Psalm 22: 1 – 31
He knew
To the Chief Musician. Set to “The Deer of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David.
1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning? 2 O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season and am not silent. 3 But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. 4 Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. 5 They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed. 6 But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people. 7 All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 8 “He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!” 9 But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts. 10 I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother’s womb You have been My God. 11 Be not far from Me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help. 12 Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. 13 They gape at Me with their mouths, like a raging and roaring lion. 14 I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me. 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; 17 I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me. 18 They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots. 19 But You, O LORD, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me! 20 Deliver Me from the sword, My precious life from the power of the dog. 21 Save Me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered Me. 22 I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. 23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel! 24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard. 25 My praise shall be of You in the great assembly; I will pay My vows before those who fear Him. 26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever! 27 All the ends of the world Shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You. 28 For the kingdom is the LORD’s, And He rules over the nations. 29 All the prosperous of the earth Shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust Shall bow before Him, even he who cannot keep himself alive. 30 A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation, 31 They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, That He has done this.
He knew a thousand years before his greater Son, The Messiah, took on flesh and dwelt amongst us.
As we come to this psalm we can only stop and wonder. For if we had found it as a fragment with no date attached in some Egyptian papyrus we would instantly have assigned its first half as a description of the crucifixion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The coincidences, we would have said, are too marked, the details too certain, for us to do otherwise.
And yet we know that it was written a thousand years before He was born. We can only therefore consider it in awe and reverence as we consider its background and its source and recognize in it God’s means of describing the sufferings of His Son long before the event, a description id the intensity of suffering is too real, and the despair too deep, for it to come from any other than personal experience.
Certainly, the heading connects the psalm with the house of David. We might well therefore see it as initially true of David himself in the days of his persecution by Saul, in a time of great crisis and defeat.
As such it can be interpreted as dealing with the Messiah, preparing for the day when David’s greater Son will endure precisely such contradiction of sinners against Himself, for it was later recognized that the Son of Man must emerge from suffering to receive his throne (Daniel 7.14), and that the Messiah would be cut off and would have nothing (Daniel 9.25). It clearly also links with the suffering Servant of Isaiah 53.
That Jesus applied the psalm to Himself is clear from His cry on the cross (Mark 15.34) which cites the first verse of the psalm, and John sees further fulfilment of it in terms of the distribution of Jesus’ clothing (verse 18 with John 19.24), while the words of those who put him to scorn are paralleled by bystanders at the cross. That there are many parallels between the Psalm and Jesus’ experience on the cross we will see as we consider the psalm in detail. For here we have God writing the story prior to the event.
To the Chief Musician. Set to “The Deer of the Dawn.” A Psalm of David.
This is yet another Psalm offered to the organizer of the sacred music, or the choirmaster, and dedicated to David. As such it was intended to aid the worship of Israel, something which must be borne in mind when seeking to interpret its significance. It was intended to have a message for its day.
The tune means ‘hind of the dawn’. If it indicated a hind stirred at break of day by the horns of the huntsmen, having to endure the chase and to die under the teeth of the hunting dogs and the spears of the huntsmen, exhausted and in complete hopelessness, it would be very fitting.
However, one thing that stands out about this Psalm is that in all the despair there is (unusually) no confession of guilt. The one who prays does so as one who has no awareness of sin. He cries for vindication, not for forgiveness. It is a fitting picture of The Holy Son of God Jesus Christ Who alone could genuinely have prayed like this.
1 My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?
Just as the words our Master and King Lord Jesus cried from the cross the word God is here spoken of as ‘El’, (Eli, Eli - my God, my God - in the Aramaic Eloi or Eli).
It is certainly an indication of the deep distress of the speaker. The dual ‘my God, my God’ is both an expression of faith (‘my’) and an indication of urgency (Isaiah 49.14). The ‘One’ crying out cannot understand why He should be undergoing such torment of spirit, and why the miseries of life should have been so thrust on Him. It would fit well with David’s worst periods in his flight from Saul as he felt himself being constantly hunted down by one whom he was aware was slightly mad, and who sought his life with the intensity of a madman.
What is worse the affected ‘One’ feels that his sufferings have gone on for far too long. God is still far from helping him, and he feels that his roaring like an animal in pain has apparently been in vain. None would know better than David the roaring in anguish of the lion as it was slain by the shepherd with no one to deliver it.
