John Calvin Commentary Psalms 44:2

"Thou didst drive out the nations with thy hand; But them thou didst plant: Thou didst afflict the peoples; But them thou didst spread abroad." — Psalms 44:2 (ASV)

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.