John Calvin Commentary Psalms 44

O God! we have heard with our ears. The people of God here recount the goodness He had previously shown to their fathers, so that by showing the great dissimilarity of their own condition, they might persuade God to alleviate their miseries. They begin by declaring that they are not speaking about things unknown or doubtful, but that they recounted events, the truth of which was authenticated by reliable witnesses.

The expression, We have heard with our ears, is not to be considered a redundant form of speech, but one of great significance. It is intended to point out that the grace of God shown to their fathers was so renowned that no doubt could be entertained about it. They add that their knowledge of these things was handed down from generation to generation by those who witnessed them.

This does not mean that their ancestors, who had been brought out of Egypt, had, fifteen hundred years later, declared to their descendants the benefits God had bestowed on them.

Rather, the meaning of the language is that not only the first deliverance, but also the various other works which God had performed from time to time for His people, had been passed down, so to speak, from hand to hand, in an uninterrupted succession, even to the most recent age.

Therefore, since those who, many ages later, became witnesses and heralds of the grace God had shown to this people spoke based on the report of the first generation, the faithful are justified in saying, as they do here, that their fathers declared to them what they certainly knew.

This knowledge had not been lost due to its antiquity but was continually preserved through remembrance from fathers to children.

The essence of it all is that God had shown His goodness to the children of Abraham, not only for ten or twenty years, but ever since He had received them into His favor, He had never ceased to bestow on them continued signs of His grace.

You have expelled the heathen with Your hand. This is an illustration of the preceding verse, for the inspired writer had not yet expressly referred to that work of God, the fame of which had been preserved by their fathers. He therefore now adds that God with His own hand expelled the heathen in order to plant in their place the children of Abraham, and that He wasted and destroyed them so that He might increase and multiply the seed of Abraham.

He compares the ancient inhabitants of the land of Canaan to trees; for, from long-continued possession of the country, they had, as it were, taken root in it. The sudden change, therefore, which had happened to them was as if a man plucked up trees by the roots to plant others in their place.

But as it would not have been enough for God’s ancient people to have been planted at first in the country, another metaphor is added here, by which the faithful testify that God’s blessing had caused this chosen people to increase and multiply—even as a tree, extending its roots and its branches far and wide, gains still greater strength in the place where it has been planted.

Besides, it is necessary to observe for what purpose the faithful here magnify this manifestation of God’s grace. It often happens that our own hearts suggest to us grounds for despair when we begin to conclude that God has rejected us because He does not continue to bestow upon us the same benefits which, in His goodness, He granted to our fathers.

But it would be altogether inconsistent for the faithful, when preparing their hearts for prayer, to allow such an obstacle to prevent them from exercising the confidence proper to prayer. I freely admit that the more we think of the benefits God has bestowed upon others, the greater is the grief we experience when He does not relieve us in our adversities.

But faith directs us to another conclusion: namely, that we should assuredly believe that we will also in due time experience some relief, since God continues unchangeably the same. There can be no reason to doubt that the faithful now recall the things God had formerly done for the welfare of His Church, to inspire their minds with stronger hope, as we have seen them acting in a similar manner in the beginning of Psalm 22.

They do not simply state the comparison, which would tend to draw a line of separation between those who were formerly preserved by God’s power and those who now labored and groaned under afflictions; rather, they set forth God’s covenant as the bond of holy alliance between them and their fathers, so that they might conclude from this that whatever goodness the Church had at any time experienced in God also pertained to them.

At first, indeed, they use the language of complaint, asking why the course of God’s fatherly favor towards His people is, as it were, interrupted; but they immediately correct their mistake and take courage from a new consideration—the consideration that God, who had adopted them as well as their fathers, is faithful and immutable.

It is, however, no great wonder if the faithful, even in prayer, have diverse and conflicting affections in their hearts. But the Holy Spirit, who dwells in them, by assuaging the violence of their sorrow, pacifies all their complaints and leads them patiently and wholeheartedly to obey. Moreover, when they say here that their fathers declared to them the deliverances God had accomplished on behalf of His Church, what their fathers did in this respect corresponds with the precept of the law, by which the fathers were commanded to teach their children.

And all the faithful should reflect that the same charge is entrusted to them by God even to this day. He communicates to them the doctrine of salvation and entrusts it to them for this purpose: that they may transmit it to their posterity and, to the best of their ability, endeavor to extend its authority, so that His worship may be preserved from age to age.

For they got not possession of the land by their own sword. Here the sacred writer confirms by contrast what he has just said; for if they did not obtain possession of the land by their own power and skill, it follows that they were planted in it by the hand of another.

