Psalm 22 Jan. 10 For the Chief Musician; set to The Doe of the Morning. A Psalm by David.  1My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning? 2My God, I cry in the daytime, but You don’t answer; in the night season, and am not silent. 3But You are holy, You who inhabit the praises of Israel. 4Our fathers trusted in You- they trusted, and You delivered them, 5they cried to You, and were delivered. They trusted in You, and were not disappointed. 6But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. 7All those who see me mock me, they insult me with their lips, they shake their heads and say, 8He trusts in Yahweh; let Him deliver him. Let Him rescue him, since He delights in him. 9But You brought me out of the womb, You made me trust at my mother’s breasts. 10I was thrown on You from my mother’s womb; You are my God since my mother bore me. 11Don’t be far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none else to help. 12Many bulls have surrounded me, strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. 13They open their mouths wide against me, lions tearing prey and roaring. 14I am poured out like water, all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within me. 15My strength is dried up like a shard of pottery; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You have brought me into the dust of death. 16For dogs have surrounded me, a company of evildoers have enclosed me; they have pierced my hands and feet. 17I can count all of my bones, they look and stare at me. 18They divide my garments among them, they cast lots for my clothing.  19But don’t be far off, Yahweh. You are my help: hurry to help me. 20Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog! 21Save me from the lion’s mouth! Yes, from the horns of the wild oxen, You have answered me. 22I will declare Your name to my brothers, in the midst of the congregation I will praise You. 23You who fear Yahweh, praise Him! All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him! Stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel! 24For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither has He hidden His face from him; but when he cried to Him, He heard.  25Of You comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. 26The humble shall eat and be satisfied, they who seek after Him shall praise Yahweh. May your hearts live forever. 27All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to Yahweh, all the families of nations shall worship before You. 28For the kingdom is Yahweh’s, He is the ruler over the nations. 29All the rich ones of the earth shall eat and worship, all those who go down to the dust shall bow before Him, even he who can’t keep his own soul alive. 30Posterity shall serve Him, future generations shall be told about the Lord. 31They shall come and shall declare His righteousness to a people that shall be born, for He has finished it.   

Commentary

22:1 Quoted by Christ on the cross (Mt. 27:46). The way Christ calls God “my God” (see :10 also) and prays to Him is not only disproof of the Trinitarian view of Christ; it enables us to find in Christ true inspiration and comfort knowing that He was our representative, of our nature. We are also comforted that to have doubts, even a crisis of faith and understanding as to why God isn’t acting isn’t a sin; for Christ had these feelings and yet never sinned. Christ said these words “about the ninth hour” (Mt. 27:46), and yet He died at the ninth hour (Mk. 15:34). That He had some sense of crisis at the very end adds the ultimate in drama to the crucifixion account, and makes His final victory yet more glorious.
22:8 Quoted against Christ on the cross (Mt. 27:43). We are encouraged by the New Testament application of this Psalm to Christ to see the whole Psalm as giving a unique window into the thoughts of God’s Son in His time of dying.
22:14 My bones are out of joint- The Messianic Psalms often stress the pain Christ felt in His bones; crucifixion was designed to make the bones of the crucified suffer. We who are baptized into the body of Christ are described as His bones (Eph. 5:30); and yet not one of Christ’s bones was broken (Jn. 19:36). In all this we have profound encouragement. We are to suffer with Christ, sharing His cross; and yet ultimately we will not be broken, but rise again to eternity, just as His body and bones did. From the awkward and unnatural position of the crucified, Christ could look down upon His literal bones and feel they were as persons looking at Him (:17); thus it seems He had an awareness of us as He hung there.
22:18 Fulfilled in Mt. 27:35; Jn. 19:24.
22:22 This is quoted in Heb. 2:12 to demonstrate Christ’s identity with us, having had human nature. He was especially close to us in His death, and we likewise can look to Him there and feel close to Him and His closeness to us. The tone of the Psalm now becomes more positive, as Christ comes to think of us, the “congregation” [LXX ecclesia, the church] who would be brought into being on account of His suffering. It could be that He quoted the entire Psalm out loud; “He has finished it” (:31) in the LXX is “It is finished”, which were the very last words of Christ (Jn. 19:30).