Summary
Some passages in the Old Testament have a very immediate link to Jesus, our Saviour. For instance, Isaiah 53 speaks clearly of the Suffering Servant cut off for his people. Psalm 22 is another psalm which speaks clearly of Jesus’ death in our place, especially as Jesus quoted this psalm as one of his “seven words” on the Cross.
Psalm 22 clearly divides into two parts. In the first twenty-one verses, King David cries for help and laments his present suffering, fulfilled most perfectly in Christ’s own suffering on the Cross. We see in this psalm a trusting cry for help, lament at his state, and lament at his suffering. In these verses, we see expressed the agony Jesus endured on the Cross for our sake written 1,000 years beforehand.
Our passage explained
v1-5
Psalm 22 begins with a trusting cry for help. The psalm cries out despairingly “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and asks why salvation seems so distant from him, despite declaring God his God (v.1). He feels like he cries out to God day and night, but God does not respond (v.2), abandoning him.
Despite his feelings of abandonment, David still expresses the basis for trusting God. He is holy and the subject of Israel’s praise, the God who “our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them” (vv.3-4). The Patriarchs and David’s ancestors before him trusted God and were rescued when they cried for help (v.5). Despite feeling abandoned, David trusts God because of his past covenant faithfulness.
v6-11
This confidence in God then leads David to lament at his state in verses six to eleven. He describes himself as barely human, a “worm” who is “scorned by mankind and despised by the people” (v.6). He experiences mocking and insults from those who see him (v.7), who mockingly state “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (v.8).
But despite the mocking and rejection he experiences, he confidently appeals to God to rescue him! He recognises that God has been with him from his mother’s womb, and has trusted in him from his days as a baby (vv.9-10). Because he is David’s God in whom he has trusted all his life, he asks God to reverse the current distance he feels and “be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help” (v.11).
v12-18
The trouble he experiences is then described in a lament at his suffering in verses twelve to twenty-one. His enemies are described like bulls, dogs, and devouring lions surrounding him to consume him (vv.12-13, 16). He is weak and feels as if he is already dead, as he “poured out like water… bones are out of joint… heart is like wax, it is melted within my breast” (v.14). Because of his suffering, his strength is dried up, tongue stuck to the top of his mouth (in thirst), and as if God has laid him “in the dust of death” (the grave; v.15).
His suffering extends further. His hands and feet are pierced (v.16), can feel all his bones out of joint while bystanders mock and gloat (v.17). Even his final possessions, his clothes are removed and gambled over as a final indignity (v.18).
v19-21
Despite these indignities, David still expresses hope in God. He appeals again to God to come near, to “come quickly to my aid” (v.19). He asks God to deliver him from “the sword”, his life from the dogs, lions, and wild oxen which he previously described as surrounding him (vv.20-21). Even as his life fades away, he trusts God to faithfully save him from the hands of his enemies.
Our passage applied
While penned by David and possibly a poetic inspiration of many events in his life, these verses find fulfillment in the death of Christ. The Gospels identify this passage with Jesus. Jesus cries out verse 1 on the Cross (Matt. 27:46, Mark 15:34), as the God he knew intimate fellowship with from the womb poured out the wrath of judgment for the sins of the elect on him.
Jesus experienced the mocking voices (Mark 15:29-32), surrounded by his enemies watching him suffer the agonies of the Cross while the soldiers gambled for his clothes (John 19:24). Jesus fulfilled and embodied this very psalm, which pointed forward to his suffering in our place.
Despite the great pain of abandonment, the suffering and the mockery, Jesus kept his hope in God. Jesus declared “it is finished!” (John 19:30) because the wrath of God described in these verses, applied by the hands of God’s enemies, was complete. He knew God would save him from death and receive his Spirit, until he would take his life up again.
In these words we too find our hope. God has heard our cries for help by sending Christ to redeem us from God’s wrath. Jesus was forsaken, so we could be forgiven.
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