If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a strange god;

If we have forgotten the name of our God, and if we have spread forth our hands to a strange god :

If the name of our God has gone out of our minds, or if our hands have been stretched out to a strange god,

Though Thou hast crushed us into a place of jackals, and covered us with the shadow of death.

If we have forgotten the name of our God - That is, if we have apostatized from him.
Or stretched out our hands to a strange god - Or have been guilty of idolatry. The act of stretching out the hands, or spreading forth the hands, was significant of worship or prayer: 1-Kings 8:22; 2-Chronicles 6:12-13; see the notes at Isaiah 1:15. The idea here is, that this was not the cause or reason of their calamities; that if this had occurred, it would have been a sufficient reason for what had taken place; but that no such cause actually existed, and therefore the reason must be found in something else. It was the fact of such calamities having come upon the nation when no such cause existed, that perplexed the author of the psalm, and led to the conclusion in his own mind Psalm 44:22 that these calamities were produced by the malignant designs of the enemies of the true religion, and that, instead of their suffering for their national sins, they were really martyrs in the cause of God, and were suffering for his sake.

If we have forgotten the name of our God - That name, יהוה Jehovah, by which the true God was particularly distinguished, and which implied the exclusion of all other objects of adoration.
Or stretched out our hands - Made supplication; offered prayer or adoration to any strange god - a god that we had not known, nor had been acknowledged by our fathers. It has already been remarked, that from the time of the Babylonish captivity the Jews never relapsed into idolatry. It was customary among the ancients, while praying, to stretch out their hands towards the heavens, or the image they were worshipping, as if they expected to receive the favor they were asking.

If we have forgotten the name of our God, or stretched out our hands to a (p) strange god;
(p) They show that they honoured God correctly, because they trusted in him alone.

If we have forgotten the name of our God,.... As antichrist, and the antichristian party did in those times, Daniel 11:36;
or stretched out our hands to a strange god; as not to any of the Heathen deities under the Pagan persecutions, so not to any images of gold, silver, brass, and wood, under the Papal tyranny; not to the Virgin Mary, nor to angels and saints departed; nor to the breaden God in the mass, never heard of before; see Daniel 11:38.

A solemn appeal to God to witness their constancy.
stretched out . . . hands--gesture of worship (Exodus 9:29; Psalm 88:9).