Bible Strands
Psalms 44:2
With Your hand You drove out the nations and planted our fathers there; You crushed the peoples and cast them out.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — The psalmist addresses God while recounting historical deliverance that the fathers witnessed in ancient times. This declaration of past divine action immediately precedes the psalmist's complaint over current military defeat and perceived abandonment.
The words — The text emphasizes יָדְךָ (ya.de./Kha), "your hand," to denote direct divine agency in displacing nations. It pairs הוֹרַשְׁתָּ (Ho.rash.ta), "you dispossessed," with תּוֹרַע (ta.Ra'), "you did harm to," to describe the violent removal of the peoples.
The thread — The pattern of driving out nations and planting a people appears in Exodus 15:17, Psalms 78:55, and Joshua 11:23. These passages share the explicit motif of God forcibly removing indigenous groups to establish Israel in the land.
Why it lands — The verse asserts that territorial possession resulted from divine intervention rather than human sword or arm. It establishes a factual baseline of past faithfulness that frames the psalmist's subsequent demand for renewed favor.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
How thou didst drive out the heathen with thy hand, and plantedst them; how thou didst afflict the people, and cast them out.
Cross-references
- Exodus 15:17 You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of Your inheritance—the place, O LORD, You have prepared for Your dwelling, the sanctuary, O Lord, Your hands have established.
- Psalms 78:55 He drove out nations before them and apportioned their inheritance; He settled the tribes of Israel in their tents.
- Joshua 11:23 So Joshua took the entire land, in keeping with all that the LORD had spoken to Moses. And Joshua gave it as an inheritance to Israel according to the allotments to their tribes. Then the land had rest from war.
- Joshua 21:43 Thus the LORD gave Israel all the land He had sworn to give their fathers, and they took possession of it and settled in it.
- 2 Samuel 7:10 And I will provide a place for My people Israel and will plant them so that they may dwell in a place of their own and be disturbed no more. No longer will the sons of wickedness oppress them as they did at the beginning
- Exodus 34:11 Observe what I command you this day. I will drive out before you the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites.
- Psalms 80:8 You uprooted a vine from Egypt; You drove out the nations and transplanted it.
- Psalms 135:10 He struck down many nations and slaughtered mighty kings:
- Exodus 15:19 For when Pharaoh’s horses, chariots, and horsemen went into the sea, the LORD brought the waters of the sea back over them. But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground.
- Exodus 23:28 I will send the hornet before you to drive the Hivites and Canaanites and Hittites out of your way.