Psalm 22:18

Verse 11 comes straight after the psalmist remembers how the fathers trusted God and were delivered (Psalm 22:4–5), and how he himself has hung on God since his mother’s womb (Psalm 22:9–10). He turns that lifelong trust into a plea: “Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.” Two short reasons hold up the request. The word for trouble, tsârâh, comes from a root meaning tightness, and it names distress that presses in and hems a person around. Trouble has come near while God feels far away, and the psalmist asks God to turn that around.

“None to help” uses ʻâzar, the common verb for helping or giving succour, and he means human help. The psalm opened with “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1), and those who see him laugh him to scorn (Psalm 22:6–8). Every ally has fallen away, so every hope now rests on God, and that is why the cry is so bare. A man with friends beside him might ask for many things. A man with all of them gone asks for God himself to come close. Scripture stands behind such a cry, for the LORD hears the righteous when they cry out to him (Psalm 34:17), and he is “a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).

Once the description of his suffering is complete, verse 19 brings the prayer back: “But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.” The verb for being far here is râchaq, to be far off or to put far away. The “But” turns his eyes from the bulls, lions and dogs to God, and he calls on him by his covenant name, Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, appealing to God’s faithfulness to his people.

“O my strength” is ʼĕyâlûwth, from a root meaning to be strong, and it is a different Hebrew word from the strength, kôach, that dried up like a potsherd in verse 15. His own strength has drained away, so he names the LORD himself as his strength. “Haste thee,” chûwsh, is a command: hurry, come quickly. These are the words of a man at the edge of death, and Scripture gives them to us as a right way to pray. The letter to the Hebrews calls for the same boldness: “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).

The psalmist pictures his enemies as wild animals, and each picture adds something. The animals stand for men, as animal pictures often do in the Psalms, and the word translated “strong” in verse 12, ʼabbîyr, can itself mean mighty ones or champions, which points to powerful human opponents.

Between the animal pictures the psalmist turns to his own body and describes it failing, part by part.

“I am poured out like water” uses shâphak, to pour out, spill or shed. Water spilled on the ground has lost all its strength and shape, and that is how he feels. “All my bones are out of joint” uses pârad, to separate or break apart, and pictures the frame of his body pulled out of its places. “My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels” uses mâçaç, to melt. In Scripture the heart, lêb, is the centre of a person’s mind, will and feeling, and the bowels, mêʻeh, are the inner parts, the seat of deep emotion and compassion. A heart melted like wax is courage and resolve gone soft and running away, an inward collapse to match the outward one. Other laments speak of body and spirit worn down by grief in the same way: weary with groaning (Psalm 6:6), a heart broken by reproach (Psalm 69:20), bowels troubled with weeping (Lamentations 2:11).

“My strength is dried up like a potsherd” uses kôach, strength, vigour or power. A potsherd is a broken piece of fired clay, hard, dry and brittle, the kind of thing that is thrown away. “My tongue cleaveth to my jaws” uses dâbaq, to cling or stick, and describes a mouth with all its moisture gone. It is the burning thirst of a dying man, the picture Lamentations uses for the children of Jerusalem: “The tongue of the sucking child cleaveth to the roof of his mouth for thirst” (Lamentations 4:4). “The dust of death” uses ʻâphâr, dust or dry earth. It means the grave, and it recalls the word spoken to Adam, that man was taken from the dust and returns to it (Genesis 3:19).

Then comes “I may tell all my bones”, where “tell” is çâphar, to count or number. His body is so wasted and stretched that each bone stands out and could be counted.

The last line of verse 16 is the most striking in the passage. Israel’s own punishments were stoning and hanging, and crucifixion, which fastens a man to a cross by nails through his hands and feet, was unknown in Israel in David’s day. Yet the line describes exactly what was done to Jesus. John records that they crucified him (John 19:18). After he rose, Jesus showed his disciples his hands and his feet (Luke 24:39), and Thomas asked to see the print of the nails (John 20:25). Zechariah speaks of the one whom they pierced (Zechariah 12:10), and John says that word was fulfilled at the cross (John 19:37). Isaiah’s servant was “wounded for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5).

“They look and stare upon me.” The two verbs, nâbaṭ and râʼâh, both mean to look or see, and set side by side they fill the line with watching eyes. The psalmist has become a public spectacle, his wasted body on show to men who gaze at his suffering with contempt. At the cross “the people stood beholding” (Luke 23:35), and Isaiah’s servant is “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3).

