Big Idea: Sometimes when we have been faithful to God and bad things still happen to us, the best and only explanation is that it is for God’s sake.

Understanding the Text

Psalm 44 is a community lament that follows some national defeat of Israel’s army (44:9), even though the psalmist, speaking on behalf of the king, cannot understand why this has happened, since Israel has not forgotten God or “been false” to his covenant (44:17).

Psalms 42–43 celebrate the psalmist’s hope that he, isolated and dejected in a foreign land, will someday worship in the Jerusalem sanctuary again. Psalm 44 is an expression of theological—not geographical—isolation. God’s past act of giving the land of Canaan to Israel is clear in the psalmist’s mind, but his understanding of why God has not kept his cove…