Treasury of David - Psalms 44:23 - 44:23

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Treasury of David - Psalms 44:23 - 44:23


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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:

23 Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.

24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?

25 For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth.

26 Arise for our help, and redeem us for thy mercies' sake.

Psa 44:23

“Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?” God sleepeth not, but the Psalmist puts it so, as if on no other theory he could explain the divine inaction. He would fain see the great Judge ending oppression and giving peace to the holy, therefore does he cry “Awake;” he cannot understand why the reign of tyranny and the oppression of virtue are permitted, and therefore he enquires, “Why sleepest thou?” Arise. This is all thou needest to do, one move of thine will save us. “Cast us not off for ever.” Long enough hast thou deserted us; the terrible effects of thine absence are destroying us; end thou our calamities, and let thine anger be appeased. In persecuting times men are apt to cry, Where is the God of Israel? At the thought of what the saints have endured from their haughty enemies, we join our voices in the great martyr cry, and sing with the bard of Paradise: -

“Avenge, O Lord, thy slaughtered saints, whose bones

Lie scattered on the Alpine mountains cold;

Even those who kept thy truth so pure of old,

When all our fathers worshipped stocks and stones.

Forget not: in thy book record their groans

Who were thy sheep.”

Psa 44:24

“Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our afflictions and our oppression?” Not petulantly, but piteously and enquiringly, we may question the Lord when his dealings are mysterious. We are permitted to order our case with arguments, and plead the right before the face of the august Majesty. Why, Lord, dost thou become oblivious of thy children's woes? This question is far more easily asked than answered; it is hard, indeed, in the midst of persecution to see the reason why we are left to suffer so severely.

Psa 44:25

“For our soul is bowed down to the dust.” Our heart is low as low can be, as low as the dust beneath the soles of men's feet. When the heart sinks, the man is down indeed. Heart-sorrow is the very heart of sorrow. “Our belly cleaveth unto the earth.” The man is prone upon the earth, and he is not only down, but fastened down on the earth and glued to it. It is misery, indeed, when the heart cannot escape from itself, is shut up in its own dejection, and bound with the cords of despondency. God's saints may be thus abject, they may be not only in the dust, but on the dunghill with Job and Lazarus, but their day cometh, and their tide will turn, and they shall have a brave summer after their bitter winter.

Psa 44:26

“Arise for our help.” A short, but sweet and comprehensive prayer, much to the point, clear, simple, urgent, as all prayers should be. “And redeem us for thy mercies' sake.” Here is the final plea. The favour is redemption, the plea is mercy; and this, too, in the case of faithful sufferers who had not forgotten their God. Mercy is always a safe plea, and never will any man find a better.

“Were I a martyr at the stake.

I'd plead my Saviour's name,

Intreat a pardon for his sake.

And urge no other claim.”

Here ends this memorable Psalm, but in heaven its power ends not, but brings down deliverance for the tried people of God.