Counted as Sheep for the Slaughter: Why Sleepest Thou, and Who Shall Separate Us
Old Testament: Psalms 43:18, 22-24
All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten thee: and we have not done wickedly in thy covenant. ... Because for thy sake we are killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter. Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, and cast us not off to the end. Why turnest thou thy face away? and forgettest our want and our trouble?
Old Testament, also: Isaias 53:7
He was offered because it was his own will, and he opened not his mouth: he shall be led as a sheep to the slaughter, and shall be dumb as a lamb before his shearer, and he shall not open his mouth.
New Testament: Romans 8:35-39
Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation? or distress? or famine? or nakedness? or danger? or persecution? or the sword? (As it is written: For thy sake we are put to death all the day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.) But in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor might, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The connection
The psalm is Israel suffering for being faithful. "All these things have come upon us, yet we have not forgotten thee." They have not turned to a strange god; God, who knows the secrets of the heart, can see it. And still: "for thy sake we are killed all the day long: we are counted as sheep for the slaughter." So the psalm ends in the hardest prayer in the Psalter, a faithful people asking whether God has fallen asleep: "Arise, why sleepest thou, O Lord? ... Why turnest thou thy face away?" St Paul takes the psalm's darkest line and sets it inside his most certain passage. "Who then shall separate us from the love of Christ?" He names everything the psalm suffered, tribulation, persecution, the sword, and quotes it "as it is written": for thy sake we are put to death all the day long. The suffering has not changed. The conclusion has turned over: "in all these things we overcome, because of him that hath loved us," and nothing, not death, not any creature, "shall be able to separate us from the love of God." Between the psalm and the letter stands the one Isaias saw "led as a sheep to the slaughter." The Lamb went to the slaughter first, and so the sheep who follow Him are not abandoned but joined to Him. The Lord the psalm thought was asleep was the Lord who slept in death and rose.
Moral sense
Feeling forgotten is not the same as being separated. The psalmist was faithful and still felt God's face turned away; Paul, suffering the same things, was sure that nothing could part him from Christ's love. The difference was not in how much they suffered but in knowing what Christ had done. In the dry and dark times the prayer of the psalm is still allowed, why sleepest thou; and the answer to it is Paul's.
Anagogical sense
The martyrs who were counted as sheep for the slaughter follow the Lamb wherever He goes, and the Lamb who was slain stands in the midst of the throne. The Lord who seemed to sleep has risen, and those who suffered for His sake all the day long overcome, as Paul promised, because of Him that loved them.
The Fathers
St Augustine, Exposition on Psalm 44: "O Lord Jesus, Thou wast slain; Thou didst “sleep” in Thy Passion; to us Thou hast now “awaked” from sleep. For “we” know that Thou hast now “awaked” again."
Warrant
Scriptural because Romans 8:36 quotes Psalms 43:22 (44:23 in the Hebrew) with "as it is written". Checked in the originals: Paul gives the Septuagint of the verse word for word (heneka sou thanatoumetha holen ten hemeran, elogisthemen hos probata sphages), where the Greek numbers it 43:23. St Augustine (Exposition on Psalm 44, reckoned 43 in the Douay) calls the psalm the voice of the martyrs, notes that the apostle quoted it "by way of consolation, and encouragement to patience", and reads "why sleepest thou" of Christ asleep in His Passion and risen: "O Lord Jesus, Thou wast slain; Thou didst sleep in Thy Passion; to us Thou hast now awaked from sleep." Many earlier Fathers use the two verses together of the martyrs, among them Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Hippolytus and St Cyprian. Isaias 53:7 is added for the Lamb led to the slaughter; joining it to the psalm is the entry's own, resting on the shared image.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2739.
The verses
Psalms 43:18 · Psalms 43:22 · Psalms 43:23 · Psalms 43:24 · Isaias 53:7 · Romans 8:35 · Romans 8:36 · Romans 8:37 · Romans 8:38 · Romans 8:39