“They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” “Part” is châlaq, to divide, share out or allot, and here it is the share-out of plunder. “Garments” is beged, clothing or covering, and a garment was valuable enough to be given as a pledge for a loan (Exodus 22:26–27). “Vesture” is lᵉbûwsh, a general word for clothing, from the verb to put on a garment. The garments are divided and the vesture is settled by the lot, gôwrâl, a marked object such as a pebble used to decide a question. Israel divided its land by lot (Numbers 26:55), and the lot found out Achan (Joshua 7:14). Here it is thrown over a dying man’s clothes. To be stripped was deep shame, the treatment given to prisoners and the condemned, and the last things he owns are taken from him as spoil.

The fulfilment is exact. The soldiers at the cross divided the garments of Jesus among them and cast lots for his coat, which was without seam, and John says this was done so that this Scripture might be fulfilled (John 19:23–24). Matthew, Mark and Luke record the dividing and the lots as well (Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:34). The one who made himself of no reputation (Philippians 2:7) was stripped of everything, and the people he died for are clothed with the garments of salvation (Isaiah 61:10).

“Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.” The soul, nephesh, is a breathing creature, life, the self, so he is praying for his life and his whole person. The sword, chereb, is the instrument of violent death in battle and in execution. “My darling” is yâchîyd, one alone, sole, and by implication beloved. It is the word for an only child, as when God told Abraham to take Isaac, “thine only son” (Genesis 22:2). The two lines run side by side, soul with darling and sword with the power of the dog, so “my darling” is his own one and only life, precious and past replacing. “Power” is yâd, the hand: he asks to be taken out of the hand of the dog. The dog is keleb again, the same word as in verse 16, and the pack that surrounded him is now reaching for him. Another psalm makes the same plea: “O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul” (Psalm 116:4).

“Save me from the lion’s mouth” uses yâshaʻ, to save, to set free and bring into safety. The lion with its mouth wide open in verse 13 is about to close its jaws, and he asks God to snatch him out. God shut the lions’ mouths for Daniel (Daniel 6:22), and Paul could write that he was delivered out of the mouth of the lion (2 Timothy 4:17).

These verses come from David’s own trials, and their language reaches beyond anything recorded of his life to the death of the Messiah. The Gospels tell the story of that death in Matthew 27 and Mark 15, and line after line of this passage stands in them.

When trouble was near there was none to help him. His disciples forsook him and fled (Matthew 26:56), and in Gethsemane his soul was “exceeding sorrowful, even unto death” (Matthew 26:38). The bulls and dogs closed in: the council that judged him (Matthew 26:57–68), Pilate and his soldiers (John 19:1–16), the crowd that cried out for his crucifixion (Luke 23:21–23), and the soldiers who mocked him (Matthew 27:27–31). At the cross the passers-by, the chief priests and even the thieves reviled him with open mouths (Matthew 27:39–44, Mark 15:29–32, Luke 23:35–39). He went to it as a lamb led to the slaughter (Isaiah 53:7), the Lamb of God “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), as he had said the Son of man must suffer many things (Luke 9:22).

His body bore what the psalm describes. He said “I thirst” (John 19:28), the thirst of a tongue cleaving to the jaws, and they gave him vinegar, as another psalm foretold: “For they gave me gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (Psalm 69:21). The weight of his body hanging from the nails pulled at his joints, while not one of his bones was broken (John 19:36). When his side was pierced, blood and water came out (John 19:34), and some see the melted heart of verse 14 in that. He poured out his soul unto death (Isaiah 53:12), he “humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), and he finished the work with the cry “It is finished” (John 19:30). God made him to be sin for us, though he knew no sin (2 Corinthians 5:21), and the whole of Isaiah’s song of the suffering servant stands behind these verses (Isaiah 53).

The answer of verse 21 came to him too. In Gethsemane he prayed that the cup might pass from him, and yielded to the Father’s will (Luke 22:42). He offered up prayers with strong crying and tears to the one able to save him from death, and he was heard (Hebrews 5:7–9). God did not leave his soul in hell (Acts 2:27) and raised him up, because it was impossible for death to hold him (Acts 2:24). Now he is at God’s right hand and makes intercession for us (Romans 8:34). By his death he destroyed the one who had the power of death, the devil (Hebrews 2:14–15), and he triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). The one who was saved from the lion’s mouth is himself the Lion of the tribe of Judah (Revelation 5:5).

This passage gives us words for the hour when trouble is near and every helper has gone. The psalmist holds nothing back: the enemies, the failing body, the thirst, the shame, even his sense that God has brought him to the dust. All of it is spoken to God, and the prayer that begins with “Be not far from me” ends with “thou hast heard me”. The LORD is the strength of those whose strength has dried up, and he answers those who call to him from the lion’s mouth.

It also shows us the Saviour. Jesus went down into every part of this lament, so we have a high priest who is touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). The God who heard him has promised his people that he will never leave them nor forsake them (Deuteronomy 31:6, Hebrews 13:5).