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Passage

Psalms 44.23

Book: Psalms · NASB95

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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ASV

21. Will not God search this out? For he knoweth the secrets of the heart. 22. Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.

23. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off for ever.

  1. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, And forgettest our affliction and our oppression? 25. For our soul is bowed down to the dust: Our body cleaveth unto the earth. (Psalms 44:21-25, ASV)
WEB

21. won’t God search this out? For he knows the secrets of the heart. 22. Yes, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are regarded as sheep for the slaughter.

23. Wake up! Why do you sleep, Lord? Arise! Don’t reject us forever.

  1. Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression? 25. For our soul is bowed down to the dust. Our body clings to the earth. (Psalms 44:21-25, WEB)
KJV

21. Shall not God search this out? for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. 22. Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.

23. Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.

  1. Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression? 25. For our soul is bowed down to the dust: our belly cleaveth unto the earth. (Psalms 44:21-25, KJV)
YLT

21. Doth not God search out this? For He knoweth the secrets of the heart. 22. Surely, for Thy sake we have been slain all the day, Reckoned as sheep of the slaughter.

23. Stir up, why dost Thou sleep, O Lord? Awake, cast us not off for ever.

  1. Why Thy face hidest Thou? Thou forgettest our afflictions and our oppression, 25. For bowed to the dust hath our soul, Cleaved to the earth hath our belly. (Psalms 44:21-25, YLT)

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Setting

  • Speaker: The community of Israel, in a psalm titled "For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of the sons of Korah. Maschil" (44:1)
  • Audience: God, addressed in communal lament
  • Location: Israel, in its worship. The psalm names no place.
  • Time period: Unknown. The psalm describes a national defeat (44:9-16) suffered while the people say they had kept the covenant (44:17-18). Proposed occasions range from the monarchy to the exile and later, and none is certain.

Theological reading

"Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast us not off for ever." The psalm moves through four stages: the victories God gave the fathers (44:1-8), the present defeat (44:9-16), a protest that the people have not forgotten God or dealt falsely with His covenant (44:17-22), and this plea (44:23-26).

Daring language in a prayer. "Awake" (Strong's H5782) and "sleepest" (H3462) are bold words to say to God. Psalm 121:4 says the opposite with the same verb: "he that keepeth Israel Will neither slumber nor sleep." The psalmist knows that. He is not reporting a belief that God sleeps; he is protesting that God is acting as though He did. Elijah used the same picture as mockery of Baal, "peradventure he sleepeth and must be awaked" (1 Kings 18:27). Here it is used in earnest, to a God the speaker expects can rise.

Suffering for God's sake. The verse before it says, "for thy sake are we killed all the day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter" (44:22). This is not suffering as punishment. The psalm insists the people are being killed because they belong to God. Paul quotes that verse in Romans 8:36 and answers it with "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us" (8:37), without denying that the slaughter is real.

The plea ends in God's character. "For ever" (H5331) is the same word as the "for ever" of Psalm 13:1. The psalm closes not with an answer but with an appeal: "Rise up for our help, And redeem us for thy lovingkindness' sake" (44:26). The disciples in the storm later wake a sleeping Jesus with a similar cry, "carest thou not that we perish?" (Mark 4:38). See Why Doesn't God Intervene Objection Defeater.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word.

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

Notes

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Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

  • ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
  • WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
  • KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
  • YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.