If we have forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a strange god,
Parallel Translations
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If we have forgotten the name of our God, or spread out our hands to a strange god,
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If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
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(44-21) If we had forgotten the name of our God, or spread forth our hands to a strange god;
Cross-references (10)
Passages linked to Psalms 44:20 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 81:9 There shall be no strange god in you, neither shall you worship any foreign god.
- Job 11:13 “If you set your heart aright, stretch out your hands toward him.
- Deuteronomy 6:14 You shall not go after other gods, of the gods of the peoples who are around you,
- Job 31:5-40 “If I have walked with falsehood, and my foot has hurried to deceit (let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know my integrity); if my step has turned out of the way, if my heart walked after my eyes, if any defilement has stuck to my hands, then let me sow, and let another eat. Yes, let the produce of my field be rooted out. “If my heart has been enticed to a woman, and I have laid wait at my neighbor’s door, then let my wife grind for another, and let others sleep with her. For that would be a heinous crime. Yes, it would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for it is a fire that consumes to destruction, and would root out all my increase. “If I have despised the cause of my male servant or of my female servant, when they contended with me, what then will I do when God rises up? When he visits, what will I answer him? Didn’t he who made me in the womb make him? Didn’t one fashion us in the womb? “If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morsel alone, and the fatherless has not eaten of it (no, from my youth he grew up with me as with a father, I have guided her from my mother’s womb); if I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or that the needy had no covering; if his heart hasn’t blessed me, if he hasn’t been warmed with my sheep’s fleece; if I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, because I saw my help in the gate, then let my shoulder fall from the shoulder blade, and my arm be broken from the bone. For calamity from God is a terror to me. Because of his majesty, I can do nothing. “If I have made gold my hope, and have said to the fine gold, ‘You are my confidence;’ If I have rejoiced because my wealth was great, and because my hand had gotten much; if I have seen the sun when it shined, or the moon moving in splendor, and my heart has been secretly enticed, and my hand threw a kiss from my mouth, this also would be an iniquity to be punished by the judges; for I should have denied the God who is above. “If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him who hated me, or lifted up myself when evil found him (yes, I have not allowed my mouth to sin by asking his life with a curse); if the men of my tent have not said, ‘Who can find one who has not been filled with his meat?’ (the foreigner has not camped in the street, but I have opened my doors to the traveler); if like Adam I have covered my transgressions, by hiding my iniquity in my heart, because I feared the great multitude, and the contempt of families terrified me, so that I kept silence, and didn’t go out of the door— oh that I had one to hear me! Behold, here is my signature! Let the Almighty answer me! Let the accuser write my indictment! Surely I would carry it on my shoulder; and I would bind it to me as a crown. I would declare to him the number of my steps. as a prince would I go near to him. If my land cries out against me, and its furrows weep together; if I have eaten its fruits without money, or have caused its owners to lose their life, let briers grow instead of wheat, and stinkweed instead of barley.” The words of Job are ended.
- Psalms 7:3-5 Yahweh, my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have rewarded evil to him who was at peace with me (yes, I have delivered him who without cause was my adversary), let the enemy pursue my soul, and overtake it; yes, let him tread my life down to the earth, and lay my glory in the dust.
- Psalms 68:31 Princes shall come out of Egypt. Ethiopia shall hurry to stretch out her hands to God.
- Exodus 9:29 Moses said to him, “As soon as I have gone out of the city, I will spread out my hands to Yahweh. The thunders shall cease, and there will not be any more hail; that you may know that the earth is Yahweh’s.
- 1 Kings 8:22 Solomon stood before Yahweh’s altar in the presence of all the assembly of Israel, and spread out his hands toward heaven;
- Psalms 44:17 All this has come on us, yet we haven’t forgotten you. We haven’t been false to your covenant.
- Psalms 78:11 They forgot his doings, his wondrous deeds that he had shown them.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (11 sources)
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain They show that they honored God aright, because they…
They show that they honored God aright, because they trusted in him alone.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 44:20 If we have forgotten the name of…
Psa 44:20 If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;
Ver. 20. If we have forgotten the name of our God] i.e. Foregone our religion, as renegadoes, denying the Lord that bought us. In the time of the Maccabees many defected to Paganism; Demas, forsaking Paul, became an idolatrous priest at Thessalonica, saith Dorotheus; Julian turned Pagan; Damascen, Mahometan, as some write; Harding, an obstinate Papist. In the Palatinate, when, not forty years since, taken by the Spaniard, scarce one man in twenty stood out, but fell to Popery, as fast as leaves fall in antumn.
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Or stretched out our hands to a strange god] This Ignatius, Laurentius, and thousands of those primitive Christians would die, rather than be drawn to do. So the three children, the seven brethren, &c. Origen, for yielding a little, was excommunicated.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain In the place: or rather into, as others render…
In the place: or rather into, as others render it; which seems much more emphatical. And so this verb may be rendered, thou hast humbled, or brought us down, as all the ancients rendered it. Or this is a pregnant verb, as they call them, or one verb put for two; of which there are many instances, as hath been showed. So it may be rendered, thou hast sore broken us, casting us into; or, thou hast by sore breaking brought us into. By inflicting upon us one breach after another, thou hast at last brought us to this pass. The place of dragons; which signifies a place extremely desolate, such as dragons love, Isa 13:21,22; 34:13; 35:7, and therefore full of horror, and danger, and mischief. Thou hast thrown us among people as fierce and: cruel as dragons. With the shadow of death, i.e. with deadly horrors and miseries. See Poole "Job 3:5"; See Poole "Psa 23:4".
