Psalms 44:1-26

Psalms 42:72

Gordon Churchyard

Words in boxes are from the Bible.

Words marked with a *star are described in the word list at the end.

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God Help Us!

Psalms 44

The friends of Jesus came to him. They woke him and said, "*Lord, save us! We are dying". He said to them, "Why are you afraid? You do not have much faith". (Matthew 8:25-26) ("Faith" here means "*trusting in Jesus".)

Psalms 44

(This is) a *maskil.
(It is) for the music leader of the *sons of Korah.

v1 God, we have heard it for ourselves.
Our fathers told it to us.
(They told us) what you did for them a long time ago.

v2 Your hand pushed out the people (that lived in the land)
and put (our fathers) in.
You broke (our enemies) but gave help to (our fathers).

v3 (Our fathers) did not get the land by their own *swords.
Their own power did not win the fight. It was you and
• your right hand
• your arm
• the light on your face
(that did it) because you were their friend.

v4 You are my king. You are my God.
You are the one (that said that) Jacob must win.

v5 Because of you, we pushed back our enemies.
Because of your name, we beat those that fought us.

v6 I do not believe that my bow gave me help.
I do not think that my *sword won (the fight).

v7 This is because you give us help to beat our enemies.
You make the people that *hate us ashamed.

v8 We *praise God *all day long.
We will always *praise your name. *SELAH

v9 But now you have turned away from us.
You have made us ashamed.
You do not go out with our armies.

v10 You make us run away from an enemy.
Those people that *hate us take what they like from us!

v11 You make us *like sheep so that people can eat us!
You have thrown us into other countries.

v12 You are selling your people (and the price is) cheap.
You have sold them and not got anything for it!

v13 You have made us into something that our *neighbours laugh at.
Everyone round us laughs at us and *scorns us.

v14 We are as nothing among the *nations!
Everybody is sorry for us.

v15 I am ashamed *all day long.
I do not know where to look.

v16 (This is) because of:
• the bad things that people say about me
• the people that do bad things to me
• (the people that are) my enemies
• (the people that are) happy because they hurt me.

v17 All this happened to us, but we did not forget you.
We did not forget our *covenant with you.

v18 Our *hearts did not turn away,
nor did our feet turn from your path.

v19 But you broke us where the wild animals are.
You covered us with great *darkness.

v20 If we had
• forgotten the name of our God, or
• lifted up our hands to a foreign god

v21 would God not have discovered it?
He knows the secrets of (people’s) *hearts.

v22 Yet because of you, people kill us *all day long.
They think that we are *like sheep ready for (people to) kill.

v23 *Lord, awake! Why are you asleep?
Get up! Do not throw us away *for ever!

v24 Why do you hide your face (from us)?
Why do you forget our trouble
and the way that people hurt us?

v25 We have fallen down to the earth.
Our bodies are on the ground.

v26 Wake up and give us help!
Save us, because of your kind love.

The Story of Psalms 44

We do not know who wrote Psalms 44. We do not know when they wrote it. When we read the psalm, two things are clear:

• someone had hurt the Jews

• the Jews had done nothing wrong.

We do not know when this happened. Perhaps it was when David was king, or up to 500 years after.

What Psalms 44 means

The psalm is in 3 parts. Verses 1 - 8 tell us what God did for the Jews when they came into their country. It was not the Jews that won the land for them, but God. His hand (verses 2 and 3) and his arm (verse 3) mean "what God did". (Some Christians say that God’s hand is "the *Holy Spirit" and his arm is Jesus.) The "light on your face" (verse 3) means ‘the good way that God looked at people so that he did good things for them’. The enemies of the Jews were the people that lived in the land before they did.

But in verses 9 to 22 we read that something bad has happened.

The Jews had done nothing wrong, but their enemies had done bad things to them. This often happens to Christian people. Why does God let it happen? He does it to make his people strong. Sheep were animals that people killed for the meat. "Thrown us into other countries" means "put us in countries where we did not live before". The *covenant in verse 17 is what God agreed to do if his people obeyed him. Here, in verses 17-22, the people are saying that they kept their part of the *covenant, but God did not keep his. In other words, they obeyed God, but he did not care for them. We often feel *like this. When it happens we must remember that:

• God lets it happen to make us strong

• we must go on believing in God.

It happened to Jesus, and we must be *like him!

In verses 23-26 the person that wrote the psalm prays. He (or she) asks God to wake up and send help! Whatever happens, we must always ask God to send help!

Something to do

Listen to the news on the radio or watch it on the television. When you hear about or see bad things happening to people, pray for them. If they are God’s people, pray harder! It does not mean that they are bad people, but it does mean that God is wanting to make them stronger.

This publication is written in EasyEnglish Level A (1200 words)

July 2001

LORD ~ a special name for God; only his people use it (look after Psalm 25 in Psalms 1-41).
lord ~ someone with authority (with a capital L a name for God, look after Psalm 25 in Psalms 1-41).
trust ~ (noun, or being something) believing that someone will help.
trust ~ (verb, or doing something) believe that someone will help.
maskil ~ a psalm that teaches you something.'sons of Korah ~ the people that sang in the Temple (look in Psalm 43).
temple ~ a special building where people worship God.
worship ~ say that someone is very wonderful.
sword ~ a long sharp knife that soldiers used.
hate ~ the opposite of love.
praise ~ (noun, or being something) words that say that someone or something is very good.
praise ~ (verb, or doing something) say that someone or something is very good.'all day long ~ either every day, or all through the day.
like ~ another word for ‘as’.
neighbour ~ a person that lives near to you.
scorn ~ laugh at someone in a bad way.
nation ~ a group of people (or a country) with a government.
covenant ~ when two people agree they make a covenant.
heart ~ part of our body; the Jews thought that you used your heart to think; so to know it "in your heart" or "by heart" means that you remember it.
darkness ~ where there is no light.
holy ~ very very good; only God is really holy (because he always obeys his rules); Jerusalem was holy because people worshipped God there.
worship ~ say that someone is very wonderful.'