Psalm 44 drove us into an uncomfortable corner as the psalmist boldly asserted his upright innocence in opposition to the Lord’s exile judgment. After being confronted by the psalmist’s protest to God, we are unsure of his honesty and lean toward his being wrong. Is he a righteous sufferer, or is he an arrogant sinner? And what he says next in verse 22 troubles us even more: “For your sake, we are killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” Again, this is the agony of exile, in which Hebrews were dying left and right and their existence as a people seemed it would disappear. The whole flock was slaughtered.

Yet, it is the first word that is vinegar: “For your sake,” because of you, due to you. We cannot decipher the psalmist’s precise meaning. Does he mean this is for God’s sake, like a soldier fighting for the sake of his country—that is, because they are loyal to God, they are suffering uprightly? This preposition, though, could pack the punch of blame: Because of you, we are dying. This is your fault. We are upright and you punish us; this is not right. Which does the psalmist mean? I am not sure, but I lean toward the second. To protest that they did not forget, they were not unfaithful, carries the implicit charge that God is being unfaithful. To send a whole righteous group into exile is not in keeping with the terms of covenant, where God would not punish the innocent.

Hence, it feels very much like the psalmist is asserting the people’s righteousness and charging God with infidelity. And his following petitions do not help any. For now, he commands God to awake and to stop sleeping: “Rise and shine, Lord. Get up and help us.” This language can be metaphorical for God’s springing into action to answer prayer. But in this highly charged setting, it comes across as accusatory. The psalmist tells the God who never sleeps to stop napping. This reminds us of Elijah’s taunts against Baal, a false god (1 Kings 18). The ground on which the psalmist prays is not solid.

Next, he shoots some angry questions at the Lord. “Why do you hide your face?” Why do you forget our oppression? Our souls melt into the dust; our bellies scrape across the ground. Why, God, why (vv. 24–26)? These are accusatory questions. Yet they also betray ignorance. The psalmist does not know why God forgot them. From his point of view, the evidence points to God being in the wrong. The people were righteous; they are suffering the ultimate curse. Hence, what’s up, God?

But the psalmist is not sure. He is still in the dark about the Lord’s ultimate reasons. And this smidgen of uncertainty opens a window of hope. Up to this point, the psalmist could be a peace prophet blindly charging God with covenant treason, in the worst case. Or in the best case, he is an upright Hebrew self-deceived that he is fully innocent and is foolishly bold against the Holy One. Either way, this is a big pride that falls hard. Nevertheless, by admitting his ignorance, he expresses humility and devotion. He bends the knee that God could have other reasons and purposes. And he will look only to the Lord. Even though the psalmist feels that God is in the wrong, he will not abandon Yahweh for some pagan idol. The Lord may have been unfaithful to the covenant, but God is still their only chance at rescue. So he closes this psalm with a plea for redemption. “Redeem us” from the death of exile. Extend your deliverance toward us according to your steadfast love (v. 26). His faith casts itself on the Lord’s merciful salvation; he knows this is his only rescue from exile.

Therefore, even though the psalmist comes across as arrogant and blind, as bold and accusatory toward God, he yet shows a sincere faith. The psalmist is a true believer, but is he right or wrong? Is he a righteous sufferer and God has slipped up? Or is he showing foolish pride by blaming God and not himself? This psalm wraps up without answer. The Lord does not speak to provide clarity. The psalmist does not receive an epiphany that clears everything up. All we get is charges against God and a plea for redemption. How, then, can we discern the accuracy of the psalmist?

We can do what this psalm has done from start to finish: look to the rest of Scripture. This psalm is a treasure trove of allusions to other biblical books. As the psalmist looked back to the conquest, he repeated lines from Exodus to Joshua. In describing the bleakness of exile, the psalm replayed phrases from the covenant curses and the Major Prophets. Being well catechized in the Word, the psalmist prays Scripture. But did the psalmist tell the whole story? Were his details accurate? We are to judge people by the Word. So how does his tale measure up?

