Psalm 44:1-26
To the director. Of the sons of Koʹrah.+ Masʹkil.*
44 O God, with our ears we have heard,Our forefathers themselves have recounted to us+The activity that you performed in their days,+In the days of long ago.+
2 You yourself by your hand drove away even nations,+And you proceeded to plant them [instead].+You went breaking national groups and sending them away.+
3 For it was not by their own sword that they took possession of the land,+And their own arm was not what brought them salvation.+For it was your right hand and your arm+ and the light of your face,Because you took pleasure in them.+
4 You yourself are my King, O God.+Command grand salvation* for Jacob.+
5 By you we shall push our adversaries themselves;+In your name we shall tread down those rising up against us.+
6 For it was not in my bow that I kept trusting+And it was not my sword that was saving me.+
7 For you saved us from our adversaries,+And those intensely hating us you put to shame.+
8 In God we will offer praise all day long,+And to time indefinite your name we shall laud.+ Seʹlah.
9 But now you have cast off and keep humiliating us,+And you do not go forth with our armies.+
10 You keep making us turn back from the adversary,+And the very ones intensely hating us have pillaged for themselves.+
11 You give us up like sheep, as something to eat,+And among the nations you have scattered us.+
12 You sell your people for no value at all,+And you have made no wealth by the price for them.
13 You set us as a reproach to our neighbors,+A derision and jeering to those all around us.+
14 You set us as a proverbial saying among the nations,+A shaking of the head among the national groups.+
15 All day long my humiliation is in front of me,And the shame of my own face has covered me,+
16 Due to the voice of the one reproaching and speaking abusively,Because of the enemy and the one taking his revenge.+
17 All this is what has come upon us, and we have not forgotten you,+And we have not acted falsely in your covenant.+
18 Our heart has not turned faithlessly back,+Nor do our footsteps deviate from your path.+
19 For you have crushed us in the place of jackals,+And you cover us over with deep shadow.+
20 If we have forgotten the name of our God,*Or we spread out our palms to a strange god,*+
21 Will not God himself search this out?+For he is aware of the secrets of the heart.+
22 But for your sake we have been killed all day long;We have been accounted as sheep for slaughtering.+
23 Do arouse yourself. Why do you keep sleeping, O Jehovah?*+Do awake. Do not keep casting off forever.+
24 Why do you keep your very face concealed?Why do you forget our affliction and our oppression?+
25 For our soul has bowed down* to the dust itself;+Our belly has clung to the very earth.
26 Do arise in assistance to us+And redeem us for the sake of your loving-kindness.+
Footnotes
^ See 32:Sup ftn.
^ See 42:5 ftn, “Salvation.”
^ “To . . . god.” Heb., leʼelʹ.
^ “Our God.” Heb., ʼElo·hehʹnu.
^ One of 134 scribal changes from YHWH to ʼAdho·naiʹ. See App 1B.
^ “Has melted (vanished) away,” by another derivation of the Heb. verb.
