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Psalm 22


My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress.
O my God, I call by day and you give no reply;
I call by night and I find no peace.

Yet you, O God, are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you set them free.
When they cried to you, they escaped.
In you they trusted and never in vain.

But I am a worm and no man,
the butt of men, laughing-stock of the people.
All who see me deride me.
They curl their lips, they toss their heads.
“He trusted in the Lord, let him save him;
let him release him if this is his friend.”

Yes, it was you who took me from the womb,
entrusted me to my mother’s breast.
To you I was committed from my birth,
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Do not leave me alone in my distress;
come close, there is none else to help.

Many bulls have surrounded me,
fierce bulls of Bashan close me in.
Against me they open wide their jaws,
like lions, rending and roaring.

Like water I am poured out,
disjointed are all my bones.
My heart has become like wax,
it is melted within my breast.
Parched as burnt clay is my throat,
my tongue cleaves to my jaws.

Many dogs have surrounded me,
a band of the wicked beset me.
They tear holes in my hands and my feet
and lay me in the dust of death.

I can count every one of my bones.
These people stare at me and gloat;
they divide my clothing among them.
They cast lots for my robe.

O Lord, do not leave me alone,
my strength, make haste to help me!
Rescue my soul from the sword,
my life from the grip of these dogs.
Save my life from the jaws of these lions,
my poor soul from the horns of these oxen.

I will tell of your name to my brethren
and praise you where they are assembled.
“You who fear the Lord give him praise;
all sons of Jacob, give him glory.
Revere him, Israel’s sons.

For he has never despised
nor scorned the poverty of the poor.
From him he has not hidden his face,
but he heard the poor man when he cried.”

You are my praise in the great assembly.
My vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and shall have their fill.
They shall praise the Lord, those who seek him.
May their hearts live for ever and ever!

All the earth shall remember and return to the Lord,
all families of the nations worship before him
for the kingdom is the Lord’s; he is ruler of the nations.
They shall worship him, all the mighty of the earth;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust.

And my soul shall live for him, my children serve him.
They shall tell of the Lord to generations yet to come,
declare his faithfulness to peoples yet unborn:
“These things the Lord has done.”

Commentary

Psalm 22 is one of the most wonderful pieces of writing in the Old Testament. It is a breath of pure prophecy. It speaks of the execution of a good man who relies on God in total trust throughout His ordeal. King David is the human author of this psalm, but there is no event in his life that would account for his composing this magnificent prayer. This time the other author, the Holy Spirit, is much more obvious. It is as if He said: “This time give Me the pen!”

The mysterious sufferer referred to here showed love so amazing, holiness so pure, patience so incredible, and wisdom so boundless, that He gives His identity away. It is the Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth Himself.

The title given to the psalm in the Bible is interesting: “The Hind of the Dawn”. This refers to the theme of the psalm, which tells us that help, deliverance and joy come at daybreak. The frightful ordeal of the Passion ended in the glory of the Resurrection at dawn on Easter Day.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
You are far from my plea and the cry of my distress.
O my God, I call by day and you give no reply;
I call by night and I find no peace.

Yet you, O God, are holy,
enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In you our fathers put their trust;
they trusted and you set them free.
When they cried to you, they escaped.
In you they trusted and never in vain.
                                        (vv. 1-5).

As Jesus hung on the Cross in the final hours of His life, when darkness covered the earth (see Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34), the opening words of this psalm came to His lips, as the expression of what He was enduring. We do not know if He prayed the whole psalm, but we do know that He experienced it to a much greater depth than the psalmist could have imagined.

