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.