The God Who Forgot
All day long my dishonor is before me and my humiliation has overwhelmed me, Psalm 44:15 NASB
Humiliation – Psalm 44 is a plea for divine intervention. It’s not a petition to be forgiven. It’s a complaint that even though the children keep the Father’s commands, they are still “sent like sheep to the slaughter.” It is a plea for YHVH to rise up and protect His chosen instead of allowing the enemies to overwhelm. In other words, David challenges God to be just, to do what He promised to do, and to stop ignoring the suffering of Israel. Most of us will find this song surprising. David’s complaint is based on his belief that Israel has done what it was supposed to do. Our contemporary evaluation sees a different picture. We often think that God removed His protective hand because Israel failed to follow Him, but that isn’t David’s assessment. Perhaps our view, three thousand years later, isn’t quite in line with the thinking of the author at the time this was written. Perhaps we suffer from an historical bias that came much later. David sees Israel in another light. Maybe we should too.
In the middle of this plea is an amazing statement. Because God does not protect, Israel experiences dishonor and humiliation. What David implies is that God should have taken care of this. God should have prevented the enemy’s victory. Why God didn’t is a mystery. David claims that God’s chosen have not forgotten Him; that they have not abandoned the covenant. And yet, they are not safe. I wonder if we don’t feel the same way.
The word David uses is bôš (sounds like bosh). It means, “be ashamed, put to shame, disconcerted, disappointed.” TWOT notes, “The primary meaning of this root is ‘to fall into disgrace, normally through failure, either of self or of an object of trust . . . The force of bôš is somewhat in contrast to the primary meaning of the English ‘to be ashamed,’ in that the English stresses the inner attitude, the state of mind, while the Hebrew means ‘to come to shame’ and stresses the sense of public disgrace, a physical state.”[1] Does that fit us? Aren’t we being publically shamed even though we are doing all we can to follow His instructions? Don’t we feel the outward humiliation, disgrace and condemnation in our circles of friends? Haven’t we felt the rejection of the Church? It seems as if David’s complaint is just as appropriate today. Where is your protection, Lord? We have not abandoned our trust in You. We have not given up the covenant or its commandments. And yet . . . we suffer. We are sent to the slaughter like sheep. We are the scapegoats of theology, the outsiders, rejected simply because we believe what You say. How can You allow this?
Perhaps you haven’t articulated your discouragement in the same way David did. But I’m guessing you’ve felt it. Are you bold enough to echo David’s challenge?
Topical Index: humiliation, bôš, public shame, Psalm 44:15
[1] Oswalt, J. N. (1999). 222 בּוֹשׁ. In R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer, Jr. & B. K. Waltke, Ed.) (electronic ed.) (97). Chicago: Moody Press.
Skip,
A couple of proofing errors:
1) Perhaps our view, one thousand years later, (shouldn’t this be: 3000 years later?)
2) David claims that God’s chosen have not forgotten Him; that they abandoned the covenant. (shouldn’t this be: that they had NOT forgotten the covenant?)
Right you are! I corrected the copy. Thanks. Too many airplanes for me, I guess.
I am continually being told that… God isn’t interested in my constant chronic pain so, even though I’m living in faith he’s more concerned about the sand in my life and I’m being condemned. I’m running out of responses to this… It is giving me a headache. Does this scenario line up with today’s word in any way? Thanks if you reply.
How can a God who is intimately related to His creation, and especially to the agents He created, NOT be concerned about your well-being? Of course He is interested, concerned and, may I say, anxious to direct a pathway that has purpose in all this.
Brett, we live in a toxic world, but I have noticed in my life that the toxicity of body/chronic inflammation, etc. can be a result of trusting ( going along with lifestyle choices) a toxic world too much, too. We are supposed to look to do our part in good health as part of spiritual maintenance. I think in this Cartesian world we have been taught by the church and society that the body and the spirit and mind are not related. They are! It does matter! Your pain very much matters! Our decision to go along with toxic choices (and in this society we are all doing this) in the physical world because they do not ‘matter’ spiritually is not so!
Chronic inflammation is the basis of almost all chronic pain. This is very much a spiritual concern, but the cure may look more like some harder choices for self education and application in the natural realm. Look up the best alternative voices out there to learn how to detox. The most modern understanding of detoxing the body intelligently will end up being a VERY spiritual exercise that most people do not want to do, because it involves FASTING. Assisted (with your health care provider) vegetable juice fasting for sick people is probably the single best way to get the toxins (and the pain they produce) back out, but a new lifestyle is the best way to keep them out. Check out the movie “Fat, Sick And Nearly Dead” online and you will see this in action.
