Psalm 22:2

The psalm opens with a question, and the question begins with a confession. Before David asks why, he calls God “my God”, and he says it twice. The word is ʼêl, a name for God that also carries the sense of strength and might. David uses it again in verse 10, “thou art my God from my mother’s belly”, and there it is plainly a word of trust. So the cry of abandonment and the confession of faith use the same word, and the man who feels forsaken still speaks to God as his own. The repetition makes the question all the more painful, because it is his own God who has left him.

“Forsaken” is ʻâzab, a verb that means to loosen or let go, and so to leave or forsake. David feels left alone and cut off from the help and presence he has always known. He adds that God is far from helping him. “Far” is râchôwq, and the word behind “helping” is yᵉshûwʻâh, deliverance or salvation. Scripture uses it of rescue that people bring as well as rescue from God, though every true deliverance comes in the end from the LORD. David knows exactly where his help lies, and that is why its distance hurts so much.

The last phrase is “the words of my roaring”. The word for words, dâbâr, means speech, and shᵉʼâgâh is a rumbling or moan, the word used for the roar of a lion (Job 4:10). David’s prayer has become a groaning cry of pain, and he brings it to God just as it is.

This verse is famous above all because Jesus spoke it on the cross (Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34). David, moved by the Holy Spirit, wrote words that the Messiah would one day make his own. On the cross Jesus, the sinless Lamb of God (John 1:29), bore the weight of the world’s sin, and his cry shows how far he entered into the suffering that sin brings.

His cry still says “My God”. Jesus spoke these words in agony, and he spoke them to the Father as his own God, so his trust held even in that hour. The rest of the psalm, with its memories of deliverance and its ending in praise, belongs with the words he quoted.

In verse 2 David repeats his address, “O my God”, and describes a prayer that has gone on without rest. “I cry” is qârâʼ, to call out to someone, an urgent spoken appeal. He calls by day and through the night, and “am not silent” translates dûwmîyâh, stillness or silence. The Hebrew says, in effect, that there is no stillness for him, and his distress keeps him crying out through the hours when others sleep.

“Thou hearest not” uses ʻânâh, a verb that means to answer or respond, so David’s complaint is that God has given him no answer. The same verb returns at the turning point of the psalm, “for thou hast heard me” (Psalm 22:21), where the answer finally comes. Other psalms know this waiting well. “How long, O LORD?” asks Psalm 13:1, and Asaph tells of crying to God in the night while his soul refused to be comforted (Psalm 77:1–6).

Verse 3 turns with one word, “But”, from David’s distress to God himself. qâdôwsh, holy, means set apart, sacred and pure. It speaks of God’s moral perfection and of his separateness from sin and from everything he has made. The seraphim cry “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:3). Whatever David feels, God’s character stands firm, and David says so to God in the middle of his complaint. It is a confession of faith spoken from the dark.

He goes on, “O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel”. The verb yâshab properly means to sit down, and so to dwell, remain or settle, a word for settled presence. tᵉhillâh, praise, comes from a root meaning to laud and means a song of praise. Its plural, Tehillim, is the Hebrew title of the book of Psalms, and the plural here speaks of the continuing worship of the whole people. Israel’s worship centred on the tabernacle and later the temple, where God placed his presence among them, as he had said: “let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8). At the end of all things God will dwell with his people for ever (Revelation 21:3).

So the verse holds two truths together. God is utterly holy, and he is near to the people who praise him. For David this is an appeal as well as a confession, because the God whom Israel has always praised for his saving acts is the God he is calling on now.

In verses 4 and 5 David turns to Israel’s history. ʼâb, father, can mean a father in the plain sense or, more widely, an ancestor. “Our fathers” are the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and the generations who saw God’s mighty acts: the Passover night and the departure from Egypt (Exodus 12), the rescue at the Red Sea (Exodus 14:30), and his care in the wilderness. Israel was commanded to tell these deeds to each new generation (Deuteronomy 6:20–25), and David draws on that shared memory now.

“Trusted” in verse 4 is bâṭach, which properly means to flee to someone for refuge, and so to trust, be confident or be sure. It is a resting of one’s whole weight on another. The word “trusted” comes three times in two verses, and each time the answer is the same: “thou didst deliver them”. The verb is pâlaṭ, to slip out or escape, and in this form to deliver, to bring someone out of danger to safety. The rescue is God’s own act.

