This is yet another longish psalm of war; however, it’s remarkable for one big difference from the others so far — this psalmist admits that his nation ain’t what it used to be on the battlefield and that his people have become “a reproach to our neighbors, / A scorn and a derision to those all around us” and “a byword among the nations, / A shaking of the head among the peoples.” Huh.
This guy starts out like the blowhard who brags that the United States has never lost a war. But then someone whips out their trusty cell phone and fact-checks him in real time on Wikipedia. It says the USA has lost — that’s right, lost — 11 wars and has been involved in 11 others whose outcomes were inconclusive. And some losses and draws occurred long before the Korean War.
So this psalmist must face the truth — something our boastful bigmouth will never do — and he questions why all this rotten luck has befallen him and his people. I’m the same warrior poet I’ve always been, he says. We all follow every inscrutable rule we’re supposed to, he says. And still we’re “killed all day long; / We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Uh, everyone but him.