Fasting was recognized as a spiritual as well as a health issue by all ancient societies to deal with most challenges, and the animals still know how to do this. Why is not fasting taught in the churches as a way to get over all kinds of addictions and diseases of mind and body? We have to thank the Greeks! Again!
Skip, Rick,
I think how Skip stated “David claims that God’s chosen have not forgotten Him; that they have abandoned the covenant.” was maybe correct. If we look at how Yisrael was living, they for sure had abandoned the covenant, but I think they still knew who YHWH was. Simple example: My Dad tells me the do’s and don’t of living in his house after I’m an adult, I think to myself I don’t have to do that I’m an adult, I don’t do what I’ve been instructed to do, that doesn’t mean I don’t love my Dad…..I’m just stifff necked.
As I was dwelling on this issue on my way to work, it occurred to me this could also be a “Job test”?
You missed a great double entendre here Rick with “work” = “my job”.
BATTLED TESTED
God selects His people with an eye to their strengths — primarily their steadfast
hearts and their untenable grip on their faith. Only a few are found on this narrow road.
The best word I know to describe them is “disciple”. They are not possessed by this world;
rather they are devoted to God. Accordingly, that devotion changes people in this world
without any necessary awareness of the disciples. Their rewards come later.
We can recognize these “few’ by their scars. And the roads they travel are obvious by the
pain and suffering of the rugged terrain. Yeshua traveled such a road.
Check out His battle tested scars!
I have posted the following quote elsewhere perhaps it is best in this chain. To preface. It seems much of our discontent with YHVH’s ways with us has to do with our expectations of how we think he should be taking care of us. I am still learning much about the reality of life within “this present world system” (John 2:15-16) and the kingdom of YHVH. One element that is hard to get my brain around is what the free will of man has set in motion about us. Kings and kingdoms, peoples,nations principalities and powers are all here because of our bad choices.
In David’s day it seems in his mind he was living a Torah observant, faithful life and he expected the rewards and blessings available in the word this world as his just reward. Regrettably men and kings had come before who did not “have a heart after God’s own heart” Adam the foremost. I found the following quote from Concord&Time the YCHS choir bus accident memorial site particularly telling.
Tom Randolph was on that bus with 54 when only 24 came back alive. His twin died on it. Choices of life and death where made by good, innocent and faithful children. Very bad things happened to good kids. Toms account “Camelot did not fall it plummeted” and his other poems are worth the read as he became in my mind a true mystic because of the experience.
The last paragraph in that essay follows. It underlines what I understanding to be a truth. God set an organic system with a spiritual authority structure in motion in the garden. Exactly how much he chooses to intervene in the ripples on the sea of time based on initial sin events is very much up for interpretation and debate.
It seems our sins have on gonging ramifications in the organic system many years after us. Even if they have been balanced out or accounted for in the Spiritual side of our life. I think that was a mystery to David, perhaps not us… We see the equation balanced over time. He did not.
“There are times and places where something so tragic happens that Heaven itself kneels down and touches the earth. This does not take the nightmare away – that would reduce reality and its abundance, instead it blesses both so that, no matter what, God’s love is always at hand for us. The only thing the Lamb of God has ever taken away from us is our sins…for that was His will.”
What Tom did not elaborate on is; I think the Lamb of God took the ramifications for our sins out of the Spiritual side of the equation. His sacrifice balanced out our sins so that we get life not death. God has forgotten our sins, but we still might see results of them disrupting space and time.
Dear Brett
Seems we are not that eternal in the present and are not as purposed in ‘waiting’ for His deliverance as we had hoped we would be when on the Mountain Tops. Abandonment is what creatures like us feel in our loitering lengthening moments of despairing. We are still measuring eternity by the handfuls of our present experiences. Dissipated. Hard it is … So hard it is. Dear Brett Chronic pain certainly ties us to the tent of the present. It’s hard to look up or even out from pain. Though He does hear. I will trust with you in prayer for deliverance of the bondage to be transformed to a victory. For praise to come from the release in the way that He will bring it to you. Let us wait and cry out in Despair and hope. FJ
My exact “tune” yesterday ? No matter. He is faithful to deliver. Thank You, Father.
Yes! I have felt this way & when I cry out to God I hear Him say -hold tight to my Sheba gold ,keep close my alabaster box full of His incense don’t let it leak ….yet . And to wait on Him……