In Judges 19 and 20 the Levite priest takes a concubine from Bethlehem, his hometown. She becomes angry with him and goes back home. He returns for her and takes her back with him. They leave Bethlehem in the evening and get as far as Gibeah in the land belonging to the Benjaminites.

The people show him great inhospitality. First, the people do not take them in for the night. Finally an old man invites them in but then the men of the city come for the Levite to sexually accost him. Just as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah the old man offers his daughter and the concubine. The men try to attack the man and he puts his concubine out into the mob. They rape her all night. She crawls to the door of the old man and dies. When the Levite finds his concubine he cuts her up into twelve pieces and sends a piece to each of the twelve tribes.

The tribes gather at Mizpah. The Levite explains the crime committed against him and his concubine. The Israelites decide to go against the people of Gibeah with God’s blessing. After three days the Israelites burn Gibeah to the ground and kill some of their warriors. The rest go into hiding in the wilderness.

Psalm 44 begins with a recounting of God’s faithfulness in battle. But the psalm quickly turns to a complaint against God. He is not helping the people in the current battle. They believe that they are being faithful to God and yet he is allowing them to lose. They cry out for God to come to their aid.

When we are suffering, we may feel like the people in the psalm. We are believing; we are trusting; but God seems to be hiding from us. This psalm shows that it is alright to bring your complaints to God. When you think he is not listening it is alright to cry out.