The Berean Table

Field	Detail
Pericope	Psalm 22:1–31
Theme	The forsaken Messiah’s cry of dereliction gives way to worldwide praise, because the LORD heard the afflicted One and accomplished salvation.

---

Opening Prayer

---

Closing Prayer

---

Timeline Context

Place in the Psalter. Psalm 22 stands in Book I of the Psalter (Psalms 1–41), a collection almost entirely headed “of David.” It follows two royal psalms: Psalm 20, a prayer for the king before battle, and Psalm 21, the king’s thanksgiving after victory. The placement is striking. Having heard the king rejoice in the LORD’s strength, the reader suddenly hears the same anointed king cry out of the deepest abandonment. Psalm 22 is then followed by Psalm 23, the Shepherd psalm, and Psalm 24, the entrance of the King of glory. Christian interpreters have long read these three together: the Shepherd who dies (Psalm 22; John 10:11), the Shepherd who leads (Psalm 23), and the Shepherd-King who comes in glory (Psalm 24; 1 Peter 5:4).

Historical setting. The superscription names David as author and assigns the psalm to the choirmaster, “according to The Doe of the Dawn,” almost certainly the name of a tune whose meaning is no longer known. Calvin thought it “highly probable that it was the beginning of some common song” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:1), and Keil agreed that the title concerns the melody rather than a hidden mystery. David reigned over Judah and then all Israel from about 1010 to 970 B.C., and before his accession he endured years of persecution under Saul (1 Samuel 19–31). Keil placed the psalm in that period of persecution; Calvin judged that David “does not here refer merely to one persecution, but comprehends all the persecutions which he suffered under Saul” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:1). No one event in David’s recorded life fits every detail, and the honest course is not to speculate beyond the text.

The surrounding framework. By David’s day the LORD had made His covenant with Abraham, promising blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Genesis 12:3), and He had redeemed Israel from Egypt because He “heard their groaning” and “remembered his covenant” (Exodus 2:24). The Davidic covenant (2 Samuel 7:12–16) promised that David’s throne would be “established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). Psalm 22 lives inside those promises. Its complaint appeals to the fathers who trusted (vv. 4–5), and its triumph reaches to the families of the nations (v. 27).

Before and after within the psalm. The psalm moves in two great movements. Verses 1–21 are lament: alternating complaint and trust, rising to the cry for rescue. In the middle of verse 21 the prayer is answered, and verses 22–31 are thanksgiving, widening in ever larger circles from the sufferer’s brothers (v. 22), to all Israel (v. 23), to the afflicted (v. 26), to the ends of the earth (v. 27), to the dying (v. 29), and finally to generations not yet born (vv. 30–31).

Redemptive-historical placement. The New Testament reads this psalm as the prayer of Christ. At the ninth hour on the cross Jesus cried its first line aloud (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34); the mockers repeated its taunt (Matthew 27:39, 43); the soldiers divided His garments as it describes (John 19:24); and Hebrews places verse 22 on the lips of the risen Christ (Hebrews 2:12). The psalm thus spans the whole arc that Peter calls “the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Peter 1:11): the cross, the resurrection, and the gathering of the nations into the church.

---

Historical-Grammatical Study

Genre. Psalm 22 is an individual lament that turns into a thanksgiving song, closing with an eschatological hymn. The lament has the usual parts: address, complaint, confession of trust, and petition. The thanksgiving has its usual parts too: a vow of praise, a call to the congregation, and the reason for praise. What is unusual is the scale. The suffering descends further than any ordinary lament, and the praise rises higher than any ordinary thanksgiving, until the whole world and all future generations are drawn in. Keil and Delitzsch describe how the poet’s hyperbole is taken up by the Spirit: “By this Spirit the hyperbolic element is changed into the prophetic” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:1). David’s experience becomes prophecy of the Christ.

Structure. The lament alternates between complaint and trust: complaint (vv. 1–2), trust (vv. 3–5), complaint (vv. 6–8), trust (vv. 9–10), petition (v. 11), complaint (vv. 12–18), petition (vv. 19–21). The enemies are described as animals in an inward movement (bulls, lion, dogs in vv. 12–16), and the petitions name them again in reverse (sword, dog, lion, wild oxen in vv. 20–21). The thanksgiving then moves outward in widening circles (vv. 22–31).

Versification. The Hebrew text counts the superscription as verse 1, so Hebrew verse numbers in this psalm run one higher than the English. Keil and Delitzsch follow the Hebrew numbering; this study always cites the ESV’s English numbering.

Key Hebrew terms. The lexicon behind this study is Strong’s Hebrew and Greek dictionaries and Brown-Driver-Briggs.