Verse 5 says it again in other words. “They cried” is zâʻaq, to cry out, especially for help in hardship. It is the cry Israel raised in Egypt, when they “sighed by reason of the bondage, and they cried, and their cry came up unto God” (Exodus 2:23–25), and again and again in the days of the judges, when God answered by sending deliverers. The cry of verse 5 and the cry of verse 2 share the English word and translate two different Hebrew verbs. “Were delivered” is mâlaṭ, to escape or be rescued, so the fathers got away safe. “Were not confounded” uses bûwsh, to be ashamed or disappointed. In Israel shame was public disgrace, and a hope that failed would have brought shame on the one who held it. The fathers’ trust was proved right before everyone.

This is God’s settled way with his people. “The righteous cry, and the LORD heareth” (Psalm 34:17). He is “the faithful God, which keepeth covenant” (Deuteronomy 7:9), and those who trust in the LORD with all their heart find him true (Proverbs 3:5–6). Hebrews tells of the faithful who through faith escaped danger and were made strong (Hebrews 11:32–34). Joel promises that “whosoever shall call on the name of the LORD shall be delivered” (Joel 2:32), and Paul applies the language of verse 5 to faith in Christ: “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 9:33, Romans 10:11).

Verse 6 opens with “But I”, setting David against the fathers who were delivered and honoured. tôwlâʻ, worm, means a maggot or grub, and especially the crimson grub from which scarlet dye was made. Here it pictures something small, weak, easily crushed and trodden on. The same word is used by the LORD of his people when he comforts them: “Fear not, thou worm Jacob” (Isaiah 41:14). Bildad uses it of all mankind before God’s greatness, “man, that is a worm” (Job 25:6).

“And no man” deepens it. ʼîysh is a man, an individual person, and David says he is treated as less than one, stripped of the dignity and regard owed to any person. Then he names what others do to him. cherpâh, reproach, means disgrace, shame and scorn, so he has become a public object of contempt. “Despised of the people” widens it further: the rejection comes from all sides.

Every word of this came true of Jesus. Isaiah foretold that he would be “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). The eternal Son took “the form of a servant” and was “made in the likeness of men”, humbled himself to the death of the cross, and was then highly exalted (Philippians 2:7–11). At the cross soldiers, rulers and passers-by treated him as less than human. He became sin for us and bore its shame, and through his lowering those who receive him are given power to become the sons of God (John 1:12).

Verse 7 shows what the reproach looks like. “All they that see me” makes the sufferer a public spectacle, and their answer to his pain is laughter. lâʻag, laugh, means to deride or mock, and its lexicon entry adds that it can mean to speak unintelligibly, as if mimicking someone. “Shoot out the lip” is a sneer. The word given for it, pâṭûwr, comes from a root meaning to open, and the picture is of thrusting out the lip or opening the mouth to jeer. “Shake the head” uses nûwaʻ, to waver or move to and fro, a gesture of scorn and of triumph over someone who has fallen. Public mockery of this kind added torment to any suffering, and the scene of Psalm 22 is one of a man exposed to a crowd’s contempt.

The Gospels record this very scene at the cross. “They that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads”, and the chief priests, scribes and elders said, “He saved others; himself he cannot save” (Matthew 27:39–44). Mark tells the same of the passers-by and the chief priests (Mark 15:29–32), and Luke adds that “the rulers also with them derided him” (Luke 23:35). Jesus endured “such contradiction of sinners against himself” for the joy that was set before him (Hebrews 12:2–3).

Verse 7 ends with “saying”, and verse 8 gives the mockers’ words. They report his faith in order to sneer at it. “He trusted on the LORD” uses gâlal, which means to roll, here in the sense of rolling one’s way or burden onto the LORD. The English word “trusted” is shared with verses 4 and 5, and the Hebrew verb here is different. The one he trusts is Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, the personal name of Israel’s covenant God, which Strong’s explains as “the self-Existent or Eternal One”.

