In View Of Their Trust In God They Cannot Understand Why Therefore They Have Faced Defeat At The Hands Of Their Enemies So That Some Of His People Have Been Taken Captive And Are Now Slaves In The Hands of Their Enemies, While The Remainder Of The Nation Is Dishonoured By What Has Happened (Psalms 44:9-16).
‘But now you have cast us off, and brought us to dishonour,
And you do not go forth with our hosts.
You make us to turn back from the adversary,
And those who hate us take spoil for themselves.
It is clear that at some stage they have received a resounding defeat at the hands of their enemies, and that this has shaken the king's confidence in God (Psalms 44:15). This would suggest that it followed a long period when they had been triumphant in all their battles. But now there had been a reverse, and it seemed that God appeared to have washed His hands of them and brought dishonour on them.
In his view their defeat could only mean that God had not gone with the army into battle, and had not given them the strength to face the enemy. The result was that they had fled before the enemy, leaving them to take what spoil they would.
It could be that their problem had been overconfidence, and not waiting on God before they decided on their action. We must always be careful not to run ahead of God. Or there may have been some lesson that God wanted to teach them. It had certainly made them think.
‘You have made us like sheep appointed for food,
And have scattered us among the nations.
You sell your people for nothing,
And have not increased your wealth by their price.
As a consequence the enemy had been able to slaughter them, like sheep are slaughtered for food, and had been able to take many captives who had been scattered among the nations. This suggests that they had been fighting an alliance of nations. Alternately it many signify that so many had been taken prisoner that the surplus were sold on as slaves to other nations.
And what has God gained by it? Absolutely nothing. He has sold them for nothing, and is no better off than He was before. In this we find a clue to what has happened. Their faith in God had become based on the assumption that God blessed and delivered them because it was to His benefit, rather than because they were truly living in accordance with His will. Seeing themselves as His prized possession they had allowed the keen edge of their dedication to Him to diminish on the grounds that He would still look after them whatever they did.
You make us a reproach to our neighbours,
A scoffing and a derision to those who are round about us.
You make us a byword among the nations,
A shaking of the head among the peoples.
The consequence of what has happened is that their enemies are gloating. Their neighbours are reproaching them (‘Where is your God?'). They are scoffing at them and deriding them. They had made such boasts in their God that their neighbours saw what had happened to them as demonstrating their folly. They had become a byword, among the nations, who were shaking their heads at them because of what they saw as their foolishness in making such a big thing of their God.
All the day long is my dishonour before me,
And the shame of my face has covered me,
For the voice of him who reproaches and blasphemes,
By reason of the enemy and the avenger.
And it especially reflected on the king. He was shamed by what had happened, and the dishonour of it was with him all the day long. He could not get over it. And the shame reflected on his face covered his whole being. He was totally ashamed from head to foot. For all around him he heard those who reproached him, and even reproached God, because of the avenging enemy who had so dealt with them. Their utter defeat was hard to face.