What does Psalms Chapter 43 say, and which statements belong to its speaker?

Atlas of Saints · Chapter summary

The speakers recall fathers’ testimony of divine help and promise trust and praise. Current shame and scattering coexist with professed covenant fidelity. The community’s final plea for help has no narrated resolution.

Chapter breakdown

The Latin incipit is Deus auribus nostris. The separate heading describes the church's remembrance of former favors and current afflictions and prayer for help. The inscription is unto the end, for Core's sons, for understanding. The speakers heard their fathers recount God's works of old, His hand destroying Gentiles, planting them and afflicting and casting out people. Possession of land came not by their sword or arm but by God's hand, arm and countenance because He pleased in them. He is king and God saving Jacob; through Him they will push down foes with the horn and despise insurgents. The speaker will not trust bow or sword and recalls God's rescue and shaming of haters, promising perpetual praise.

Now they say God cast them off and shamed them and will not go with armies. He made them turn backs, haters plundered, people were given as sheep for eating, scattered among nations and sold without price or reckoning. They became neighbors' reproach, derision, Gentiles' byword and shaking of heads, with shame daily before the speaker amid detractors and persecutors. Panic, lack of resistance and particular battlefield movements are not stated.

The speakers assert they did not forget God or act wickedly in covenant, their hearts did not turn back and God did not turn steps aside. Humbled in affliction and covered by death's shadow, they ask whether God would not discover forgotten divine name or hands spread to a strange god, knowing heart secrets. They say for His sake they are killed all day and counted as slaughter sheep. Their professed fidelity is attributed testimony, not independently certified spotless loyalty or refusal of a proposed foreign alliance.

They ask God to arise and why He sleeps, requesting no final rejection and asking why His face turns away and want and trouble are forgotten. Soul humbled to dust and belly cleaving to earth, they ask help and redemption for His name's sake. No subsequent rescue, alliance decision or weapon abandonment is narrated.

The story inside

Opening: The speakers recall fathers’ testimony of divine help and promise trust and praise. Development: Current shame and scattering coexist with professed covenant fidelity. Conclusion: The community’s final plea for help has no narrated resolution.

Lessons worth keeping

1
The speakers recall fathers’ testimony of divine help and promise trust and praise.
2
Current shame and scattering coexist with professed covenant fidelity.
3
The community’s final plea for help has no narrated resolution.

Test your recall

Which images and requests does the speaker use, and what does the chapter leave unresolved?

Source edition and notes

Douay–Rheims, revised by Richard Challoner (1749–1752). Project Gutenberg no. 1581. Locators refer to lines in the admitted pg1581.txt edition. Source notes may include Challoner commentary.

Lines 60235–60237
43:4. For they got not the possession of the land by their own sword: neither did their own arm save them. But thy right hand and thy arm, and the light of thy countenance: because thou wast pleased with them.
Lines 60277–60278
43:18. All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten thee: and we have not done wickedly in thy covenant.
Lines 60289–60291
43:22. Shall not God search out these things: for he knoweth the secrets of the heart. Because for thy sake we are killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.