Psalm 44 (1928 BCP)
Psalm 44 (1928 BCP) (Deus, auribus) is the Ninth-Day Morning Prayer psalm in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Psalter. It remembers God's former deliverances, confronts a present communal defeat, affirms covenant fidelity in suffering, and ends in an urgent plea for mercy. Its language is corporate throughout: Israel’s memory, humiliation, and prayer become words which the Church may use without denying either the Psalm’s historical voice or the reality of present affliction.
Text in the 1928 Psalter
WE have heard with our ears, O God, our fathers have told us * what thou hast done in their time of old:
2 How thou hast driven out the heathen with thy hand, and planted our fathers in; * how thou hast destroyed the nations, and made thy people to flourish.
3 For they gat not the land in possession through their own sword, * neither was it their own arm that helped them;
4 But thy right hand, and thine arm, and the light of thy countenance; * because thou hadst a favour unto them.
The Psalm begins with received testimony: “our fathers have told us.” The conquest is attributed to God's right hand, arm, and favourable countenance, while the people’s sword and arm are explicitly disavowed. Memory therefore becomes a theological discipline: it recalls grace rather than making a claim of national entitlement.
5 Thou art my King, O God; * send help unto Jacob.
6 Through thee will we overthrow our enemies, * and in thy Name will we tread them under that rise up against us.
7 For I will not trust in my bow, * it is not my sword that shall help me;
8 But it is thou that savest us from our enemies, * and puttest them to confusion that hate us.
9 We make our boast of God all day long, * and will praise thy Name for ever.
The shift between “my King” and “Jacob” holds individual trust and the people’s common need together. The Psalm is not permission for Christian violence or a promise of earthly success; its immediate point is that no human instrument is the ground of salvation. In the Daily Office, this renunciation trains praise to remain dependent on God.
10 But now thou art far off, and puttest us to confusion, * and goest not forth with our armies.
11 Thou makest us to turn our backs upon our enemies, * so that they which hate us spoil our goods.
12 Thou lettest us be eaten up like sheep, * and hast scattered us among the heathen.
13 Thou sellest thy people for nought, * and takest no money for them.
14 Thou makest us to be rebuked of our neighbours, * to be laughed to scorn, and had in derision of them that are round about us.
The remembered victories sharpen rather than silence the complaint. The people name scattering, shame, and derision before God; biblical prayer does not require the afflicted to make defeat sound acceptable. Yet the address remains prayer, and so the complaint is made within the covenant relation rather than outside it.
18 And though all this be come upon us, yet do we not forget thee, * nor behave ourselves frowardly in thy covenant.
19 Our heart is not turned back, * neither our steps gone out of thy way;
20 No, not when thou hast smitten us into the place of dragons, * and covered us with the shadow of death.
21 If we have forgotten the Name of our God, and holden up our hands to any strange god, * shall not God search it out? for he knoweth the very secrets of the heart.
22 For thy sake also are we killed all the day long, * and are counted as sheep appointed to be slain.
These verses make the difficulty explicit: suffering has come although the people have not turned to a strange god. Saint Paul cites verse 22 in Romans 8:36 while arguing that persecution cannot separate believers from the love of Christ. The apostolic use neither trivializes suffering nor treats it as proof that God has abandoned those who endure it for his sake.
23 Up, Lord, why sleepest thou? * awake, and be not absent from us for ever.
24 Wherefore hidest thou thy face, * and forgettest our misery and trouble?
25 For our soul is brought low, even unto the dust; * our belly cleaveth unto the ground.
26 Arise, and help us, * and deliver us, for thy mercy's sake.
The closing imperatives are deliberately bold, but their ground is “thy mercy's sake,” not merit. The Psalm therefore gives worshippers a grammar for intercession: acknowledge distress without euphemism, ask God to act, and appeal to God's own mercy.
Prayer Book use
The Ninth Day.
Morning Prayer.
Psalm 44. Deus, auribus.
Psalm 45. Eructavit cor meum.
Psalm 46. Deus noster refugium.
