Psalms 44:1. Our fathers have told us. All ancient patriarchs instructed their children, and all ancient nations instructed posterity by oral traditions, as in this psalm, by reciting how Joshua drove out the Canaanites. This was done also in their sacred odes, as many of the psalms testify. Our northern fathers often employed the early part of their long winter-nights in the amusing runes and histories of their ancestors. When a stranger called for hospitality, it was reckoned his duty to entertain the family by a recitation of sacred odes and histories. The EDDA, that is, instruction, of Iceland, celebrates the gods, the fathers, and the heroes. The VOLUSPA, by the sibyl or prophetess Vola, is of the same character. She sung the age when Emir lived, when there was neither land, nor sea, nor heaven above. The age before the invention of arts, and the coining of money.
Psalms 44:12. Thou sellest thy people for nought. Thou deliverest them into the hands of their enemies, not indeed for money, but as corrections for their sins; for long and gross violations of the covenant, to which they had sworn.
Psalms 44:19. In the place of dragons. The low country of Chaldea, where serpents abounded.
Psalms 44:22. For thy sake are we killed all the day long. Rabbinical comments are often wide of the mark, yet we find here a reference to Mary, daughter of Nachton, who was taken captive with her seven sons, and shut up in prison. They brought forth the first before Cæsar; [Antiochus, 2 Maccabees 7., where the horrible story is related at large] and said to him, worship idols. He answered, it is written in our law, I am the Lord thy God. Then they carried him out and slew him, and brought the second before Caesar. The massacre of these seven sons took up the whole day. Dr. Lightfoot, Gittim, fol. 57. 2.
REFLECTIONS.
This Psalm being addressed to the sons of Korah, as well as Psalms 42. and 43., was probably much sung during the Babylonian captivity. It celebrates the goodness of the Lord in giving them the promised land, and by consequence indulges a distant hope of emancipation, though for the present he went not forth with their armies. It complains bitterly of the insults and the scorn they received in captivity; for calamities falling on persons of dignity are more severely felt than when they fall on the humble poor: and surely no persons are more justly exposed to scorn than fallen professors. There was another consideration which encouraged the Jews to hope for salvation; they had not forgotten the name of God in captivity. Therefore they were the more encouraged to pray that he would arise, help, and redeem them for his mercies' sake. In every view the dealings of God with his ancient people, are instructive to the christian church.