Our Holy Lord Jesus applied it to Himself in the depths of His sufferings on the cross is not surprising. It would bring some comfort amid His dreadful anguish and misery, as He faced alone the consequences of sin as they were laid upon Him, and the darkness of His struggles with the Enemy, to know that what He faced had already been foreshadowed in these words.
2 O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season and am not silent.
The psalmist was experiencing his suffering and rejection day and night. He cried constantly to God, but he was seemingly not being heard. Daily his prayer would reach up to God, nightly he was in such despair that he could not sleep and utilized the time for more prayer. He could not be silent for his spirit was heavy in him.
This would certainly have been the experience of David, and it was so of many since.
I always recommend that a person who is having a lot a difficulty read the Psalms for encouragement. When a Christian is in despair as to why his prayers are seemingly not being answered he can take comfort from the thought that others have gone that way before, only to come out triumphant.
We may see here the daylight hours on the cross followed by the darkness that covered the whole earth when Jesus was being crucified. We cannot doubt that His cry to His God and Father was constant. It also reflects the darkness of Gethsemane when He could not be silent.
3 But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. 4 Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. 5 They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.
The psalmist now calls on God in terms of what He is and in the light of his memories of Israel’s past. He knows that God Is Holy, set apart and distinct, right in all He does. He does not doubt, therefore, that what God allows must be good and that He will do what is right in this circumstance too.
‘He gives pause for thought - But you are holy.’ He recognizes that God is set apart and unknowable. There is no searching of His understanding. His ways are not our ways and therefore we must hesitate before we speak. ‘God is in Heaven and you are on the earth, therefore let your words be few’ (Ecclesiastes 5.1). He must not prejudge God, and he can be sure that what this holy God does is right and that He will in the end save His people.
For he knows too that He ‘Is enthroned on the praises of Israel’. He Is Israel’s God, and their covenant Lord and King, and they worship Him constantly and truly. He Is sure therefore that He Who thus receives their worship and homage will not fail them.
His confidence is boosted by his knowledge of God’s mercies in the past -‘They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to you, and were delivered, they trusted in you, and were not put to shame.’ Here we have an indication that his troubles are not just personal. There are the whole people to consider. God had never failed them. When they cried to Him at times when they were almost in despair that there could be any hope, they did not end up shamefaced, for in the end He always responded by delivering them.
He is confident that God will respond in this situation too, however bad it may seem. Certainly, even as he fled from Saul David could see the despair of Israel. The Philistines were pressing in on them, demanding, in many parts, heavy tribute, and Saul was fighting against them a losing battle. Things looked bleak indeed.
And Jesus too on the cross, meditating on these words, knew better than any how good God had been to His people.
6 But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people.
Yet the psalmist wants God to know the depths of the humiliation that he feels, and that he does not see himself enough to deliver Israel. He feels like a worm, writhing in the dust, treated with contempt, kicked and despised. He feels that he is not a man at all, but the lowest of the low, constantly under the reproach of men. The people do not want him. They despise him.
Even a man like David would have known such moments of darkness and despair when all seemed lost and he felt like lying down in the dust and dying. And this was the man after God’s own heart. But it is when man is at his lowest that God steps in to deliver.
And such was the treatment meted out to our Lord Jesus on the cross as He was treated as less than a human being, and as those who should have worshipped Him mocked instead and constantly reproached Him. He was treated as a worm.
The parallels with Isaiah are significant. There too YHWH’s servant was called a worm (Isaiah 41.14). There too the favored of God was as one despised by men (Isaiah 49.7; 50.6; 53.3).
7 All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 8 “He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”
The psalmist is aware of what people are saying about him. He feels deeply their scorn and their insults, and their despising of the faith that he had constantly asserted before them. In the good days he had declared his confidence in YHWH. Now they threw it back in his face. Their thought was, ‘Did not his present position show that they had been in the right and not him?’ So, they laughed at him, mocking him. They shook their heads in amused reproach. Where was his favored position now? They committed him mockingly to YHWH. Let him roll his problem on YHWH. If YHWH really did really favor him, let Him now demonstrate it. But they were confident that He would not.
Previously his faith had made them feel uncomfortable. Now they retaliate with sarcasm. Did God really delight in him? Well they could see for themselves how true that was.
