John Calvin Commentary Psalms 44:13

"Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors, A scoffing and a derision to them that are round about us." — Psalms 44:13 (ASV)

Thou hast made us a reproach to our neighbors. Here the Psalmist speaks of their neighbors, who were all motivated either by some secret ill-will or open hostility to the people of God. And certainly, it often happens that neighborhood, which ought to be the means of preserving mutual friendship, causes all discord and strife.

But there was a special reason regarding the Jews; for they had taken possession of the country despite everyone, and their religion, being hateful to others, so to speak, served as a trumpet to stir up war and inflamed their neighbors with rage against them.

Many, too, harbored jealousy towards them, such as the Idumeans, who were puffed up because of their circumcision and imagined that they also worshipped the God of Abraham as well as the Jews. But what proved the greatest calamity to them was that they were exposed to the reproach and derision of those who hated them because of their worship of the true God.

The faithful illustrate further still the greatness of their calamity by another circumstance, telling us, in the last clause of the verse, that they were met by reproaches on all sides; for they were surrounded by their enemies, so that they would never have enjoyed one moment of peace unless God had miraculously preserved them.

Furthermore, they add (verse 14) that they were a proverb, a byword, or jest, even among the nations that were far off. The word משל, mashal, which is translated proverb, could be understood as a severe curse as well as a byword or jest. However, the meaning will be substantially the same. This means that there were no people under heaven more greatly detested, to such an extent that their very name was tossed about everywhere in proverbial allusions as a term of reproach.

Similar in meaning is the wagging, or shaking of the head, which occurs in Psalm 22, of which we have already spoken. There can be no doubt that the faithful recognized this as inflicted upon them by the vengeance of God, which was mentioned in the Law.

In order to stir themselves to consider the judgments of God, they carefully compared all the punishments he inflicted upon them with the threats of God.

But the Law had foretold, in explicit terms, this derision by the Gentiles, which they now recount as something that had happened (Deuteronomy 28:3). Moreover, when it is said, among the heathen, and among the people, the repetition is very emphatic and expressive. For it was a quite improper and intolerable thing that the pagan nations should dare to torment the chosen people of God with their mockery and revile them with their blasphemies as they pleased.

That the godly did not complain of these things without cause is abundantly obvious from a passage in Cicero, in his oration in defense of Flaccus. In this oration, that pagan orator, with his accustomed pride, scoffs as much against God as against the Jews, asserting that it was perfectly clear that they were a nation hated by the gods. This was because they had often, and, as it were, throughout the ages, been devastated by so many misfortunes, and in the end subjected to a most miserable bondage, and kept, as it were, under the feet of the Romans.