Psalm 44 Overview

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Psalm 44/Overview
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Welcome to the Overview of Psalm 44

This page will introduce and provide orientation to Psalm 44 as a whole. It includes the following sections:


Introduction to Psalm 44

Author:

Purpose:

To wrestle with an experience of rejection, in spite of covenant faithfulness.

Content:

God delivered Israel's favored ancestors. Israel, who has been faithful to the covenant, should also experience that favor. However, the reality is that God has been causing defeat and humiliation. Israel wrestles with this reality, and pleads for deliverance according to God's faithfulness.

Message:

When confused and disappointed, God’s people can still appeal to his covenant and character.

Psalm 44 At-a-Glance

These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content. Psalm 044 - At-a-glance Ps44.jpg

Background Orientation for Psalm 44

Following are the common-ground assumptionsCommon-ground assumptions include information shared by the speaker and hearers. In our analysis, we mainly use this category for Biblical/Ancient Near Eastern background. which are the most helpful for making sense of the psalm.

  • God establishes his covenant with Israel's ancestors. The Mosaic Covenant includes an extensive list of blessings for covenant faithfulness and curses for covenant unfaithfulness (Lev 26:3–45; Deut 28).
  • Defeat and humiliation are characteristic of covenant curse, while victory and prosperity are characteristic of covenant blessing.
  • ANE kings could pay foreign powers (with silver and gold) to come to their military aid (2 Kgs 16:7–9; 2 Chr 16:1–6).
  • Sacrifices were often offered to God prior to battle, in order to seek his military favor (1 Sam 7:8–11; 13:8–12).

Background Situation for Psalm 44

The background situation is the series of events leading up to the time in which the psalm is spoken. These are taken from the story triangle – whatever lies to the left of the star icon. Psalm 044 - Background Visual.jpg

Participants in Psalm 44

There are 4 participants/characters in Psalm 44:

Leader/Psalmist
"The Korahites" (v. 1)
Physical might
"My sword" (v. 7)
Israel
"Jacob" (v. 5)
"Your people" (v. 13)
Physical might
"Our armies" (v. 10)
Body parts
"Our heart" (v. 19)
"Our steps" (v. 19)
"Our soul" (v. 26)
"Our belly" (v. 26)

Israel's ancestors
Physical might
"Their power" (v. 4)

God
"My king" (v. 5)
"Lord" (v. 24)
God's power
"Your strength" (v. 3)
"Your right hand" (v. 4)
"Your power" (v. 4)
"The light of your countenance" (v. 4)

Enemies
"The nations" (v. 3)
"People groups" (v. 3)
"Adversaries" (v. 6)
"Those who rise against us >> adversaries" (v. 6)
"Those who hate us >> enemies" (v. 8)
"Neighbors" (v. 14)
"Those who surround us" (v. 14)
"Taunter and reviler >> reviling taunter" (v. 17)
"Enemy and avenger >> vengeful enemy" (v. 17)
Experience of shame
"Shame" (v. 16)
"Shamefacedness" (v. 16)
Another god

  • Leader/Psalmist: The first-person singular references throughout this psalm are best construed as the voice of a liturgical leader (see The Speaker of Ps. 44:5, 7, and 16). According to the superscription of v. 1, this is best identified as the collective voice of the leadership group descended from Korah.
  • Israel: While constituting a distinct participant (see The Speaker of Ps. 44:5, 7, and 16), the first-person plural references throughout the psalm indicate that the psalmist should be included within this participant set. Thus Israel and the psalmist are here presented as related participants.
  • Non-Agentive Participants - Physical might / Physical might / Body parts / Physical might / God's power / Experience of shame: While not agentive participants per se, included in this list of participants are inanimate entities personified as performing relational actions, or entities representing a metonymy for an agentive participant.
  • Israel's ancestors: By recounting God's past dealings with their ancestors, Israel can look ahead to future continuation of such works (Craigie 2004, 333). Based on this continuity of experience, it would be plausible to combine Israel and Israel's ancestors into a single participant set. However, it seems that Israel's ancestors play a sufficiently distinct relational role to warrant treating them as a separate participant.