Week 20 Psalm 44
The OT has quite a few cause-&-effect-type pledges: if you do X then Y will happen. So for instance: ‘if you obey the Lord then you will be benefitted’. Good health & advantageous prospects & smooth-sailing are big expectations in the OT scheme. Good-time forecasts. If I satisfy the prerequisites then there’ll be some pretty decent payoffs. But by contrast the NT tends to push that idea onto the back-burner. Living-long and prospering is way down on the NT priority list.
Anyway one of the reasons the Choir Director wrote psalm 44 was because current events weren’t working according to formula. His conundrum was: ‘we’re being obedient…but we’re still suffering!’
That isn’t exactly one of the dilemmas the NT is concerned about. In the NT anguish & hurt & adversity are part of the mix. There’s a shortage of happiness-and-good-times? No surprise.
In psalm 44 the Choir Director listed 8-verses of bad happenings. Then he says this:
all this came upon us, though we had not forgotten you; we had not been false to your covenant. Our hearts had not turned back; our feet had not strayed from your path. But you crushed us and made us a haunt for jackals; you covered us over with deep darkness.
Psalm 44 is a bit of an anomaly in the OT. But it’s a pretty realistic summary for a NT reader. 44 is an OT psalm with a NT feel.
Note: quote from Psalm 44:17-19 (NIV)