Psalm 44:15

My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(15) The shame.—Better take the face as a second object—shame hath covered me as to my face, i.e., covered my face. Though the record of the facts of a sad reality, these verses have also the value of a prophecy sadder still. Twenty centuries of misery are summed up in these few lines, which have been most literally repeated,

“By the torture, prolonged from age to age,

By the infamy, Israel’s heritage;

By the Ghetto’s plague, by the garb’s disgrace,

By the badge of shame, by the felon’s place.”

R. BROWNING: Holy Cross Day.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 44:15-16. My confusion is continually before me — I cannot open my eyes but the tokens of our disgrace present themselves before me; and the shame of my face hath covered me — These things have made me so ashamed, that I do not willingly show my face. For the voice of him that reproacheth and blasphemeth — I can hear nothing but reproachful words against us, and blasphemous words against thee and thy religion, for our sakes; which is intolerable to me; by reason of the enemy and avenger — That insolent enemy, whose very countenance is full of disdain and scorn, and threatens further mischief to us, as being the executioner, both of thy vengeance and his own upon us, and who persecutes us with despiteful hatred and great cruelty.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

44:9-16 The believer must have times of temptation, affliction, and discouragement; the church must have seasons of persecution. At such times the people of God will be ready to fear that he has cast them off, and that his name and truth will be dishonoured. But they should look above the instruments of their trouble, to God, well knowing that their worst enemies have no power against them, but what is permitted from above.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My confusion is continually before me - My shame; the conviction and the evidence of my disgrace is constantly present with me. Literally, "all the day my shame is before me." That is, the evidences of disgrace, defeat, and disaster; render everywhere around him, and he could not conceal them from himself. The psalmist here is represented as the head of the people, and expresses the sense of disgrace which the sovereign era people would feel in a time of national calamity; identifying himself with the people, he speaks of the national disgrace as his own.

And the shame of my face - The shame that is manifested on the countenance when we blush.

Hath covered me - That is, I am suffused with the evidence of my shame; or, as we sometimes say, "he blushed all over." The blush, however - that special rush of blood manifesting itself through the skin - which constitutes the evidence of shame, is confined to the face and the neck; an arrangement which none can explain, except on the supposition that there is a God; that he is a moral governor; and that, as it was designed that the body should be covered or clothed, he meant that the evidence of guilt should manifest itself on the parts of the person which are most exposed to view, or where others could see it. The idea here is, that he could not conceal the proofs of his shame and disgrace; he was compelled to exhibit them to all around.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

15. shame of … face—blushes in disgrace.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Before me; before the eyes of my mind and body too. They vilify me, not only behind my back, but even before my face.

The shame of my face hath covered me, i.e. I am filled with shame of my face on every side, being ashamed to show my face in any place or company.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My confusion is continually before me,.... Meaning that which is the occasion of it;

and the shame of my face hath covered me; not by reason of sin, which is often the cause of confusion and shame in God's people; see Jeremiah 3:25; but on account of what follows.

Geneva Study Bible

My {m} confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me,

(m) I dare not lift up my head for shame.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

15. My confusion &c.] Render with R.V., All the day long is my dishonour before me, as in Psalm 44:8; Psalm 44:22; Psalm 44:9. My disgrace is perpetually staring me in the face. Cp. Psalm 38:17.

the shame of my face &c.] Shame is said to cover or clothe a man (Job 8:22; Psalm 35:26; Psalm 69:7; Psalm 132:18); and the shame of my face is an emphatic synonym for my shame, inasmuch as the sense of shame betrays itself in the countenance. Cp. Ezra 9:6 ff; Jeremiah 7:19; Daniel 9:7-8.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 15. - My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me (see the comment on ver. 9). Psalm 44:15

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 44:14-17) To this defeat is now also added the shame that springs out of it. A distinction is made between the neighbouring nations, or those countries lying immediately round about Israel (סביבות, as in the exactly similar passage Psalm 79:4, cf. Psalm 80:7, which closely resembles it), and the nations of the earth that dwell farther away from Israel. משׁל is here a jesting, taunting proverb, and one that holds Israel up as an example of a nation undergoing chastisement (vid., Habakkuk 2:6). The shaking of the head is, as in Psalm 22:8, a gesture of malicious astonishment. In נגדּי תּמיד (as in Psalm 38:18) we have both the permanent aspect or look and the perpetual consciousness. Instead of "shame covers my face," the expression is "the shame of my face covers me," i.e., it has overwhelmed my entire inward and outward being (cf. concerning the radical notions of בּושׁ, Psalm 6:11, and חפר, Psalm 34:6). The juxtaposition of "enemy and revengeful man" has its origin in Psalm 8:3. In Psalm 44:17 מקּול and מפּני alternate; the former is used of the impression made by the jeering voice, the other of the impression produced by the enraged mien.