“That he would deliver him: let him deliver him.” The verb is pâlaṭ, the same verb as verse 4, “thou didst deliver them”. The mockers throw back at the sufferer the very deliverance God gave the fathers. “Seeing he delighted in him” uses châphêts, to like, be pleased with or desire. Their reasoning is that if God took pleasure in this man he would rescue him at once, and that his suffering proves God has rejected him. Job’s friends reasoned the same way about Job (Job 4:7–9). Job himself answered with faith: “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him” (Job 13:15).

At the cross the chief priests, scribes and elders spoke almost these exact words: “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God” (Matthew 27:43). They meant it as proof that God had cast Jesus off, and by saying it they fulfilled Scripture. God did delight in his Son. He upheld him through the cross and then raised him up, “having loosed the pains of death” (Acts 2:24). The cross, where the beloved Son was mocked as forsaken, became the place of God’s greatest deliverance, for “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Verse 9 turns again with “But thou”, and this time David remembers his own life. gîyach, “took me out”, means to gush forth, burst out or draw out. Used here as a participle, it names God as the one who brought David to birth: “thou art he that took me out of the womb”. The word for womb is beṭen, the belly, and especially the womb. Another psalm makes the same confession: “thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels” (Psalm 71:6).

“Thou didst make me hope” uses bâṭach, the same verb as “trusted” in verse 4, in a form that means to make someone trust or feel secure. While David was still a nursing child at his mother’s breast, utterly dependent on others, God was already making him secure in himself. The fathers trusted God across the centuries of Israel’s history, and David has trusted him across the whole length of his own life.

Verse 10 says it once more. “I was cast upon thee” uses shâlak, to cast or throw. From his first day David’s life was thrown on God, and it has rested on God ever since. “From the womb” here is rechem, the womb, and the parallel “my mother’s belly” is beṭen ‘immî, which uses the beṭen of verse 9. “Thou art my God” brings back ʼêl, the word of the cry in verse 1. The man who cried “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” now says “thou art my God”, and he has been able to say it all his life.

Scripture speaks often of God’s hand on a life before birth. “Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee,” God told Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:5). The Servant says, “The LORD hath called me from the womb” (Isaiah 49:1), and David praises God who covered him in his mother’s womb (Psalm 139:13–16). David is doing here what other psalms urge, remembering the works of the LORD (Psalm 77:11) and telling his downcast soul to hope in God (Psalm 42:5).

In the KJV the heading of the psalm stands at the start of verse 1. “To the chief Musician” translates nâtsach, the leader of the music, so the psalm was given for public worship. “Upon Aijeleth Shahar” is ʼayeleth shachar, “the doe of the morning” or “hind of the dawn”, from ʼayeleth, a doe or hind, and shachar, dawn. Its exact musical meaning is uncertain, and it most likely names a well-known tune to which the psalm was sung. Some believers also see in it the psalmist as a hunted deer, or the light of dawn breaking after the night of suffering. “A Psalm” is mizmôwr, a psalm or song, probably sung with instruments, and “of David” is Dâvid, the king.

The psalm names no occasion. David knew many times of danger and grief, such as his flight from Saul in the wilderness (1 Samuel 23:14) and his flight from Absalom, when he went up the Mount of Olives weeping (2 Samuel 15:30). Psalm 22 also stands at the head of Psalms 22, 23 and 24, which are often taught together as the Shepherd psalms: the suffering Shepherd of the cross, the caring Shepherd with his crook, and the conquering Shepherd who wears the crown.

The lament of these ten verses ends in praise. Verse 21 brings the answer, “thou hast heard me”, and the psalm then looks outward until all the ends of the world remember and turn to the LORD (Psalm 22:27). The cry of abandonment at the start leads to worship that fills the earth.

These verses give God’s people words for the hour when he feels far away. They show that a believer may ask God “why” and still call him “my God”, and that faith in the dark looks back at what God has already done, for his people through their history and for each of his children since the day of their birth. They show us who God is: holy when everything else is shaken, the deliverer of the fathers, and the one who has held his child since the womb.

Above all they show us Christ. He prayed this psalm on the cross, bore the scorn of verses 6 to 8, and was forsaken in our place, because “God so loved the world” (John 3:16). The mockers said the LORD would leave him to die, and God raised him from the dead. So the promise of verse 5 stands for everyone who trusts in him: they cry, and they are delivered, and they are not put to shame.