In His sacred Passion, Jesus took our sufferings and sorrows upon Himself. He was pierced and crushed for our sins as He paid the price for our healing and peace (see Isaiah 53:4-5). St Paul says that Jesus actually “became a curse” for us (see Galatians 3:13). He therefore stood before God as the sinner, and endured the full punishment for sin, the most terrifying part of which was being cut off from God. This beloved son, whose whole motive in life was to do the Father’s will, now suddenly finds Himself cut off from communion with the Father (see Matthew 3:17, 17:5; John 4:34, 14:31). He cried out in desperate anguish: “My God . . . why have you deserted me? I am your beloved Son in whom you take all your delight!” The bewildered “Why?” is very touching. It was unthinkable that His Father, whom He addressed as “Abba, Daddy”, would cut Him off, but He had! This is not a reproach levelled against God. It is the reaction born of shock and dismay. Now He feels that His cries of distress and His anguished prayer for help and deliverance will be lost, for there is no one to hear Him. Yet this does not stop Him. He continues to pray day and night, even though He can find no peace or rest (v. 1).

God keeps silence. Jesus turns to Him in great reverence now, addressing Him as the “Holy One of Israel”. In great humility He reminds God that the Scriptures, God’s own words, are full of examples of how His ancestors put their trust in God and were delivered. There was that great deliverance from Egypt under Moses, for example. There were many stories of God hearing David’s prayers for help, and was He not in the line of succession from David? For this reason, is He not justified in expecting deliverance when He, too, puts His trust in God, the One who makes His presence felt in the praise and worship of His people?

The strong emphasis on trust is very important, for trust is the basis of our relationship with God. We trust His integrity, His faithfulness, His love, His Word and thus find we can respond to Him. If God is not trustworthy, then all hope is gone. When this verse is read as one piece there is a strong inference written between the lines:
 they trusted – you set them free
 they cried – and they escaped
 they trusted – and never in vain.
The hidden complaint of the sufferer is this: “Am I the only one who can genuinely trust you – in vain?” The “why” of the first line comes back strongly here, emphasizing the distress. The bewilderment lies in the fact that He is doing all He has been taught, all that the Scripture says, all that He knows to be right, but it does not seem to work for Him! His grief goes much deeper now.

But I am a worm and no man,
the butt of men, laughing-stock of the people.
All who see me deride me.
They curl their lips, they toss their heads.
“He trusted in the Lord, let him save him;
let him release him if this is his friend.”

Yes, it was you who took me from the womb,
entrusted me to my mother’s breast.
To you I was committed from my birth,
from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
Do not leave me alone in my distress;
come close, there is none else to help.
                                          (vv. 6-11).

In the first movement of the psalm the sufferer had looked away from Himself, upwards and outwards to God, seeking deliverance. Here in this second movement, in utter anguish, He looks at His own miserable condition and realizes that His torturers have reduced Him to the level of an earthworm. Isaiah had prophesied concerning His Passion: “. . . so disfigured did He look that He seemed no longer human . . . without beauty, without majesty . . . a thing despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and familiar with suffering . . . ” (see Isaiah 52:14, 53:2-3, J.B.). He describes Himself now as utterly degraded and shamed before everyone, the butt of their cynical jokes. Yet the torturers were not satisfied, for they heaped scorn and mockery upon Him, as if there was no end to their desire to cause the greatest pain. They touch upon the deepest inner wound now, namely, His distress at the absence and silence of His Father. They scornfully remind Him that if He were indeed God’s friend God would deliver Him,
for they all knew that God was on the side of the innocent and the oppressed (see Psalm 34: 15-20; Wisdom 2:18).

Their idea of what deliverance would mean differed greatly from what God had in mind for this humble sufferer. It is a dreadful instinct in mankind that seeks to crush the poor and the suffering, to increase their pain instead of alleviating it. St Matthew 27:33-44 clearly states that this part of the psalm was fulfilled literally in Jesus on the Cross. He was jeered by the passers-by who had nothing to do with His death. He was mocked by the chief priests, scribes and elders, and taunted even by the robber who died along with Him. They laughed at Him because He had saved others but could not save Himself. They promised to believe if He would come down from the Cross in a spectacular gesture. The worst sting of all was their mockery of Him for saying that He was God’s Son.

