword among the nations.
This is a strong view of God—just as strong, in fact, as the view expressed in the opening historic recollection. Israel’s troubles are not the result of a weak God unable to cope with the superior threats of the enemy. God is entirely able to deliver and save his people. That is why the suffering that the believing community experiences creates such a dilemma. The problem is not a lack of power, but why God has failed to act. As a result of this way of thinking, God is seen as the active force behind all the woe that has come upon his people.
You have made us a reproach. The embarrassing words of shame and disgrace pile up in the last verses of this segment like a cairn of stones intended to mark the scene of some scandalous infamy or like the piles of flowers left at the scene of a tragic and shattering death. Israel’s neighbors, the surrounding nations and peoples, look on in amused glee at her misfortune. Reproach, scorn, derision, byword, shaking of the head—the words gather in heaps to mark the shame of God’s people. Thus, it is entirely appropriate that the singular voice of the king breaks out in verse 15, lamenting the disgrace that is too much to bear. As the public and military representative of the nation, he must bear the brunt of ridicule that attends defeat.
Those who reproach and revile me. It seems likely that some of the king’s reproach comes from his countrymen, who blame failure on his weak and ineffective military leadership. These reproach the king “because of the enemy” (44:16), to whose vengeful attacks they feel especially vulnerable. The enemy seeking revenge may be one of the major powers of Mesopotamia who historically ended the northern and southern monarchies of Israel. Assyria and Babylon were both harsh in their treatment of conquered peoples, as the Assyrians’ practice of impaling captives alive and the deportation of defeated peoples from their homelands by both these nations demonstrate. But there is also ample evidence in the Old Testament how the lesser powers surrounding Israel took opportunity at the defeats administered by the Mesopotamian powers to take revenge on their former overlords. Psalm 137’s castigation of Edom for their part in the destruction of Jerusalem (137:7) provides a good illustration of this.
Protestation of Innocence (44:17–22)
ALL THIS HAPPENED to us. The real reason for the community’s dismay now becomes apparent. The narratives of Joshua and Judges, to which the opening verses of this psalm allude, describe the structural cycle of apostasy, defeat by enemies as divine punishment, repentance, and deliverance by divinely appointed leaders that characterized Israel’s early life in the land. The accounts of Samuel and Kings show that the monarchical period was no different, with kings being evaluated as evil or good according to their adherence to the Deuteronomistic criteria of avoidance of idols and reverence for the one true temple in Jerusalem.
If anything, the opening verses of Psalm 44 downplay the ongoing struggle Israel experienced between her frequent episodes of disloyalty to Yahweh and the resultant oppression by foreign powers. Consequently, the picture of the Conquest is somewhat idealized. The theme of the Deuteronomistic History recounted in Joshua through 2 Kings is that the Exile was divine punishment for Israel’s failure to maintain absolute loyalty to Yahweh alone as demanded by her covenant with him. That understanding permeates the whole Old Testament narrative from Pentateuch through Prophets and Writings, including many of the psalms (see esp. Ps. 106).
The new departure in this segment is not that Israel suffers defeat and exile. It is not even that the Exile is attributed to God. The Deuteronomistic History and viewpoint had already driven both those points home forcefully. Where Psalm 44 departs is in the community’s earnest protestation of innocence of any guilt that might justify the punishment meted out in the Exile.
We had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant. The accusations leveled at Israel elsewhere in the Old Testament are here flatly rejected. Like Job, the lamenting people deny any disloyalty to God or breech of his covenant. Not only have they remained externally observant (“our feet had not strayed from [God’s] path”), but they were inwardly faithful as well (“our hearts had not turned back”). This is no pretension of absolute sinlessness but honest affirmation of their commitment to covenant relationship with God and their ongoing intention to remain faithful. In their understanding of the covenant they had fulfilled their obligations and were entitled to be declared “righteous.”
But you crushed us. They had remained faithful to God, but now he seems to be dealing faithlessly with them. They are left in desperate straits by what they can only construe to be the action (or restraint) of their God. The terms used to describe their plight are harsh and extreme: “crushed,” “a haunt for jackals [a depopulated area, hostile to all civilized human life],” “covered . . . over with deep darkness [ṣalmawet (‘shadow of [as dark as] death’)].”9 The radical nature of the threat highlights the discontinuity Israel feels regarding her faithfulness to covenant demands.
If we had forgotten. Israel’s consternation is not the result of any naive assumption of unconditional divine support for the nation. She understands clearly and well that breech of covenant obligations would deserve such rejection and suffering as she now experienced at the hand of God. But search as she might, Israel is unable to discover in herself any faithlessness commensurate with the punishment received. She has not “forgotten the name of [her] God.”
