John Calvin Commentary Psalms 44:5

"Through thee will we push down our adversaries: Through thy name will we tread them under that rise up against us." — Psalms 44:5 (ASV)

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.