Ps. 44.17-18 (we did not waiver...)

“All of this / happened to us / but we did not / forget you – and we did not / act deceitfully / in covenant / with you – our hearts / did not / turn back – nor / did our foot / turn aside / from your path.” Because this psalm is so intricately woven together, these verses resonate in several different directions. First, as we saw in verses 2-3, man was ‘negated’ as being, in any way, an operative power in the conquest of the land. It was emphasized they “did not take possession of the land” and “their arm did not bring them victory”. Here, a similar wording is used but for entirely different purposes. Over and over again, the psalmist says “we did not” (4x): forget you, act deceitfully with you, our hearts turn back, foot turn aside. Whereas in verses 2-3 what their fathers “did not do” was emphasized in order to give greater praise to God, here, what they “did not do” is employed in order to assert their innocence in the face of God’s abandonment. Furthermore, there, the fathers “did not” was followed by the king’s “will not” trust in bow and sword in verse 6. There, it is an act of faithfulness to “not” do something. Here, by contrast, what they “did not do” is entirely positive. Forgetting, heart and ‘foot’ are all terms used to describe the required devotion to God in the Deuternomic covenant: 1) it continuously emphasizes they “not forget” or else they will be overtaken and exiled; 2) that they love Yhwh with all their heart; 3) that their foot not stray from the ‘path’ of God’s instruction/Torah. This is all summarized in the statement: we did not act deceitfully in covenant with you. The focus, as it has been through, is entirely on their relationship/covenant with God. Not only have they “not” trusted to external powers (bow and sword), but they have, internally, remained steadfastly loyal to God by “not” turning from him. The constant in this psalm is Israel and her king; the ‘wavering’ party is God. What is clear from these verses, their underlying motivation, is to point out to God that he has not acted as they have. In other words, one could read these in reverse and apply them to God. Again, this is the rhetorical ploy by the psalmist that highlights their desperation for God’s power to infuse them again in the future battles they will face. As we will see in the following verse, this is amplified through a further reference to the Deuteronomic curses and their improper application to the present situation.