Devotional Short Note to Psalm 44: This
Psalm is that of Korag who wrote an Anthology of about 11 poems in the Psalm
corpus. Those who are not familiar with him, he is a musician that can play a
harp and have access to the altar and sanctuary of the Lord (Psalm 43:4b and
43:4a). It appears that Psalm 43 was also written by him since some phraseology
is repeated: Why (43:2b compared to 44:24a and 42:12). Psalm 43 is
non-allocated between two Korag Psalms in Psalm 42 and 44.
In Psalm 44 Korag is in utter confusion
or a better word is insult suffering situation, a humiliation and shame.
Connect Psalm 44:10a with the heart of Korag’s problem in 44:16-17. In these
two verses Korag is personal and speaks of “my insults” by an enemy “from a
voice, from mocking and from blasphemy, from the face of an enemy and from
those who seek revenge” (44:17a-b). It appears that there is a small minority
of faithful spiritual Israelites who is in uncomfortable straights due to the
Remnant weed’s actions of faithlessness and running after strange gods.
Jeremiah 5 gives a description of such people where they want the prophet to
preach smooth and comfortable talk to their ears and a lay-ministry where the “priests
follow their [people’s] authority”. It is a church run by a churchboard instead
of Jesus Christ and His Word or Bible. They were people with “vested rights” in
the set-up of the building so they demand to have a finger in the pie and
authority attached to it like the medals that Myamar Ghaddafi had on his
uniform. Very flashy. All this is just self-image. That was the days when they
turned things sour. Before that, however, God had made it sweet for them.
Korag started with the sweet that God
created for them. He said that the narratives of his fathers and
great-grandfathers with their campfire stories told them all the things that
God did to Israel leading them out of Ur by Abraham and out of Egypt by Moses
in 1450 BCE (44:2). Currently in our days people are crying anti-Colonialism
and want to push this sentiment over the books of the Pentateuch, Joshua and
Judges to claim that the Israelites “stole” Canaan from the Canaanites. Who
were the Canaanites? Korag is using the plural and not singular in 44:3a-b “nations”
and “peoples”. They were mixed nations that came from Egypt, Mittanni
(Hurrians), from Turkey (Hittites), from Assyria, from Babylonia (Kassites),
from the deserts (Amorites) and thus to speak of a homogenic nation speaking
one language is going against the biblical text and against Korag in this
verse. Secondly, God was the one Who fought the wars or did the miracles of
driving the nations and peoples out of this space or zone to empty it for His
chosen remnant that He tried to prepare faithfully in the desert for 40 years. “Not
by their own sword” (44:4a). It is to be in Christ that victory comes (44:6a) “In
You do we push down our adversaries…” Not by sword or military excellence did
they “tread them under that rise up against us” (44:6b). The Book of Judges
showed the hand of God around every corner and success and failures were like
pistons going up and down just like their faith worked like pistons of a car.
Korag made the confession that he
himself is a pacifist and non-militaristic not having faith in military power “for
I trust not in my bow neither can my sword save me” (44:7a). He knows that “You
have saved us from our adversaries” (44:8a). Their glorification and
thanksgiving is in God. He ended the citation with Selah.
Starting a new attachment in this poem,
Korag used the word “yet” (aph) (44:10a). Despite this wonderful narrative of
the past how God led them in Exodus, Numbers, Joshua, Judges, despite this
wonderful record, God has “cast off” and brought them “to
insults/humiliation/confusion” (44:10a). Now they are eager to go on military
but God does not go with them: “and [You] go not with our hosts [army]”
(44:10b). The result? They had to retreat (44:11); there is spoliation of their
property (44:11b); they are exiled among nations (44:12b); they are
economically non-profitable (44:13a-b); they are scorned by neighbors (44:14); shame
has fallen on them as nations shook the head (44:15a-b).
Shaking the head is very important. It
follows a period of high respect and admiration. Admiration for what their God
Yahweh did with Thutmosis III that morning in March when the Dead Sea swallowed
the Napoleon of Egypt in one scoop with his soldiers never to be found again.
As a side-note, there is a Thutmosis III mummy in the Oriental Institute Museum
in Chicago but Wente et al that did X-Rays on them showed that it cannot be
Thutmosis III since this mummy is only 35 years old and Thutmosis III was in
the 70’s. Of course it is his oldest son who died hours before him at midnight
when the Angel struck the first born children. At that time the whole Levant
was amazed by the power of Yahweh to help a small nations of a million or two
to run away from mighty colonial oppressive Egypt. But, when Israel forsake
Yahweh and trouble befell them afterwards, of course the nations would shake
the head.
In 44:16-17 Korag made a personal
comment that he is also humiliated every day. There is an enemy and the
revengeful. He did not know what is worse, the enemy without or the enemy of revenge
within his own courters (44:17b).
From 44:18-23 Korag is taking stock with
God by honesty declaring that they are the minority faithful few who did not
cave in to spiritual decay and corruption, to secularism and running after
modern culture and materialism. “Though You have crushed us into a place of
jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death” they did not forget the name
of the Lord (44:19-20). The faithful are accounted as sheep for slaughter but
it does not say that they ended up being slaughtered (44:23b). In 44:24a
scholars thought that Korag is claiming that God is sleeping. Psalm 121:4 says
that God does not slumber nor sleep. Are there two views of God? No. The text
is reading the future verb not the past or present. It is not “awake, why are
You sleeping O Lord?” but “awake [Your sensitivity to us] why will you make
open [Egyptian word ìsn meaning “to make to open”], O Lord. This link very well
with the second part of the two legged sentence saying “Arouse Yourself, cast
not off unto eternity”. Think of a blanket which one kicks open during the
night and the wife covers the husband but he keeps kicking it open or casting
it off.
Face hiding is what God does to sinners
when He cannot approach them unless they turn around to resolve the issue
(44:25a). Hardened in their sins God has to forget their affliction since they
threw their thoughts and hearts open to demons to control them.
In 44:26a-b Korag used a common Levant
expression for people who shows respect to a Pharaoh or Kingly figure: in the
Amarna corpus of cuneiform Akkadian texts from Agypt one often sees the expression
that the sender of the letter says to Thutmosis IV or Amenhotep III that they
are looking for help or rescue from his side in Egypt while they are “rolling
seven times on their back and on their belly on the ground”. Especially in the early
Amarna Corpus texts when Egyptian colonialism came under further attack in
Canaan by the Israelites entering Canaan since 1410 BCE. Later in the life of
Korag, due to the Remnant weed’s sins they went into exile and those faithful
ones were suffering under other nations who grabbed their properties. He wants
God to stand-up to help them. In Daniel 12:1 it will be when Michael “stand-up”
that He will come to the assistance of those who are in the Time of Trouble in
a similar situation.