So, might David well have felt with almost the whole of Israel against him, his popularity dissipated, and his rivals glad to see him gone. There is nothing like success for winning enemies, especially among rivals. And even more deeply would our Master Lord Jesus have felt it on the cross. He had come purposing only good, and they had rejected Him and treated Him as though He were evil, even mocking His Father’s purposes. These very things were done to Him and these very words were spoken against Him by His enemies round the cross (Matthew 27.39, 43). They did not realize that they were fulfilling prophecy and condemning themselves. ‘Laugh me to scorn.’
9 But You are He who took Me out of the womb; You made Me trust while on My mother’s breasts. 10 I was cast upon You from birth. From My mother’s womb You have been My God.
But the psalmist is very much aware of God’s hand on his life and that, despite present circumstance, he did trust in God in the way that his reproaches doubted, and that he did believe that God would deliver him. It was God Who had brought him to birth, it was God Who from earliest days had nurtured his faith, it was God on Whom he had constantly relied, for often he had had no one else to turn to, and it was to God that he had constantly looked from when he was very young. Their reproaches were therefore false.
So would David have felt as he looked back over his life, for his heart had been right from earliest days, which is why he was God’s chosen (1 Samuel 16.7, 12). He would remember too how he had been cast on God when the lion and the bear had come against his flock (1 Samuel 17.34), and how God had delivered Goliath into his hands even while he was but a youth (1 Samuel 17.42-50).
And of no one was this truer than of Jesus, Who was miraculously born at the express will of His Father (Luke 1.35), and Who had looked to Him and learned from Him from His earliest days (Luke 2.40).
That we are to see some of these descriptions as figurative comes out in verse 21 where the psalmist sums all up by describing it as being saved from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild ox. He has a vivid imagination and knows much about the hunt and about the behavior of wild beasts, and how they are treated in the hunt.
11 Be not far from Me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help.
Aware of trouble approaching the sufferer cries to God for help. In verse 1 he had said that God was far from him. Now he pleads that it might not be so. He confirms that he has nowhere else to turn and asks God ‘not to be far from Him’, for he is facing almost impossible dangers.
12 Many bulls have surrounded Me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. 13 They gape at Me with their mouths, Like a raging and roaring lion.
His enemies are gathered against him on all sides. They are like bulls which tend to gather around any strange object and can easily be moved to attack it. Yes, they are like the strongest of bulls, the strong bulls of Bashan. They are impenetrable. And their mouths are wide open to swallow him like the mouth of a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me.
He feels drained and empty, with his joints stiff and painful as if the bones were out of joint, and his innermost heart failing under the pressure.
For our God and Master Lord Jesus this did become literally true. Not only would He be physically drained and probably suffering from hypothermia in the hot sun, but crucifixion could literally take His bones out of joint and His sufferings would certainly affect His mental state and His emotions (His heart) so that they seemed like wax melted within Him.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death. 16 For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; 17 I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.
The idea of the potsherd is probably of a pot that has been overheated and become so dried out that it has cracked and broken. The tongue cleaving to his jaws represented excessive thirst. So, did the psalmist feel totally dried up, with his strength gone.
David may well have experienced such conditions as he fled through the desert to escape from Saul’s searchers, and had to hide in inhospitable places, especially if he was also ill at the time.
It was certainly our Lord Jesus’ experience on the cross to suffer excessive thirst, which He refused to quench until His work was done (Matthew 27.34).
It may be that the psalmist envisages will happen to him unless some miracle happens, as he hears the barking of the dogs in the distance, and knows what they will do with any fugitive they catch, and is aware also of how men like his pursuers mutilate a man so that he can no longer harm them, cutting the tendons of hands and feet.
The description of ‘the dogs’ may simply be metaphorical as a description of rabid humans. All were familiar with the packs of savage dogs that scavenged outside cities, and sometimes even within. They provided a fitting illustration of those whose hatred was so intense that they would literally snarl at him when they caught him.
And there is no more vivid way of describing the packs of evil men who had gathered to hunt The Holy Son of God Jesus down and see that He met the awful fate that they had planned for Him, than as a pack of mangy dogs. That such men gathered round Him and pierced His hands and His feet is without question.
‘You have brought me into the dust of death.’ Is the final ignominy for a hunted man as he is finally caught and dragged down into the dust to die? But here he sees himself as brought to this pass by God Himself. It was the will of YHWH to bruise him (Isaiah 53.10).
Of course, with the treatment of our Lord Jesus again the words were literally true. After His ill-treatment at the hands of Jewish leaders and Romans, being hung and distorted on a cross would make his bones clearly visible beneath His skin, as His adversaries stood around and stared.