Once again we return to the theme of remembrance and forgetting that was so central to Psalms 42–43. Although the typical reticence of the Elohistic Psalter avoids the direct use of the divine name Yahweh at this point, the community of believers confesses her loyalty to “the name” of the covenant deity. Her memory (and active obedience), however, is met in her estimation with divine forgetfulness (44:24) and rejection (44:9), even though she has scrupulously avoided the cardinal sin of worshiping any god other than Yahweh (44:20).
Would not God have discovered it? Refusing to rely on her own protestation of innocence alone, the community calls on the covenant God to bear witness himself. It is impossible to hoodwink God, they declare. Their innocence or guilt is open to divine scrutiny, and they are confident he will admit their innocence. This Job-like subpoena for God to enter the witness box affirms the credibility of their case. Who would rely on falsehood before the God who knows even the inner thoughts and motives (44:21) of humans?
For your sake we face death all day long. Here lies the key affirmation and understanding of the psalm, subtly but powerfully expressed. Without this anguished acknowledgment, we would be tempted to spend our time criticizing the lack of self-awareness that stands behind the community’s naive and misguided attempt to claim innocence. We would like to prove them guilty so as not to have to accept as our own their recognition that to be the chosen people of God entails undeserved suffering. That is at the core of what Israel is saying in verse 22. We are innocent, faithful to you alone, and yet we are becoming martyrs for your sake.
Here too experiences of the individual laments have been adopted: the [righteous] must suffer much (Ps. 34:19)—it is an essential mark of his existence that (without mention of guilt) enmities and torments assail him (cf. Ps. 22). This interpretation ties the uniqueness of election to the mystery of the suffering of the righteous.10
Plea for Deliverance (44:23–26)
WITH TYPICAL LANGUAGE intended to rouse the hearer to action, the beleaguered community makes its desire for deliverance known. They want God to bring this period of extended rejection to an end (44:23; cf. 44:9). They want his forgetfulness, which led to their current misery, replaced by active memory (44:24).
Our bodies cling to the ground. One last description of the people’s personal desperation punctuates this concluding plea. Defeated Israel is forced prostrate in the dust by her conquering enemies. Using terms reminiscent of the creation narrative in Genesis (Gen. 2:24), the psalm describes the bellies of the prostrate Israelites “clinging” (dbq) so closely to the ground as to become united with it—perhaps an oblique reference to returning to the dust in death (cf. Gen. 3:19; Job 34:15; Ps. 104:29).
The psalm concludes with a final entreaty for God to “rise up” and redeem his suffering people (44:26). In the end, confident of her own innocence in covenant obligations, Israel calls on God to respond with the sort of “unfailing love” (ḥesed) that characterizes his commitment to covenant relationship with his people. While willing to accept the mystery of righteous suffering, they are not without hope that God will ultimately set things right. This hope betrays a conviction that God’s final purpose is a restored creation environment in which righteousness begets blessing and not cursing. Resigned to the “real world” where all is not as it should be (44:22), Israel still hopes for an earlier experience of this renewed kingdom of God in which she can participate in the reconciliation of all things.
Bridging Contexts
THE SUFFERING OF THE FAITHFUL. Psalm 44 raises a difficult and often troubling question: “What place does suffering have in the life of the faithful?” The Old Testament provides sufficient data to suggest that, at least at one significant level, Israel believed that the faithful ought not to suffer. One tributary of this idea can be traced to the wisdom tradition that Israel shared with the broader ancient Near East. This rather international wisdom viewpoint held to a particular philosophy of life with a series of interlocking beliefs or principles: (1) The world as created by God is characterized by a divinely instituted order; (2) it is possible for humans to perceive and understand this order through observing life and accumulating experience; (3) the wise (those who choose to live in accord with this order) are blessed and prosper in life while the foolish (those who choose to live contrary to this order) are cursed and perish. This last principle is known as “retribution”—the crop one harvests depends on the kind of seeds one plants.
