1 O God, with our ears we have heard, Our fathers have told to us, The work Thou didst work in their days, In the days of yore. 2 Thou [with] Thy hand didst dispossess nations, and didst plant _them_, Didst afflict peoples and spread _them_ forth. 3 For not by their own sword did they possess the land, And their own arm did not save them, But Thy right hand and Thine arm, and the light of Thy face, Because Thou hadst delight in them. 4 Thou Thyself art my King, O God; Command salvations for Jacob. 5 Through Thee can we butt down our oppressors; In Thy name can we trample those that rise against us. 6 For not in my own bow do I trust, And my own sword does not save me. 7 But Thou hast saved us from our oppressors, And our haters Thou hast put to shame. 8 In God have we made our boast all the day, And Thy name will we thank for ever. Selah.
9 Yet Thou hast cast [us] off and shamed us, And goest not forth with our hosts. 10 Thou makest us turn back from the oppressor, And our haters plunder to their hearts' content. 11 Thou makest us like sheep for food, And among the nations hast Thou scattered us. 12 Thou sellest Thy people at no profit, And hast not increased [Thy wealth] by their price. 13 Thou makest us a reproach for our neighbours, A mockery and derision to those around us. 14 Thou makest us a proverb among the nations, A nodding of the head among the peoples. 15 All the day is my dishonour before me, And the shame of my face has covered me, 16 Because of the voice of the rebuker and blasphemer, Because of the face of the enemy and the revengeful.
17 All this is come upon us, and [yet] have we not forgotten Thee, Nor been false to Thy covenant. 18 Our heart has not turned back, Nor our footsteps swerved from Thy way. 19 That Thou shouldest have crushed us in the place of jackals, And covered us with thick darkness. 20 If we had forgotten the name of our God And spread out our hands to a strange God, 21 Would not God search out this? for He knows the secrets of the heart. 22 Nay, for Thy sake are we killed all the day; We are reckoned as sheep for slaughter.
23 Awake; why sleepest Thou, Lord? Arise; cast not off for ever. 24 Why hidest Thou Thy face, Forgettest our affliction and oppression? 25 For bowed to the dust is our soul; Our body cleaves to the earth. 26 Arise [for] a help for us, And redeem us for Thy loving-kindness' sake.
Calvin says that the authorship of this psalm is uncertain, but that it is abundantly clear that it was composed by any one rather than David, and that its plaintive contents suit best the time when the savage tyranny of Antiochus raged. No period corresponds to the situation which makes the background of the psalm so completely as the Maccabean, for only then could it be truly said that national calamities fell because of the nation's rigid monotheism. Other epochs have been thought of, so as to avoid the necessity of recognising Maccabean psalms, but none of them can be said to meet the conditions described in the psalm. The choice lies between accepting the Maccabean date and giving up the attempt to fix one at all.
Objections to that late date based upon the history of the completion of the canon take for granted more accurate and complete knowledge of a very obscure subject than is possessed, and do not seem strong enough to negative the indications arising from the very unique fact, asserted in the psalm, that the nation was persecuted for its faith and engaged in a religious war. The psalm falls into four parts: a wistful look backwards to days already "old," when God fought for them (vv. 1-8); a sad contrast in present oppression (vv. 9-16); a profession of unfaltering national adherence to the covenant notwithstanding all these ills (vv. 17-22); and a fervent cry to a God who seems asleep to awake and rescue His martyred people (vv. 23-26).