Why do You hide Your face and forget our affliction and oppression?
Parallel translations
- WEB Why do you hide your face, and forget our affliction and our oppression?
- KJV Wherefore hidest thou thy face, and forgettest our affliction and our oppression?
- NKJV Why do You hide Your face, And forget our affliction and our oppression?
- NASB Why do You hide Your face And forget our affliction and oppression?
- NLT Why do you look the other way? Why do you ignore our suffering and oppression?
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They ask why God hides His face and forgets their affliction and oppression. It matters because it voices the anguish of feeling forgotten by God.
Overview
The hidden face signifies the withdrawal of God's favorable presence, the deepest distress for a believer. The questions are not accusations of injustice but pleas for restored fellowship. The cry of feeling forsaken finds its ultimate answer at the cross, where Christ bore the hiding of God's face so His people never need be forgotten.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 12
- Job 13:24Why do You hide Your face and consider me as Your enemy?
- Deut 32:20He said: “I will hide My face from them; I will see what will be their end. For they are a perverse generation—children of unfaithfulness.
- Ps 42:9I say to God my Rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why must I walk in sorrow because of the enemy’s oppression?”
- Exod 2:23–24After a long time, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned and cried out under their burden of slavery, and their cry for deliverance from bondage ascended to God.
- Ps 74:23Do not disregard the clamor of Your adversaries, the uproar of Your enemies that ascends continually.
- Ps 13:1For the choirmaster. A Psalm of David. How long, O LORD? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me?
- Ps 10:11He says to himself, “God has forgotten; He hides His face and never sees.”
- Ps 43:1–4Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation; deliver me from deceitful and unjust men.
- Ps 10:1Why, O LORD, do You stand far off? Why do You hide in times of trouble?
- Ps 74:19Do not deliver the soul of Your dove to beasts; do not forget the lives of Your afflicted forever.
- Rev 6:9–10And when the Lamb opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slain for the word of God and for the testimony they had upheld.
- Isa 40:27–28Why do you say, O Jacob, and why do you assert, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the LORD, and my claim is ignored by my God”?
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Commentaries & study tools
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 44:24 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.