A second contributor to the common attitude that the faithful ought not to suffer derives from the more distinctly religious sphere of Israelite life. In this view, it is the covenant relationship between Israel and Yahweh that determines the experience of blessing or cursing in the life of the community. According to the formulation of this viewpoint in Deuteronomy, the primary obligations laid on Israel by the covenant were: (1) to maintain absolute loyalty to Yahweh alone, avoiding entanglements with any other deities, and (2) to obey the commands of the Torah that instructed Israel how to fulfill her covenantal role as the “holy nation” of Yahweh. As a result of this covenant commitment, the righteous community (when Israel kept these commandments) received blessing and prosperity, while disobedient (or wicked) Israel could anticipate cursing, oppression by foreign powers, and ultimate perishing.11
These two ways of thinking, while originally distinct, intersected with one another in a variety of ways and over time joined to form a common belief system in which wisdom and Torah are identified, while the wise and foolish become synonymous with the righteous and the wicked. The combined form of worldview still believed that the righteous (wise) prospered while the wicked (fools) perished. The beauty of the system is its apparent simplicity: Follow the leading of wisdom, keep the commandments, and blessing and benefit will result. However, it became increasingly clear to some observers that life did not always turn out that way.
The biblical wisdom literature contains within itself evidence of a thoroughgoing critique regarding the viability of this simple viewpoint with its confident reliance on the working of retribution. While we cannot be certain about all the factors involved in precipitating this discussion, we can suggest at least two that must have played an important role: the suffering of the righteous, and the collapse of the monarchy and the loss of national identity in the Exile.
(1) As far as individual suffering was concerned, many cases could be readily explained as the result of personal folly or sinfulness. Even as late as the time of Jesus sickness, mental disorder, and other forms of physical suffering were often attributed to sinfulness (see John 9:2).
The book of Job, however, pointedly disputes whether all examples of suffering can be traced to individual sinfulness. Although Job’s friends repeatedly attempted to convince him to confess some hidden sin, to accept the possibility of inadvertent sin unknown to himself, or even to acknowledge his suffering as divine discipline to bend him to God’s purpose, Job maintained his innocence. And the reader knows what the friends could not have known, that in the opening dialogue between Satan and God, Job had already been declared righteous by none other than God himself. Job’s suffering then must be explained in some other way.
But Job is not ultimately a book about the reason for the suffering of the righteous. The fact of such suffering is assumed and used to highlight a deeper question that underlies the book: “Is a God who allows the righteous to suffer worthy of continued loyalty and worship?” The final chapters of the book answer that question with a resounding “Yes!” while allowing the “why” of righteous suffering to remain as a divine mystery exceeding the bounds of human resolution.
As a consequence of the growing realization that the righteous can also suffer regardless of their righteousness, biblical wisdom had to conclude that since suffering does not negate the reality of the blessing of remaining faithful to God, the blessing of wisdom and righteousness must be understood in ways that transcend the traditional anticipation of a pleasant, honorable, and prosperous life.
Better a little with the fear of the LORD
than great wealth with turmoil. (Prov. 15:16)
Better a little with righteousness
than much gain with injustice. (Prov. 16:8)
How much better to get wisdom than gold,
to choose understanding rather than silver! (Prov. 16:16).
Better to be lowly in spirit and among the oppressed
than to share plunder with the proud. (Prov. 16:19)
Better a poor man whose walk is blameless
than a rich man whose ways are perverse. (Prov. 28:6)
(2) The communal suffering of Israel in exile occasioned another attack on the traditional view of retribution. The primary response came in the reinterpretation of Israelite history by what has come to be known as the Deuteronomic History. This history, stretching from Joshua through 2 Kings, understands the crux of the Exile to be Israel’s failure as a community of faith to fulfill her covenant obligations of loyalty to Yahweh and obedience to the Torah. As a result, the exilic destruction and dispersion is understood as the deserved fulfillment of the curses of Deuteronomy 28:15–68 poured out on a wicked and rebellious nation.
This viewpoint permeates the prophets, who condemn the nation for its faithlessness and pronounce the coming judgment of the Exile as just and deserved. In the exilic period itself, voices like Ezra (Ezra 9:5–15), Nehemiah (Neh. 1:5–11), and Daniel (Dan. 9:4–19) acknowledge that Israel’s sin stands behind the Exile and recognize that the way back to restored fellowship with Yahweh comes only through repentance, confession, and renewed obedience to the Torah. A number of the psalms reflect a similar evaluation of the exilic experience and hope for restoration (cf. Pss. 106:40–47; 130:8).
In the present psalm, however, we encounter a very different evaluation of the experience of military defeat and exile in the community. The community of faith believes that victory over their enemies can only be accomplished by the power of God working with them. They believe from past history and experience that God is perfectly able to deliver—then or now. While it is clear that the lamenting community understands the suffering they are undergoing to have been brought on them by the rejection of God, nowhere do they acknowledge any failing of covenant responsibility. “We had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant!” they cry (44:17). The fact that they now experience defeat and exile rather than victory can only mean, therefore, that God for some inscrutable reason of his own has given them up into the power of their enemies.