In the exile there were upright individuals who formed a remnant: Jeremiah, Daniel, and others. But despite their overall integrity, these people were not completely innocent. They were still sinners, and due to the corporate structure of the law, they bore collective guilt. Hence, in their piety, Nehemiah and Daniel identified themselves with the sinners. Also, Scripture is crystal clear that the exile was the just punishment of the Lord in fidelity to the terms of the covenant. The psalmist presents the exile as failure of covenant justice, but the unified voice of prophets say, “No way!” The pure holiness of Yahweh’s justice against miserable sinners reverberates deeply in the exile. It displays in history the ultimate curse of the Holy One against all depraved children of Adam. And on the day of the Lord’s wrath, none were innocent, no not one.

The psalmist, then, is wrong. He was not righteous. The Lord was just in exiling him and all the people. But a dynamic is formed here that raises a possibility. It is the portrait of a righteous man suffering the ultimate punishment. This is not true for the psalmist, but can it be? Has this ever happened? And if it did, what would it mean? If a righteous person was forsaken, does this make God unjust?

The image created here did come to pass. A search has been made. All humans have been inspected. Just one righteous person needs to be found, and one was. A true child of Eve, a real descendant of Abraham, Jesus Christ, was born in history and under the law. He belonged to the same corporate covenant of Moses. And Jesus was not merely most upright like Daniel, but he was pervasively righteous, thoroughly holy. Jesus never sinned. No lie ever touched his lips or flew from his tongue. Perverse thought never entered his thoughts, no lusts stained his heart. Christ never forgot God; he was always faithful to the covenant in order to fulfill all righteousness.

And what did Jesus get for his perfection? The ultimate curse of everlasting condemnation on the cross. The cross was another form of exile, the final and eternal wrath of God for sin. And as the Righteous One, Jesus suffered this for your redemption. His death was the answer to the psalmist’s prayer. He was cast off to bring you near to God. Jesus slept in the grave to prove that our Lord never slumbers and is always faithful in love.

Moreover, by clothing you in his righteousness, Christ has us share in his cross experience. Sure, there is only one meritorious and atoning cross, the sacrifice of Christ for us. But we resemble our Savior in bearing a cross, which is suffering for the sake of righteousness, being afflicted for the name of Christ. We will be treated as those guilty for things we are innocent of. Thus, even if the psalmist was mistaken, we will meet similar times when we feel judged by God, even though we are upright. The psalmist was not righteous, but he painted the picture of a righteous sufferer, pointing us to Christ and our sharing in Christ’s suffering.

Though we will experience this, however, we should not share the conclusion of the psalmist. In verse 22 he blamed God for their suffering as evidence of being forgotten, not loved. Yet Paul quotes this verse in Romans 8 and denies it. His citation, though, is often misunderstood, as if Paul says we experience verse 22. But it is the other way around. Paul asks the question, “Can we be separated from the love of Christ?” Can distress, persecution, famine, or sword separate us from his love? Then, he footnotes verse 22 as a picture of being separated from God’s love. He employs this verse to show what it means to be separated from God’s love, to be forsaken and forgotten. Basically, his point is, Can we be exiled from Christ’s love as Israel was exiled from God? Can the gospel be broken like the law? Then, in the  next verse, Paul says, no! In all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. In a measure, Israel was separated from God’s love in the exile. But this cannot be so in Christ.

We will experience hardship and suffering for Christ and for uprightness, but such affliction is not evidence of being cast off; it is proof that we are united to the love of Christ. As the apostles were flogged for preaching and walked away praising God for being worthy of the gospel, so our hardships reveal the affection and nearness of Christ. Our distresses remind us that our Lord never sleeps but is always awake and with us continually.

Thus, may Psalm 44 point you to your Redeemer, the Righteous One who became sin for you to make you the righteousness of God. And then let us rejoice with full assurance of Christ’s Immanuel love, ever alert and awake. Nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ. And by his grace, you are more than conquerors through all the sufferings of life to reach the resurrection of our Lord. Praise the Lord for the redeeming love of Christ—perfect, enduring, and never removed from us. Amen.

©Zach Keele. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Zach Keele

  

  Rev. Zachary Keele grew up on a ranch in a small town named Crawford, Colorado. He attended Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and received his Master of Divinity from Westminster Seminary California. He has served as the pastor of Escondido OPC since 2006.

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