The name of God, i.e. either God himself; or his worship and service; which we have denied that we have done, Psa 44:17.
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Stretched out our hands, in way of prayer or adoration, whereof this is a gesture, Exo 9:29; 1Ki 8:22; Psa 143:6.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain If we have forgotten the name of our God,....…
If we have forgotten the name of our God,.... As antichrist, and the antichristian party did in those times, Dan 11:36;
or stretched out our hands to a strange god; as not to any of the Heathen deities under the Pagan persecutions, so not to any images of gold, silver, brass, and wood, under the Papal tyranny; not to the Virgin Mary, nor to angels and saints departed; nor to the breaden God in the mass, never heard of before; see Dan 11:38.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 20. If we have forgotten the name of…
Verse 20. If we have forgotten the name of our God] That name, יהוה Jehovah, by which the true God was particularly distinguished, and which implied the exclusion of all other objects of adoration.
Or stretched out our hands] Made supplication; offered prayer or adoration to any strange god - a god that we had not known, nor had been acknowledged by our fathers. It has already been remarked, that from the time of the Babylonish captivity the Jews never relapsed into idolatry.
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It was customary among the ancients, while praying, to stretch out their hands towards the heavens, or the image they were worshipping, as if they expected to receive the favour they were asking.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain If we have forgotten the name of our God…
If we have forgotten the name of our God - That is, if we have apostatized from him.
Or stretched out our hands to a strange god - Or have been guilty of idolatry. The act of stretching out the hands, or spreading forth the hands, was significant of worship or prayer: 1Ki 8:22; 2Ch 6:12-13; see the notes at Isa 1:15. The idea here is, that this was not the cause or reason of their calamities; that if this had occurred, it would have been a sufficient reason for what had taken place; but that no such cause actually existed, and therefore the reason must be found in something else. It was the fact of such calamities having come upon the nation when no such cause existed, that perplexed the author of the psalm, and led to the conclusion in his own mind Psa 44:22 that these calamities were produced by the malignant designs of the enemies of the true religion, and that, instead of their suffering for their national sins, they were really martyrs in the cause of God, and were suffering for his sake.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain A solemn appeal to God to witness their constancy.
A solemn appeal to God to witness their constancy.
stretched out . . . hands--gesture of worship (Exo 9:29; Psa 88:9).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 20. If we have forgotten—Compare Job 31
20. If we have forgotten—Compare Job 31
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 20. stretched out] R.V., spread forth: the gesture of…
20. stretched out] R.V., spread forth: the gesture of prayer being not, as with us, folded hands, but the hands extended with open palms: the Lat. ‘manibus passis.’ Cp. Psa_143:6; 1Ki_8:22; 1Ki_8:38; 1Ki_8:54; Isa_1:15.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain If we have forgotten the name of our God,…
If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out (rather, spread out) our hands to a strange god. If Israel had either forgotten the true God (see above, ver. 17) or fallen away to the worship of false or strange gods then her ill success against her foreign enemies would have been fully accounted for, since it would only have been in accordance with the threatenings of the Law; (Lev_26:14-17 Deu_28:15-23) but as she had done neither of these things, her defeats and depressed condition seemed to the psalmist wholly unaccountable. We trace here the same current belief, which comes out so strongly in the Book of Job the belief that calamities were, almost of necessity, punishments for sin; and that when they occurred, and there had been no known precedent misconduct, the case was abnormal and extraordinary.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 20. An appeal is now made to the…
Ver. 20. An appeal is now made to the omniscience of God; he is himself called in to bear witness that Israel had not set up another God. If we have forgotten the name of our God. This would be the first step in apostasy; men first forget the true, and then adore the false. Or stretched out our hands to a strange god. Stretching out the hands was the symbol of adoration or of entreaty in prayer; this they had not offered to any of the idols of the heathens.
Ver. 20. Stretched out our hands to a strange god. The stretching out the hand towards an object of devotion, or an holy place, was an ancient usage among the Jews and heathens both, and it continues in the East at this time, which continuance I do not remember to have seen remarked. That this attitude in prayer has continued among the Eastern people, appears by the following passage from Pitts, in his account of the religion and manners of the Mohammedans. Speaking of the Algerians throwing wax candles and pots of oil overboard, as a present to some marabbot (or Mohammedan saint), Pitt goes on, and says, "When this is done, they all together hold up their hands, begging the marabbot's blessing, and a prosperous voyage." In the same page he tells us, "the marabbots have generally a little neat room built over their graves, resembling in figure their mosques or churches, which is very nicely cleaned, and well looked after." And in the succeeding page he tells us, "Many people there are who will scarce pass by any of them without lifting up their hand, and saying some short prayer." In like manner, he tells us, that at quitting the Beat, or holy house at Mecca, to which they make devout pilgrimages, "they hold up their hands towards the Beat, making earnest petitions." Harmer's "Observations."
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None.
Psalms 44:21*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.