It is in this context of feeling abandoned and rejected by God for no apparent reason or fault of their own that the community of faith makes an amazing step of understanding—not complete understanding, mind you, but understanding that shapes their will to commit themselves in a new and painful way: “Yet for your sake we face death all day long” (44:22). The “yet” that begins this statement gives the whole a similar flavor to Job’s reply to his friends: “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face” (Job 13:15). Regardless of the pain that attends their faith, the community remains committed to Yahweh, and this commitment was “for your sake”—that is, because of their firm commitment to God rather than their own benefit. According to James L. Mays,
“For your sake” meant they could see no other meaning and purpose in their confession and trust than that they were accounted as sheep for slaughter. But that minimal and doleful interpretation of their suffering opens on the prospect of an understanding of suffering as a service to the kingdom of God. The prospect leads to the suffering servant of Isa. 53, to Jewish martyrs, and to the cross of Calvary. The apostle Paul will later quote verse 22 to a persecuted congregation of early Christians (Rom. 8:36) to persuade them to understand their suffering in the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.12
TOO OFTEN OUR first reaction to Psalm 44 is to dismiss the protestation of innocence as a rather deceitful manipulation of God by a people in a state of deep denial. After all, we say, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). But before we simply reject the community’s claim of innocence out of hand, we need to consider several obviating factors.
(1) As mentioned above, the community’s protest is no claim of complete sinlessness but a claim to have fulfilled their essential obligations to the covenant. Even the covenant code itself understood that individual sin and corporate guilt would occur and thus offered appropriate methods of restitution. The sacrificial system provided for the whole-burnt offering as a means of atoning for sin, whether individual or corporate. Indeed, the yearly offering on the Day of Atonement assumed that the sins of the nation could be removed by sincere repentance and renewed commitment accompanied by the prescribed sacrificial ritual.
We might not understand or be completely comfortable with this sacrificial method of removing ongoing sin, but most of us would have to admit that accepting the sacrificial death of Christ as Savior has not yet perfectly removed all our tendencies toward selfishness, anger, lust, greed, and other more subtle forms of sin. I am grateful to know that my moments of weakness and failure, while serious in their own right and in need of repentance and confession, do not drive an irreparable wedge between myself and God. I am glad that my commitment to Christ (and his to me) can begin here and now where I imperfectly stand and proceed with God’s grace and the strengthening of his Spirit to refine me to become more like my Lord and Savior.
(2) The speakers do not stand alone in their claims. Most notably Job also claims to suffer without justification. While his friends try valiantly to dissuade him from what they perceive to be false claims, the book in no way undermines his essential uprightness of character—a righteousness confirmed by God himself in the opening dialogue with Satan and reconfirmed by God’s concluding evaluation that the friends “have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7). Moreover, other psalms find it possible to make similar claims of innocent suffering (see esp. Pss. 7:3–9; 18:20–24; 26:1–12, where some equally extreme claims of personal innocence before God are offered).13 These powerful protestations of innocence are strongly stated and may give us the impression of manipulative distortion and willful self-denial. We should exercise caution, however, in dismissing these claims so lightly.
One main reason to avoid simply categorizing these claims of innocence as deceitful or misguided is the recognition that a decisive shift has taken place in the interpretation of the psalms when they were included as part of holy Scripture. What were originally human psalms composed by individuals to express human thoughts and emotions directed to God have, by the process of preservation, selection, transmission, and arrangement in the canonical book of Psalms, been transformed into the Word of God to us. In these words we hear God speaking to us, and we must learn to listen attentively to get that message rightly. If we dismiss these psalms too lightly as the product of sinful humans that we ought simply to ignore, we may find ourselves picking and choosing which bits of Scripture we will pay attention to. Then we run the danger of missing the hard truth that is spoken to us in psalms like this one.14
(3) As a final consideration, we have our own contemporary experience as proof that the innocent suffer through no fault of their own. The Nazi Holocaust, in which six and a half million Jews and millions of others lost their lives for no other reason than that they had the wrong ethnic background, is the most commonly cited example. But we have only to look at the “Killing Fields” of Southeast Asia, the civil-war-induced famines in Africa, the abuse of African Americans, native Americans, and other racial groups in our own heritage, and the persecution of Christians and other religious groups at the hands of totalitarian regimes around the world to know that “innocence,” however defined, is no shield against persecution, abuse, or injustice.