The Passion was not the first time we see Jesus of Nazareth rejected and despised by others. No. It was His daily bread throughout His life. The scribes and pharisees despised Him as a poor country rabbi with no proper education. He came from Galilee, which did not have a reputation for producing prophets. His relatives were poor, His close disciples were mere fishermen. Only the lower classes followed Him – the poor, the sick, the possessed, the despised tax-collectors, and the outcasts. The leaders, intellectuals and the upper classes would have nothing to do with Him (except for a few individuals), but they were jealous of His popularity and His power.

He had been mocked before too. Scattered throughout the gospels we find that the scribes and pharisees had accused him of being a Sabbath-breaker, the worst sin of all in their eyes, apart from His claim to be the Son of God. On different occasions they called Him a glutton, a wine-bibber, a drunkard, a false prophet, an enemy of Caesar, and also of being in league with the devil. They killed Him for blasphemy, because He said that He was God’s Son (see Mark 2:24; Luke 7:34, 11:15; John 8:52, 19:20).

The third movement of the psalm sees the sufferer make a review of His lifelong relationship with God in faith and trust. He had been utterly dependent on God as a babe in the womb, yet God saw Him safely through birth. From the dawn of His life He has known God deeply: “You have been my very own God.” Now in His hour of trouble He continues that trust in God, even when it appears to bring no results. God is the only person He can turn to, and the only one who can help.

Many bulls have surrounded me,
fierce bulls of Bashan close me in.
Against me they open wide their jaws,
like lions, rending and roaring.

Like water I am poured out,
disjointed are all my bones.
My heart has become like wax,
it is melted within my breast.
Parched as burnt clay is my throat,
my tongue cleaves to my jaws.

Many dogs have surrounded me,
a band of the wicked beset me.
They tear holes in my hands and my feet
and lay me in the dust of death.

I can count every one of my bones.
These people stare at me and gloat;
they divide my clothing among them.
They cast lots for my robe.
                                  (vv. 12-18).

In this fourth movement of the psalm the sufferer looks out at those who stand around the cross. How did He feel about them? There were several groups of people there: first there was His mother, Mary, with St John comforting her in this terrible grief. What pain it must have cost Him to see His mother so distressed. Mary of Magdala was there too, close to her saviour, and unafraid of the consequences. He was dying as a public criminal, but she knew who He was, and wanted to comfort Him by her loving presence. The chief priests, scribes and pharisees were there too, glaring and gloating at His shame, apparently enjoying His humiliation. And there were Roman soldiers playing dice to while away the time as they waited for the men to die, even casting lots for His clothes as if He were already dead. The passers-by formed another group who got involved just out of curiosity. Finally, away in the background were all the women disciples of Jesus, and hopefully the men also!

The scene described here has often been re-enacted through the course of history; it is the strong closing in on the weak, the many on the one. The crowd is described in powerful animal images, showing the helpless fear of the dying victim in the face of all these people, whether friend or foe. The strong bulls of Bashan were known for their ferocity and fury, while dogs hunted in packs and were very fierce, and the lions hacked their prey to pieces. These powerful images describe the torture experienced in this violent death. He feels as if He is being torn asunder from within too; there was the drying up of the body fluids which was one of the results of a crucifixion. The pain caused by this was so great that it even moved the Roman soldier to show compassion by offering Jesus a drink of vinegar, which was probably the sour drink the soldiers had for themselves (see John 19:28). He was nailed to the Cross now with holes in His hands and feet, and just left there in the heat and the dust to die. Death was
the only relief He could look forward to now, but God is still silent and absent. It is hell to be rejected both by God and man and this is His lot.

He looks down at His body, so wounded and diminished that He can count all His bones. He is fading away to death, yet His enemies continue to stare at Him and gloat, increasing His sense of shame and exposure. He sees the soldiers cast lots for His clothes too.

