Psalm 44:15-16

Psalm 44:15-16

My face is covered with shame

Have you noticed that the grammar here changes from plural to singular? While the writer has been blaming the Lord God for the suffering and disasters that have come upon his people, Israel, he also takes the circumstances personally. It is true, of course, that if we identify with a nation in disgrace, or an organisation, or even a family, then the corporate humiliation and shame is born by us as individuals. The poor man who wrote this Psalm has seen the defeat of his country and it weighs heavily upon his shoulders. These images are paralleled by those of the Jewish communities in Germany and across Europe during the Second World War; the filming at the time shows queues of broken, shame-faced, cowed people being herded around like animals and their faces reflect their suffering. Haunted, frightened, broken men and women who suffered “the taunts of those who reproach and revile them.”

I am reminded of Isaiah’s description of the Lord Jesus, who also bore the shame of His people and publicly identified with them; - “He was despised and rejected by mankind, a man of suffering, and familiar with pain. Like one from whom people hide their faces he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain and bore our suffering, yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted.” Isaiah 53:3-4. 

 

Bearing shame and scoffing rude

In my place, condemned He stood.

Sealed my pardon with His blood,

Hallelujah! What a Saviour!

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