(in the course of commenting on Psalm 44): “Suffering may be a battle-scar rather than a punishment; the price of loyalty in a world which is at war with God.”50 The recognition that faithfulness may entail suffering of various kinds is already present in the Old Testament (Moses, Jeremiah, Psalms, Job, the Isaianic servant), but it is nevertheless given greater weight in the New Testament, such that a Christian frame of reference for Psalms 44 and 89 in certain ways reshapes one’s expectations.
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