Psalms 44:1-2

Psalm 44 ¹ 

For the music director; by the Korahites, a well-written song. ² 

44:1 O God, we have clearly heard; ³ 

our ancestors ⁴  have told us

what you did ⁵  in their days,

in ancient times. ⁶ 

44:2 You, by your power, ⁷  defeated nations and settled our fathers on their land; ⁸ 

you crushed ⁹  the people living there ¹⁰  and enabled our ancestors to occupy it. ¹¹ 

Psalms 71:18

71:18 Even when I am old and gray, ¹² 

O God, do not abandon me,

until I tell the next generation about your strength,

and those coming after me about your power. ¹³ 

Psalms 78:3-7

78:3 What we have heard and learned ¹⁴  –

that which our ancestors ¹⁵  have told us –

78:4 we will not hide from their ¹⁶  descendants.

We will tell the next generation

about the Lord’s praiseworthy acts, ¹⁷ 

about his strength and the amazing things he has done.

78:5 He established a rule ¹⁸  in Jacob;

he set up a law in Israel.

He commanded our ancestors

to make his deeds known to their descendants, ¹⁹ 

78:6 so that the next generation, children yet to be born,

might know about them.

They will grow up and tell their descendants about them. ²⁰ 

78:7 Then they will place their confidence in God.

They will not forget the works of God,

and they will obey ²¹  his commands.

Exodus 12:26-27

12:26 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to you?’ ²²  – 12:27 then you will say, ‘It is the sacrifice ²³  of the Lord’s Passover, when he passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt, when he struck ²⁴  Egypt and delivered our households.’” The people bowed down low ²⁵  to the ground,

Exodus 13:14-15

13:14 ²⁶ In the future, ²⁷  when your son asks you ²⁸  ‘What is this?’ ²⁹  you are to tell him, ‘With a mighty hand ³⁰  the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the land of slavery. ³¹  13:15 When Pharaoh stubbornly refused ³²  to release us, the Lord killed all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of people to the firstborn of animals. ³³  That is why I am sacrificing ³⁴  to the Lord the first male offspring of every womb, but all my firstborn sons I redeem.’

Deuteronomy 6:7

6:7 and you must teach ³⁵  them to your children and speak of them as you sit in your house, as you walk along the road, ³⁶  as you lie down, and as you get up.

Joshua 4:21-24

4:21 He told the Israelites, “When your children someday ask their fathers, ‘What do these stones represent?’ ³⁷  4:22 explain ³⁸  to your children, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan River ³⁹  on dry ground.’ 4:23 For the Lord your God dried up the water of the Jordan before you while you crossed over. It was just like when the Lord your God dried up the Red Sea before us while we crossed it. ⁴⁰  4:24 He has done this so ⁴¹  all the nations ⁴²  of the earth might recognize the Lord’s power ⁴³  and so you might always obey ⁴⁴  the Lord your God.”

Isaiah 38:19

38:19 The living person, the living person, he gives you thanks,

as I do today.

A father tells his sons about your faithfulness.

[44:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 44. The speakers in this psalm (the worshiping community within the nation Israel) were disappointed with God. The psalm begins on a positive note, praising God for leading Israel to past military victories. Verses 1-8 appear to be a song of confidence and petition which the people recited prior to battle. But suddenly the mood changes as the nation laments a recent defeat. The stark contrast between the present and the past only heightens the nation’s confusion. Israel trusted in God for victory, but the Lord rejected them and allowed them to be humiliated in battle. If Israel had been unfaithful to God, their defeat would make sense, but the nation was loyal to the Lord. Comparing the Lord to a careless shepherd, the nation urges God to wake up and to extend his compassion to his suffering people.

[44:1]  ² tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. See the note on the phrase “well-written song” in the superscription of Ps 42.

[44:1]  ³ tn Heb “with our ears we have heard.”

[44:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “fathers” (also in v. 2; the same Hebrew word may be translated either “fathers” or “ancestors” depending on the context.

[44:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “the work you worked.”

[44:1]  ⁶ tn Heb “in the days of old.” This refers specifically to the days of Joshua, during Israel’s conquest of the land, as vv. 2-3 indicate.

[44:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “you, your hand.”

[44:2]  ⁸ tn Heb “dispossessed nations and planted them.” The third masculine plural pronoun “them” refers to the fathers (v. 1). See Ps 80:8, 15.

[44:2]  ⁹ tn The verb form in the Hebrew text is a Hiphil preterite (without vav [ו] consecutive) from רָעַע (ra’a’, “be evil; be bad”). If retained it apparently means, “you injured; harmed.” Some prefer to derive the verb from רָעַע (“break”; cf. NEB “breaking up the peoples”), in which case the form must be revocalized as Qal (since this verb is unattested in the Hiphil).

[44:2]  ¹⁰ tn Or “peoples.”