The Office places this lament before Psalms 45 and 46, which turn respectively to royal celebration and confidence that God is a present help in trouble. That sequence lets the Church carry an unanswered plea into praise and refuge, making corporate lament a regular element of prayer rather than an emergency exception.
Patristic reading and the Church's suffering
Augustine identifies verse 22 with the apostolic consolation of persecuted Christians and hears the Psalm as the voice of martyrs. His is a Christian and ecclesial interpretation, grounded in Romans 8, rather than an attempt to erase the Psalm’s national and covenantal voice.
Let us then hear in this Psalm the voice of the Martyrs; and see how good is the cause which the voice of the Martyrs pleads, saying, For Your sake, etc....
For Augustine, suffering is not evidence that God’s covenant has failed. It gives Christian sufferers words by which fidelity is distinguished from worldly success and is held together with patient hope.
For, for Your sake are we killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. I have already mentioned that from hence the Apostle Paul had borrowed a text for the encouragement of the Martyrs: that they might not faint in the tribulations undergone by them for the name of Christ.
His explanation of “Awake” preserves the Psalm’s candour while refusing to say that the Keeper of Israel truly sleeps: the petition asks that the risen Christ become manifest to those who do not yet believe. That makes the final cry an evangelically charged prayer for God’s help and revelation.
Historical and literary interpretation
Alexander Maclaren emphasizes the Psalm’s fourfold movement: remembered deliverance, present calamity, covenant fidelity, and a final appeal. He proposes a Maccabean setting while openly acknowledging that the exact dating remains contested; that judgment should therefore be received as an interpretation, not as settled fact.
The psalm falls into four parts: a wistful look backwards to days already “old,” when God fought for them (vv. 1-8); a sad contrast in present oppression (vv. 9-16); a profession of unfaltering national adherence to the covenant notwithstanding all these ills (vv. 17-22); and a fervent cry to a God who seems asleep to awake and rescue His martyred people (vv. 23-26).
This structure explains why the Psalm is apt for public worship: it refuses both selective memory and despair. The community speaks of God’s ancient acts, does not conceal present disgrace, and nevertheless brings its unvarnished appeal to God.
The sufferers are a nation of martyrs, and know themselves to be so.... He does not fling that fact down as an accusation of Providence, but as the foundation of a prayer and as a plea for God's help. The words may sound daring; still they are not blasphemy, but supplication.
The 1928 Prayer Book's use of Psalm 44 can form an Anglican practice of truthful corporate intercession. It remembers God's salvation, rejects self-reliance, permits lament in the face of suffering, and ends in a plea for deliverance according to God’s mercy.
See Also
References
- ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 44, Deus, auribus, pp. 421–422; wording hand-compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter: Psalms 1–50”. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 44, Deus, auribus, pp. 421–422; wording hand-compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter: Psalms 1–50”. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 44, Deus, auribus, pp. 421–422; wording hand-compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter: Psalms 1–50”. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 44, Deus, auribus, pp. 421–422; wording hand-compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter: Psalms 1–50”. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, Psalm 44, Deus, auribus, pp. 421–422; wording hand-compared with
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter: Psalms 1–50”. - ↑ The Protestant Episcopal Church, The Book of Common Prayer (New York: The Church Pension Fund, 1928), The Psalter, “The Ninth Day,” Morning Prayer; appointment checked against
sources/justus1928/Psalms1.htm. Society of Archbishop Justus, “The Psalter: Psalms 1–50”. - ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 44, §1, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); wording checked against the New Advent transcription. New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 44”.
- ↑ Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 44, §17, trans. J. E. Tweed, in Philip Schaff, ed., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, vol. 8 (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888); wording checked against the New Advent transcription. New Advent, “Exposition on Psalm 44”.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor’s Bible: The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London: Hodder and Stoughton), pp. 63–64, “Psalm XLIV”; wording checked against the digital text. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm XLIV”.
- ↑ Alexander Maclaren, The Expositor’s Bible: The Psalms, vol. II, Psalms XXXIX–LXXXIX (London: Hodder and Stoughton), pp. 69–70, “Psalm XLIV”; wording checked against the digital text. Christian Classics Ethereal Library, “Psalm XLIV”.