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Jochanan the high priest, i.e., John Hyrcanus (135-107 b.c.), that he put an end to these מעוררים, saying to them: “Doth the Deity sleep? Hath not the Scripture said: Behold the Keeper of Israel slumbereth not and sleepeth not!? Only in a time when Israel was in distress and the peoples of the world in rest and prosperity, only in reference to such circumstances was it said: Awake, why sleepest Thou, O Lord?”
Nevertheless many considerations are opposed to the composition of the Psalm in the time of the Maccabees. We will mention only a few. In the time of the Maccabees the nation did not exactly suffer any overthrow of its “armies” (Psa 44:10) after having gathered up its courage: the arms of Judah, of Jonathan, and of Simon were victorious, and the one defeat to which Hitzig refers the Psalm, viz., the defeat of Joseph and Azaria against Gorgias in Jamnia (1 Macc. 5:55ff.), was a punishment brought upon themselves by an indiscreet enterprise. The complaints in Psa 44:10. are therefore only partially explained by the evmnts of that time; and since a nation is a unit and involved as a whole, it is also surprising that no mention whatever is made of the apostates. But Ewald's reference of the Psalm to the time of the post-exilic Jerusalem is still more inadmissible; and when, in connection with this view, the question is asked, What disaster of war is then intended? no answer can be given; and the reference to the time of Jehoiachin, which Tholuck in vain endeavours to set in a more favourable light - a king who did evil in the eyes of Jahve, 2Ch 36:9, with which the descriptions of character drawn by Jeremiah, Jer 22:20-30, and by Ezekiel, Eze 19:1-14, fully accord - is also inadmissible. On the other hand, the position of the Psalm in the immediate neighbourhood of Psalms belonging to the time of Jehoshaphat, and also to a certain extent its contents, favours the early part of the reign of king Joash, in which, as becomes evident from the prophecy of Joel, there was no idolatry on the part of the people to be punished, and yet there were severe afflictions of the people to be bewailed. It was then not long since the Philistines and Arabs from the neighbourhood of the Cushites had broken in upon Judah, ransacked Jerusalem and sold the captive people of Judah for a mere song to the Greeks (2Ch 21:16., Joe 3:2-8). But this reference to contemporary