BIBLE CHAPTER STUDY
Psalms 22 — The Cry of the Forsaken and the Praise of the Delivered
A psalm that begins in desperate abandonment, recounts physical suffering and mockery at the hands of enemies, and resolves into public praise and a universal vision of God's kingdom.
Scripture
1For the Chief Musician; set to Aijeleth hash-Shahar. A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
2O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou answerest not; And in the night season, and am not silent.
3But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4Our fathers trusted in thee: They trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5They cried unto thee, and were delivered: They trusted in thee, and were not put to shame.
6But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7All they that see me laugh me to scorn: They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8Commit thyself unto Jehovah; Let him deliver him: Let him rescue him, seeing he delighteth in him.
9But thou art he that took me out of the womb; Thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother's breasts.
10I was cast upon thee from the womb; Thou art my God since my mother bare me.
11Be not far from me; For trouble is near; For there is none to help.
12Many bulls have compassed me; Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13They gape upon me with their mouth, As a ravening and a roaring lion.
14I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax; It is melted within me.
15My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; And thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
16For dogs have compassed me: A company of evil-doers have inclosed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.
17I may count all my bones; They look and stare upon me.
18They part my garments among them, And upon my vesture do they cast lots.
19But be not thou far off, O Jehovah: O thou my succor, haste thee to help me.
20Deliver my soul from the sword, My darling from the power of the dog.
21Save me from the lion's mouth; Yea, from the horns of the wild-oxen thou hast answered me.
22I will declare thy name unto my brethren: In the midst of the assembly will I praise thee.
23Ye that fear Jehovah, praise him; All ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; And stand in awe of him, all ye the seed of Israel.
24For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Neither hath he hid his face from him; But when he cried unto him, he heard.
25Of thee cometh my praise in the great assembly: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
26The meek shall eat and be satisfied; They shall praise Jehovah that seek after him: Let your heart live for ever.
27All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn unto Jehovah; And all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
28For the kingdom is Jehovah's; And he is the ruler over the nations.
29All the fat ones of the earth shall eat and worship: All they that go down to the dust shall bow before him, Even he that cannot keep his soul alive.
30A seed shall serve him; It shall be told of the Lord unto the next generation.
31They shall come and shall declare his righteousness Unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it.
What this passage means
The psalm opens with a piercing lament: the psalmist feels abandoned by God and receives no answer by day or by night (vv. 1-2). This silence is set against the confession that Israel's God is holy and enthroned amid the praises of His people, and that the fathers who trusted in Him were delivered and not put to shame (vv. 3-5). The pattern of cry-and-deliver becomes the theological grid against which the psalmist's present suffering is measured.
vv. 6-18 plunge into graphic bodily suffering and social humiliation. The psalmist is reduced to a worm, mocked by those who challenge God's commitment to him, surrounded by bulls, lions, and dogs, with bones out of joint, strength dried up like a potsherd, and enemies who pierce his hands and feet and cast lots for his garments. The vocabulary of bodily collapse and judicial violence is unusually intense, and vv. 16-18 in particular correspond closely to scenes associated with crucifixion.
The second half (vv. 19-31) turns to petition and then to praise. The psalmist asks God not to be far off, to deliver him from sword, dogs, and lions, and vows to declare God's name among the brethren. The final movement widens dramatically: the afflicted are satisfied, the ends of the earth turn to Jehovah, and all nations worship, because the kingdom belongs to Jehovah and he rules over the nations. The psalm ends with a generation telling the next that 'he hath done it.'
Context
The psalm is directed to the Chief Musician, set to 'Aijeleth hash-Shahar' (a musical direction meaning 'the doe of the dawn'), and is attributed to David. It stands within the Psalter as one of the clearest examples of an individual lament that shifts into communal and even universal praise, contrasting God's apparent absence in vv. 1-2 with His acknowledged holiness in v. 3 and His rule over all nations in vv. 27-28.
Several verses are repeatedly cited in the provided cross-references as finding fulfillment in events surrounding Jesus' crucifixion: the opening cry (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34), the mocking of those who trust God (Matthew 27:42-43), the parting of garments by lot (Matthew 27:35; Luke 23:34), and the cry offered with strong crying and tears (Hebrews 5:7). These texts do not themselves explain how the connection is to be understood; they simply record that the Gospel writers and the author of Hebrews read the psalm against the events of the passion.
Key words in the original
- H0410 The Hebrew word אֵל (ʾēl) rendered 'God' at the opening of v. 2 is the simple name for deity that the psalmist doubles — 'My God, my God.' The repetition heightens the personal urgency of the address even as the psalmist feels cut off from the very God he invokes.
- H5800 The verb עָזַב (ʿāzab), glossed 'forsaken' in v. 2, means to loosen, relinquish, or leave. The question 'why hast thou forsaken me?' therefore presses beyond physical distance into the legal and relational sense of being given up.
- H1747 The noun דּוּמִיָּה (dûmiyyāh) in v. 2, glossed 'rest' or 'silence,' describes the unceasing groaning of the psalmist: though there is no calm on his side, he insists he is not silent before God, keeping up his cry through the night.
Related verses
- Mark 15:34 Mark records that at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with the opening words of this psalm in their Aramaic form, identifying the crucified One as the speaker of the lament in vv. 1-2.
- Matthew 27:35 Matthew's note that the soldiers parted the crucified man's clothing by casting lots echoes the description in v. 18 of the enemies dividing garments and casting lots for the vesture.
- Hebrews 5:7 Hebrews describes Jesus offering prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears and being heard for his godly fear, a description that resonates with the psalmist's night-long crying in v. 2 and his answered petition in v. 21.
Common questions
Why does the psalmist address God twice in v. 1?
The doubled address 'My God, my God' expresses urgent personal appeal. Far from being a redundant formality, it intensifies the cry and turns the opening of the psalm into one of the most memorable lines in the Psalter, which is why the Gospel writers quote it as a recognizable marker.
How should the very physical language of vv. 14-18 be understood?
The psalm uses vivid bodily imagery — bones out of joint, strength dried up, tongue cleaving to the jaws, hands and feet pierced — to describe an experience of total collapse and public violence. The text does not itself identify the speaker's situation; it simply presents the sufferer's testimony in concrete terms, which is why these verses have repeatedly been read alongside accounts of crucifixion in the provided cross-references.
Why does the mood shift so abruptly from lament to praise?
The psalm models a movement built into Israel's worship: an honest outpouring of grief and accusation (vv. 1-18) gives way to urgent petition (vv. 19-21), and once God is described as answering, the response becomes public praise (vv. 22-31). The shift is not psychological denial but liturgical resolution — the worshipper recounts God's past faithfulness to the fathers, cries out, and then declares what God has done.