[44:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “and you sent them out.” The translation assumes that the third masculine plural pronoun “them” refers to the fathers (v. 1), as in the preceding parallel line. See Ps 80:11, where Israel, likened to a vine, “spreads out” its tendrils to the west and east. Another option is to take the “peoples” as the referent of the pronoun and translate, “and you sent them away,” though this does not provide as tight a parallel with the corresponding line.

[71:18]  ¹² tn Heb “and even unto old age and gray hair.”

[71:18]  ¹³ tn Heb “until I declare your arm to a generation, to everyone who comes your power.” God’s “arm” here is an anthropomorphism that symbolizes his great strength.

[78:3]  ¹⁴ tn Or “known.”

[78:3]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “fathers” (also in vv. 5, 8, 12, 57).

[78:4]  ¹⁶ tn The pronominal suffix refers back to the “fathers” (“our ancestors,” v. 3).

[78:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “to a following generation telling the praises of the Lord.” “Praises” stand by metonymy for the mighty acts that prompt worship. Cf. Ps 9:14.

[78:5]  ¹⁸ tn The Hebrew noun עֵדוּת (’edut) refers here to God’s command that the older generation teach their children about God’s mighty deeds in the nation’s history (see Exod 10:2; Deut 4:9; 6:20-25).

[78:5]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “which he commanded our fathers to make them known to their sons.” The plural suffix “them” probably refers back to the Lord’s mighty deeds (see vv. 3-4).

[78:6]  ²⁰ tn Heb “in order that they might know, a following generation, sons [who] will be born, they will arise and will tell to their sons.”

[78:7]  ²¹ tn Heb “keep.”

[12:26]  ²² tn Heb “what is this service to you?”

[12:27]  ²³ sn This expression “the sacrifice of Yahweh’s Passover” occurs only here. The word זֶבַח (zevakh) means “slaughtering” and so a blood sacrifice. The fact that this word is used in Lev 3 for the peace offering has linked the Passover as a kind of peace offering, and both the Passover and the peace offerings were eaten as communal meals.

[12:27]  ²⁴ tn The verb means “to strike, smite, plague”; it is the same verb that has been used throughout this section (נָגַף, nagaf). Here the construction is the infinitive construct in a temporal clause.

[12:27]  ²⁵ tn The two verbs form a verbal hendiadys: “and the people bowed down and they worshiped.” The words are synonymous, and so one is taken as the adverb for the other.

[13:14]  ²⁶ sn As with v. 8, the Law now requires that the children be instructed on the meaning of this observance. It is a memorial of the deliverance from bondage and the killing of the firstborn in Egypt.

[13:14]  ²⁷ tn Heb “tomorrow.”

[13:14]  ²⁸ tn Heb “and it will be when your son will ask you.”

[13:14]  ²⁹ tn The question is cryptic; it simply says, “What is this?” but certainly refers to the custom just mentioned. It asks, “What does this mean?” or “Why do we do this?”

[13:14]  ³⁰ tn The expression is “with strength of hand,” making “hand” the genitive of specification. In translation “strength” becomes the modifier, because “hand” specifies where the strength was. But of course the whole expression is anthropomorphic for the power of God.

[13:14]  ³¹ tn Heb “house of slaves.”

[13:15]  ³² tn Heb “dealt hardly in letting us go” or “made it hard to let us go” (see S. R. Driver, Exodus, 110). The verb is the simple Hiphil perfect הִקְשָׁה (hiqshah, “he made hard”); the infinitive construct לְשַׁלְּחֵנוּ (lÿshallÿkhenu, “to release us”) could be taken epexegetically, meaning “he made releasing us hard.” But the infinitive more likely gives the purpose or the result after the verb “hardened himself.” The verb is figurative for “be stubborn” or “stubbornly refuse.”

[13:15]  ³³ tn The text uses “man” and “beast.”

[13:15]  ³⁴ tn The form is the active participle.

[6:7]  ³⁵ tn Heb “repeat” (so NLT). If from the root I שָׁנַן (shanan), the verb means essentially to “engrave,” that is, “to teach incisively” (Piel); note NAB “Drill them into your children.” Cf. BDB 1041-42 s.v.

[6:7]  ³⁶ tn Or “as you are away on a journey” (cf. NRSV, TEV, NLT); NAB “at home and abroad.”

[4:21]  ³⁷ tn Heb “What are these stones?”

[4:22]  ³⁸ tn Heb “make known.”

[4:22]  ³⁹ tn Heb “crossed this Jordan”; the word “River” is not in the Hebrew text, but has been supplied to clarify the meaning.

[4:23]  ⁴⁰ tn Heb “just as the Lord your God did to the Red Sea when he dried [it] up before us while we crossed over.”

[4:24]  ⁴¹ tn Heb “in order that.”

[4:24]  ⁴² tn Or “peoples.”

[4:24]  ⁴³ tn Heb “know the hand of the Lord that it is strong.”

[4:24]  ⁴⁴ tn Heb “fear.”