Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 44:23

"Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? Arise, cast [us] not off for ever." — Psalms 44:23 (ASV)

Awake, why sleepest thou? — This is a solemn and earnest appeal to God to intervene on their behalf, as if he were asleep, or were regardless of their sufferings. Compare Psalms 3:7, note; Psalms 7:6, note; Psalms 35:23, note.

Arise, cast us not off for ever. — Do not forsake us always. Compare Psalms 44:9. He had seemed to have cast them off; to have forgotten them; to have forsaken them utterly, and the psalmist, in the name of the people, calls on him not entirely to abandon them.