Psalm 44:13

Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13, 14) These verses become very suggestive, if we refer them to one of those periods under the Seleucidæ, when the Jews were so frequently attacked on the Sabbath, and from their scrupulous regard to it would make no resistance.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

44:9-16 The believer must have times of temptation, affliction, and discouragement; the church must have seasons of persecution. At such times the people of God will be ready to fear that he has cast them off, and that his name and truth will be dishonoured. But they should look above the instruments of their trouble, to God, well knowing that their worst enemies have no power against them, but what is permitted from above.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbors - Compare the notes at Psalm 39:8. The word neighbors here refers to surrounding people or nations. They were reproached, scorned, and derided as forsaken by God, and given up to their foes. They no longer commanded the admiration of mankind as a prosperous, favored, happy people. Surrounding nations treated them with contempt as inspiring no fear, and as having nothing to entitle them to respect.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13, 14. (Compare De 28:37; Ps 79:4).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They contemn our persons, and sport themselves in our miseries.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours,.... Which is the common lot of Christians: Christ and his apostles have given reason for the saints in all ages to expect it, and have fortified their minds to bear it patiently, yea, to esteem it an honour, and greater riches than the treasures of the antichristian Egypt;

a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us; being always represented as mean and despicable, and reckoned ignorant and accursed, and as the faith of the world, and the offscouring of all things.

Geneva Study Bible

Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours, a scorn and a derision to them that are round about us.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. Repeated almost verbatim in Psalm 79:4; cp. Psalm 80:6. The neighbouring nations, Philistines, Edomites, Ammonites, Moabites, were always jealous of Israel, and ready to rejoice with a malicious delight at Israel’s humiliation.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - Thou makest us a reproach to our neighbours (comp. Psalm 42:10; Psalm 79:4; Psalm 80:6). They would be reproached, not so much as cowards, or as weak and powerless themselves, but rather as having a weak and powerless God (comp. 2 Kings 18:33-35; 2 Kings 19:12). A scorn and a derision to them that are round about us. (For instances of the "scorn and derision" whereto the Israelites were exposed at the hands of the heathen, see 2 Kings 18:23, 24; 2 Kings 19:23, 24; Nehemiah 2:19; Nehemiah 4:2, 3; Psalm 79:4; Psalm 137:7.) Psalm 44:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 44:14-17) To this defeat is now also added the shame that springs out of it. A distinction is made between the neighbouring nations, or those countries lying immediately round about Israel (סביבות, as in the exactly similar passage Psalm 79:4, cf. Psalm 80:7, which closely resembles it), and the nations of the earth that dwell farther away from Israel. משׁל is here a jesting, taunting proverb, and one that holds Israel up as an example of a nation undergoing chastisement (vid., Habakkuk 2:6). The shaking of the head is, as in Psalm 22:8, a gesture of malicious astonishment. In נגדּי תּמיד (as in Psalm 38:18) we have both the permanent aspect or look and the perpetual consciousness. Instead of "shame covers my face," the expression is "the shame of my face covers me," i.e., it has overwhelmed my entire inward and outward being (cf. concerning the radical notions of בּושׁ, Psalm 6:11, and חפר, Psalm 34:6). The juxtaposition of "enemy and revengeful man" has its origin in Psalm 8:3. In Psalm 44:17 מקּול and מפּני alternate; the former is used of the impression made by the jeering voice, the other of the impression produced by the enraged mien.