The multitude of men who went out of Egypt was very great; but not being trained in the art of war, and accustomed only to servile works, they would soon have been defeated by their enemies, who far excelled them in numbers and strength. In short, evident signs were not lacking by which the people were made to know their own weakness as well as the power of God, so that it was their solemn duty to confess that the land was not conquered by their own sword, and also, that it was the hand of God that had preserved them.

The Psalmist, not content with mentioning thy right hand, adds, thy arm, to amplify the matter and give greater weight to his discourse, so that we may know that they were preserved in a wonderful manner, and not by any ordinary means. The light of thy countenance is here understood, as in other places, to mean the manifestation of divine favor.

On the one hand, when God is afflicting us severely, He seems to frown upon us and to overshadow His face with thick clouds. So, on the other hand, when the Israelites—sustained by His power—overthrew their enemies without any great difficulty and pursued them in every direction far and near, it is said that they then beheld the face of God serene and placid, just as if He had manifested Himself in a visible manner near them.

Here it is necessary to observe the mode of reasoning that the prophet employs when he argues that the people obtained the land as an inheritance by the free gift of God, seeing they had not acquired it by their own power. We then truly begin to yield to God what belongs to Him when we consider how worthless our own strength is.

And certainly, the reason why men—as it were, through disdain—conceal and forget the benefits that God has conferred on them, must be due to a delusive imagination, which leads them to arrogate something to themselves as properly their own. The best means, therefore, of habitually cherishing in us a spirit of gratitude towards God is to expel from our minds this foolish opinion of our own ability.

There is still in the concluding part of the verse another expression that contains a more illustrious testimony to the grace of God, when the Psalmist resolves the whole into the good pleasure of God: Thou hadst a favor for them. The prophet does not suppose any worthiness in the person of Abraham, nor imagine any merit in his posterity, on account of which God dealt so bountifully with them, but ascribes the whole to the good pleasure of God. His words seem to be taken from the solemn declaration of Moses,

“The Lord did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people (for ye were the fewest of all people); but because the Lord loved you,” (Deuteronomy 7:7–8).

Special mention is here made of the land of Canaan; but the prophet has stated the general principle why it was that God vouchsafed to consider that people His flock and peculiar heritage. And certainly, the source and origin of the Church is the free love of God; and whatever benefits He bestows upon His Church, they all proceed from the same source.

The reason, therefore, why we are gathered into the Church, and are nourished and defended by the hand of God, is to be sought only in God. Nor does the Psalmist here treat of the general benevolence of God that extends to the whole human race; but he discusses the difference that exists between the elect and the rest of the world, and the cause of this difference is here referred to the mere good pleasure of God.

Thou, even thou, art my King, O God! In this verse the faithful express still more plainly what I have already alluded to a little earlier: that the goodness of God was not only apparent in the deliverance of His people but also flowed to them in continuous succession from age to age. Therefore, it is said, Thou, even thou, art my King.

In my judgment, the demonstrative pronoun הוא, hu, means as much as if the prophet had compiled a long series of God's benefits after the first deliverance. This was so that it might appear that God, who had once been the deliverer of His people, did not act differently toward their descendants.

Alternatively, it might be considered emphatic, used to assert the statement more strongly: that the faithful praise God alone as the guardian of their welfare, excluding all others and renouncing aid from any other source.

Therefore, they also offer the prayer that God would ordain and send out new deliverances to His people. For, since He has in His power innumerable means of preservation and deliverance, He is said to appoint and send out deliverances as His messengers wherever it seems good to Him.

Through you we have pushed, or smitten, with the horn our adversaries. The prophet here declares in what way God had manifested himself to be the King of this people. He did so by investing them with such strength and power, that all their enemies stood in fear of them.

The analogy, taken from bulls, which he here uses, tends to show that they had been endowed with more than human strength, by which they were enabled to assail, overturn, and trample under foot everything that opposed them.

In God, and in the name of God, have the same meaning; only the latter expression denotes that the people had been victorious because they fought under the authority and direction of God.

It should be noted that what they had spoken before concerning their fathers, they now apply to themselves, because they still formed a part of the same body of the Church.

And they do this expressly to inspire themselves with confidence and courage. For if they had separated themselves from their fathers, this distinction would, in a certain sense, have interrupted the course of God’s grace, so that it would have ceased to flow down upon them.

But now, since they confess that whatever God had conferred upon their fathers he had also bestowed upon them, they may boldly desire him to continue his work.

At the same time, it should be noted again here, as I have stated a little before, that the reason they ascribe their victories wholly to God is that they were unable to achieve such a victory by their own sword or their own bow.

When we are led to consider how great our own weakness is, and how worthless we are without God, this contrast much more clearly illustrates the grace of God.

They again declare (Psalms 44:7) that they were saved by the power of God, and that he also had chased away and put to shame their enemies.