Our own personal experience may illumine less pervasive examples of undeserved suffering and persecution. A Christian professor I know taught for seven years at a major secular research university. During that time he published as expected, received consistently positive evaluations, and seemed on track to receive tenure. About a year and a half before he could enter the tenure process, it became clear that his colleagues were not comfortable with his evangelical stance, and his evaluations began to reflect unanticipated questions about his suitability for the position. At last, the year before he would have entered the tenure process, he was informed by his department chair that his contract would not be renewed for the coming year, thus avoiding any requirement to provide written justification or adequate documentation for the termination.
This professor chose to see this series of events as an opportunity to move on to a new phase of ministry in his life. But for a long time it left a bitter taste of injustice, and the question “Why?” surfaced often. This was no personal holocaust, but it was a painful experience of rejection and suffering, with many negative consequences for himself, his wife, and his children. Many of you perhaps have similar experiences of rejection, harassment, oppression, or abuse that you can insert in place of this one. So the sentiments of this psalm are not so alien to us as they might first seem. Although as Christians we have often been well-schooled by a particularly strong sense of humility to accept almost any type of suffering as “deserved,” I think most of us would have to admit there are times we would like to cry out with Psalm 44: “All this happened to us, though we had not forgotten you or been false to your covenant.”
Once we admit that the innocent can suffer and acknowledge that there are times when we do understand the pain in our life to be undeserved, we are ready to learn the central lesson of Psalm 44. The lamenting community does not merely acknowledge its innocent suffering and resign itself to it as the result of the mysterious purpose of God. Instead, they give meaning to their suffering by recognizing it is not simply unexplained injustice that must be borne and survived; rather, it is part of what it means to be like God, to “share in the sufferings of Christ,” so to speak; their suffering was “for [God’s] sake.”
As Mays reminded us earlier, the suffering of the innocent has a long heritage that goes back to the suffering servant of Isaiah 53, who, though innocent, suffered and died for the sins of his people.15 Others, such as Daniel and his friends, were falsely accused and suffered because of their loyalty to Yahweh. Hebrews 11:35b–38 describes the faithful who were persecuted, tortured, and killed for their faith.
This kind of understanding of suffering—that the suffering of innocent Christians for their faith is part of what it means to be godlike16—puts flesh on the bones of several difficult statements in the Gospels. In response to the inquiry of the disciples regarding who had sinned in the case of the man born blind, Jesus replied, “Neither this man nor his parents sinned . . . but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). The man’s blindness was not the consequence of punishment for sin, nor was it the meaningless result of happenstance. The man’s lifelong suffering was given new significance by understanding it as an opportunity for “the work of God [to] be displayed in his life.”
In a similar but slightly different response to the approaching death of his friend Lazarus, Jesus proclaimed, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through it” (John 11:4). Lazarus did die (though the episode did not end in death), and the suffering of his family was acute. But this painful loss, far from being pointless, was a significant opportunity for the glory of God and his Son to be made manifest.
It is interesting that in both New Testament accounts just mentioned, the same Greek grammatical construction17 describes the future glorification of God in these events. This construction regularly indicates an unrealized contingency or possibility. The implication is that these events of suffering offered opportunities for the “work of God” to be demonstrated or the “Son of God” to be glorified through them. The result is a future potential and not a sure thing. It would have been possible for the sufferers and those around them to see only meaningless suffering and pain.
The same potential exists in our moments of innocent suffering. We may be tempted to vent our rage, seek revenge, or play the victim—and this psalm certainly encourages us to speak our pain and confusion honestly and bluntly to God, holding nothing back. But verse 22 offers us the opportunity to transform our meaningless pain into an opportunity to glorify God. How we choose to respond to undeserved pain is a “kingdom moment,” a moment to reflect values that are not of this world but come only by the power and strength of God.
I am reminded in this context of the rather curious admonition in the Sermon on the Mount. There, in the midst of the account in Matthew 6, Jesus warns his listeners to get their life priorities straight. “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” (6:25). Now, Jesus is not talking about excess or abundant possessions. He is not encouraging us to cut back and live a simple life. He is talking about basic necessities of life—food and clothing. Yet he says we ought not be anxious if we have nothing to eat or to wear. That is pretty radical and extreme, if you ask me!18
Following the interpretation of these statements in Matthew to its extreme conclusion provides encouragement to those who are forced to choose between the kingdom of God and life in this world: a choice modeled by those martyrs—Jewish and Christian, ancient and modern—who have chosen the way of suffering and death rather than recanting their faith or accommodating their belief to the demands of physical necessity. There are times when dying is more important than all that physical life has to offer. There are times when one must lose his or her life in order to find it. I am thankful that Jesus believed this radical truth and acted on his belief.