O Lord, do not leave me alone,
my strength, make haste to help me!
Rescue my soul from the sword,
my life from the grip of these dogs.
Save my life from the jaws of these lions,
my poor soul from the horns of these oxen.
                                          (vv. 19-21).

In a rising crescendo the sufferer uses all the strength left to Him, and cries out across the darkness and the chasm that separates Him from God and begs for deliverance. Then in a whisper of amazement He realizes that He has been heard. God has answered Him. Following the Hebrew, the last two lines should read: “Save my life from the jaws of these lions, and from the horns of these oxen. You have answered!” It is this response from God, now manifesting His presence to the poor sufferer, which explains the second half of the psalm, both a hymn of thanksgiving and a prophecy about the future Kingdom of God.


I will tell of your name to my brethren
and praise you where they are assembled.
“You who fear the Lord give him praise;
all sons of Jacob, give him glory.
Revere him, Israel’s sons.

For he has never despised
nor scorned the poverty of the poor.
From him he has not hidden his face,
but he heard the poor man when he cried.”
                                              (vv. 22-24).

The second half of this psalm relates to the resurrection. The holocaust has been accepted by God. These verses show that the final moments of Jesus on the Cross were in triumph, as He cried out to everyone that the redemption was now accomplished, and He could see, in prophetic vision, what lay in the future. Because of this the new community who were His Brethren would give praise and glory to God in all their assemblies. They would glorify God particularly for accepting Jesus in the humble poverty of His incarnation into a sinful world, and His poverty on the Cross when He went before God bereft of all His privileges as the beloved Son, identified with all sinners so that He could save them. As Isaiah said: “. . . for allowing Himself to be taken for a sinner –” (Isaiah 53:12).

You are my praise in the great assembly.
My vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and shall have their fill.
They shall praise the Lord, those who seek him.
May their hearts live for ever and ever!

All the earth shall remember and return to the Lord,
all families of the nations worship before him
for the kingdom is the Lord’s; he is ruler of the nations.
They shall worship him, all the mighty of the earth;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust.

And my soul shall live for him, my children serve him.
They shall tell of the Lord to generations yet to come,
declare his faithfulness to peoples yet unborn:
“These things the Lord has done.”
                                                 (vv. 25-31).

In this final movement of the psalm Jesus declares that God His Father is the theme of all praise and worship in the Church. Here the poor, who are those who rely on God for everything, spiritual and natural, just as Jesus did, will be fed by God Himself on His Word and on the Eucharist by the power of His Spirit. All may feed on Him as much as they want and give praise to God.

Suddenly the psalm peers into the distant future when all things will have been renewed, when all nations will return to God. Then we come to the consumatus est of the Old Testament. Jesus declared His trust in the young Church that was to suffer so much after His departure. His disciples would pick up the challenge and go, eventually, to the whole world to preach the Gospel. The generations yet unborn can be guaranteed to hear the Good News. Now it is all over (see John 19:30). He bows His head, and in dying He conquers death, taking its sting away by His redeeming blood. With St Paul we too cry out with joy: “O death where is your victory? Death where is your sting? Now the sting of death is sin – so let us thank God for giving us the victory through Our Lord Jesus Christ” (see 1 Corinthians 15:55).

This psalm teaches us the important attitudes we need in prayer. First there is humility, which enables us to recognize our own sinfulness and nothingness before God’s holiness. This releases us to be able truly to praise and thank Him, and to reach out in real trust. When humility has matured it enables us to trust God even when He appears to be absent from us, when we feel all alone. Childlike humility enables us quietly to trust in God’s faithfulness, mercy and love (Isaiah 30:15,18). It also makes us persist in prayer. Many people give up when persistence would have got them all that they wanted. They do not realize that God wants to do more for us than we would ever ask or imagine (see Luke 11:5-8, 18:1-8; Ephesians 3:21). The childlike, humble persistence of Jesus won an eternal redemption for all of us. He did not give up when all the odds were stacked against Him. Let us learn from Him.

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