Psalm 22, pt. 1
A Cry of Distress
From the Lord’s Anointed One

1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? 2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

The fact that Jesus borrowed some of the words of this Psalm to express His agony on the cross does not mean that David did not experience the things which caused him to cry out in this way originally. This is the way that the Lord often worked in the lives of His men. He would carry them through experiences and then inspire the words they used to describe it so that the expressions might also have a future application.

Ps 22:1-2
We have here a plaintive Psalm, starting with a disconsolate cry of anguish, it passes on to a trustful cry for help, and ends in vows of thanksgiving and a vision of world-wide results, which spring from the deliverance of the sufferer. In no Psalm do we trace such an accumulation of the most excruciating outward and inward suffering pressing upon the complainant, in connection with the most perfect innocence. (from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

We cannot find in any of the record of David such a time, although there was a while early on in his escape from Saul when he was in the most desperate of situations and might possibly have come to a place of physical suffering similar to what is described here. You will recall that when he first escaped from Saul he went to a Philistine city and lived for a while there pretending to be insane.

1 Sam 21:10-15
10 And David arose, and fled that day for fear of Saul, and went to Achish the king of Gath.
11 And the servants of Achish said unto him, Is not this David the king of the land? did they not sing one to another of him in dances, saying, Saul hath slain his thousands, and David his ten thousands?
12 And David laid up these words in his heart, and was sore afraid of Achish the king of Gath.
13 And he changed his behaviour before them, and feigned himself mad in their hands, and scrabbled on the doors of the gate, and let his spittle fall down upon his beard.
14 Then said Achish unto his servants, Lo, ye see the man is mad: wherefore then have ye brought him to me?
15 Have I need of mad men, that ye have brought this fellow to play the mad man in my presence? shall this fellow come into my house? KJV

We are not told how long this went on but we see from the story that the Philistines were not inclined to help him and may not have even been willing to feed him. So, the young man who had known such success in his life to this point was suddenly abandoned by his own king and under the care of a king who was not motivated to help him. The despair of that moment and the fear of death must have been overwhelming.

In this we can see a parallel between some of his sufferings which would drive him to pen these words which also are such a prophetic look at the agonies of Jesus.

This is not an expression of impatience and despair, but of alienation and yearning. David felt himself rejected by God and man, but primarily by God. The feeling of divine wrath completely enveloped him, yet he still knew himself to be joined to God in fear and love, even though his present condition contradicted the real nature of his relationship to God, and it is just this contradiction that urged him to the awful question, which came up from the lowest part of his being: Why hast Thou forsaken me?

But in spite of this feeling of desertion by God, the bond of love is not torn asunder; the sufferer calls God ‘eeliy (OT:410) (my God), and urged on by the longing desire that God again would grant him to feel this love, he calls Him, ‘eeliy (OT:410) ‘eeliy (OT:410). (from Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament: New Updated Edition, Electronic Database. Copyright (c) 1996 by Hendrickson Publishers, Inc.)

When Jesus used these words, He not only borrowed the words themselves but was experiencing some of the same emotions as the original author. The forsakenness of the Crucified One, however, is unique; and may not be judged by the standard of David or of any other sufferers who thus complain when passing through trial. That which both men felt is here, behind the wrath that is felt, they also knew the hidden love of God, which faith holds fast, and even though each complained on account of the suffering and the sense of the wrath of God, he kept us his communion with God. The Crucified One was to His last breath the Holy One of God, and the reconciliation for which He offered Himself is God’s own eternal purpose of
mercy, which is now being realized and accomplished in “the fulness of times.”

But inasmuch as He placed himself under the judgment of God for the sins of His people, He could not be spared from experiencing God’s wrath against sinful humanity as though He were Himself guilty. And out of the infinite depth of this experience of wrath, comes the cry of His complaint
which penetrates the wrath and reaches to God’s love.

Verse 2 gives us insight to what those times of solitude and prayer during the life of Jesus contained, wrestlings with the Father concerning the agony which the Savior knew full well awaited Him. He was, in spite of being the Second Person of the Godhead, also a very real man who although He did not sin, He did dread suffering and the natural sense of self preservation which is born into every creature, was also present in Him.

He wrestled for sure in the Garden the night before His Crucifixion, but this leads us to believe He had wrestled thus many times before.

— April 30, 2020