18 They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.
If the psalmist’s clothing was of rich quality they may well have stripped him and given him an old piece of cloth, even if his nakedness bothered them at all (Isaiah 20.4). This would be their reward for capturing such an important prisoner.
We can well see that the thought of such ignominy would have been a nightmare to David, the practice possibly being well known to him as occurring among soldiers, and the mention of the vesture (the undergarment, a seamless tunic) stressing total nakedness. This method of sharing out the clothing of captives, which was both simple and practical, may well have been a practice continued through the centuries, although David might have been thinking of it as something that would occur after he had been killed. Stripping the dead after battle was common practice.
It happened to our Lord Jesus on His death and is claimed as the ‘filling full’ of prophecy (John 19.23-24).
19 But You, O LORD, do not be far from Me; O My Strength, hasten to help Me!
So the sufferer turns to YHWH for help. God is his deliverer and he looks to Him for assistance. He still hoped to be delivered from the worst.
20 Deliver Me from the sword, My precious life from the power of the dog.
This is confirmed here by his hope to be delivered from the power of the dog (verse 16). He wants to escape death by a sword and mauling by a dog. ‘My darling’. Literally ‘my only one’.
21 Save Me from the lion’s mouth and from the horns of the wild oxen! You have answered Me.
So, he puts in his final plea. Let him be saved from the lion’s mouth. The lion here may well be Saul. And then in the second part of the verse the whole spirit of the psalm changes, as he suddenly recognizes that he will be saved indeed. He is about to be delivered from the horns of ‘the wild oxen’ because God has answered him.
22 I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
Confident that God has heard him and will deliver him, the Psalmist now declares how he will reveal the full attributes (the significance of ‘Your Name’ - the name was seen as indicating the attributes) of a compassionate God to his brothers in the assembly (And there also he will praise Him.
23 You who fear the LORD, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, and fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!
Thus, all God’s true people (those who fear Him) are to praise YHWH and glorify Him. They are to stand in awe at what He has done. So, the people of Israel are being called on to rejoice in the deliverance of the one being described by the Psalmist, for his deliverance is important to them.
Our Lord Jesus will call on His people to praise God for the way that He has come through suffering to triumph, having been made a perfect Leader through suffering (Hebrews 2.10).
24 For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.
The reason for the praise and worship is that YHWH has not turned away from his deep affliction, nor has He hid His face from him (He had not forsaken him), so that the cry of the one of whom the Psalmist speaks was heard, and answered.
25 My praise shall be of You in the great assembly; I will pay My vows before those who fear Him.
The reason that he can praise YHWH is because the reason for praising and ability to praise have come from Him. He is the source of the praise issuing from the one of whom the Psalmist is speaking, and its end. And the result is that he can praise Him in the great assembly and fulfil the vows that he has made while in distress, performing them in front of all who truly fear Him (compare Hebrews 10.7, 9).
26 The poor shall eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever! 27 All the ends of the world Shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before You.
And the consequence of the triumph of this one who has suffered will be that the poor and meek who truly seek after YHWH and be satisfied, for they will be his guests. They will rejoice in the means of atonement and worship.
And this is not only for the poor of Israel, it is also for the Gentiles. All the ends of the earth will call to mind the suffering and dedication of the one who has suffered, and will turn to YHWH, and all the families of the nations (Genesis 12.3;28.14) will worship before YHWH.
28 For the kingdom is the LORD’s, And He rules over the nations.
This will be because they will acknowledge His Kingly Rule, and He Is the ruler over the nations.
29 All the prosperous of the earth Shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust Shall bow before Him, even he who cannot keep himself alive.
The result of the suffering of the one of whom the Psalmist is speaking and the rejoicing over His deliverance will be that those who are in full life and those who are dying or dead (those who go down to the dust), will both partake of His sacrificial offering, and will worship and bow before Him, even those who cannot avoid death. The living and the dead will praise Him. While the idea of resurrection is not spelled out, as it was unlikely to be in those days, there is the clear indication that he will somehow benefit both. Every knee will bow to Him, and every tongue will swear (Isaiah 45.23).
30 A posterity shall serve Him. It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation, 31 They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born, That He has done this.
The result of this will go on from generation to generation. Each generation will be told what the Lord has done.
The further result will be that God’s righteousness as revealed in this deliverance will be declared into the future, to those not yet born, so wonderful will have been the deliverance. All will declare that ‘He has done it’.