• ‘azav (Hebrew, H5800), to loosen, relinquish, leave, forsake: the verb of verse 1. Jesus spoke the line in Aramaic, sabachthani (Greek transliteration, G4518), “thou hast left me.”
• she’agah (Hebrew, H7581), a roaring: the noun the ESV renders groaning in verse 1, the deep, unguarded cry of anguish.
• qadosh (Hebrew, H6918), holy, set apart; and tehillah (Hebrew, H8416), praise or hymn. The ESV footnote to verse 3 gives the alternative “dwelling in the praises.”
• tola’ (Hebrew, H8438), worm or maggot, also the crimson-grub from which scarlet dye was taken (v. 6).
• galal (Hebrew, H1556), to roll, hence to commit: the mockers’ word for the sufferer’s trust in verse 8.
• ‘ari (Hebrew, H738), lion; and karah (Hebrew, H3738), to dig or bore. These two words stand behind the textual question in verse 16, discussed under Section 4.
• ‘eyaluth (Hebrew, H360), strength or power: rendered my help in verse 19.
• yachid (Hebrew, H3173), only, sole, hence darling or the irreplaceable life: rendered my precious life in verse 20.
• ‘enuth (Hebrew, H6039), affliction (v. 24); and ‘anav (Hebrew, H6035), humble, lowly, poor (v. 26, where the ESV footnote offers “The meek”).
• qahal (Hebrew, H6951), assembly or congregation (vv. 22, 25), rendered by ekklesia (Greek, G1577) in the Septuagint and in Hebrews 2:12.
• neder (Hebrew, H5088), a vow, a promise made to God (v. 25).
• zakar (Hebrew, H2142), to remember; and shuv (Hebrew, H7725), to turn back (v. 27), the language of repentance.
• meluchah (Hebrew, H4410), kingship or realm; and mashal (Hebrew, H4910), to rule (v. 28).
• tsedaqah (Hebrew, H6666), righteousness (v. 31); and ‘asah (Hebrew, H6213), to do or accomplish, the psalm’s final verb.

Grammatical and syntactical notes.

• The doubled vocative ‘eli ‘eli, “my God, my God,” frames the complaint inside a confession of covenant relationship.
• The adversative opening of verses 3, 9 and 19 (“Yet you,” “Yet you are he,” “But you”) marks each turn from complaint to trust or petition.
• In verse 21 the verb the ESV renders rescued is, as its footnote says, the Hebrew word for answered, and it is in the perfect: the prayer is answered in the middle of the verse.
• The psalm ends on a single verb, ‘asah, “he has done it” (v. 31), with no object expressed, leaving the whole work of God as its object.

Ancient Near Eastern background.

• Bashan (v. 12), the fertile tableland east of the Jordan, was famous for its cattle, and its “bulls” were proverbial for strength and arrogance (Deuteronomy 32:14; Amos 4:1).
• Dogs (vv. 16, 20) in the ancient Near East were scavenging pack animals, unclean and dangerous, not household pets.
• Crucifixion was unknown in Israel in David’s day and was later perfected by Rome as its most degrading form of execution. A psalm of the tenth century B.C. describing pierced hands and feet, a body stretched so the bones can be counted, unbearable thirst, and executioners dividing the victim’s clothes describes a death David himself never died.
• Dividing garments (v. 18) was a customary perquisite of executioners. John records that the Roman soldiers divided Jesus’ outer garments into shares and cast lots for the seamless tunic (John 19:23–24).
• Vows and the thanksgiving meal (vv. 25–26): a worshiper delivered from danger paid his vow with a peace offering, and the law directed that a vow offering “shall be eaten on the day that he offers his sacrifice” (Leviticus 7:16). The worshiper shared the meal with family, Levites and the poor before the LORD.

Covenantal themes. The psalm is saturated with covenant. The sufferer calls God “my God” (vv. 1, 2, 10), appeals to the fathers whom God delivered (vv. 4–5), and addresses “all you offspring of Jacob” (v. 23). Its climax gathers “all the families of the nations” (v. 27), the very language of God’s promise to Abraham, and it closes by announcing God’s righteousness, His covenant faithfulness, to a people not yet born (v. 31). The sufferer is the anointed king of the Davidic covenant, and his deliverance becomes the blessing of the world.

---

Expanded Outline

Section 1 — The Cry of Dereliction and the Holy One of Israel (Psalm 22:1–5)

Key Insight

The psalm opens without preamble, in the most piercing words of the Psalter: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (v. 1). The verb is ‘azav (Hebrew, H5800), to leave or abandon, the language of a covenant partner left behind. Yet the first words are not the complaint but the claim: my God, spoken twice before the question is asked. Calvin saw the paradox at once: “The first verse contains two remarkable sentences, which, although apparently contrary to each other, are yet ever entering into the minds of the godly together” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:1). The sentence of forsakenness and the confession of faith stand side by side. Sense reports absence; faith still says my.

The second line measures the distance: “Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?” (v. 1). Behind groaning stands she’agah (Hebrew, H7581), a roaring, the cry wrung from a man past all composure. Verse 2 adds duration: “O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest” (v. 2). Prayer continues, but heaven seems shut (Habakkuk 1:2; Job 30:20).

Then comes the turn: “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel” (v. 3). The sufferer does not ease the tension by lowering his view of God. God’s holiness is both the ground of his complaint and the anchor of his hope. Israel’s songs of praise are pictured as the throne on which the LORD sits, as He was enthroned above the cherubim (Psalm 99:1). The history of that praise is a history of answered trust: “In you our fathers trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them” (v. 4). “To you they cried and were rescued; in you they trusted and were not put to shame” (v. 5). Three times the fathers trusted, and not once were they shamed (Exodus 2:24; Psalm 25:2–3).

These words reach their full depth only at Golgotha. At the ninth hour Jesus “cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?’” (Matthew 27:46). Keil and Delitzsch guard the uniqueness of that moment: “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” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:1). David felt forsaken; the Son was forsaken, as the Sin-bearer under the judgment of God, made “to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Calvin refuses every attempt to soften the cry into a performance for the bystanders, for such interpreters “greatly lessen the benefit of our redemption, in imagining that Christ was altogether exempted from the terrors which the judgment of God strikes into sinners” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:1). The penalty was real because the substitution was real.

Yet even in the darkness the Son says my God. The forsaking was the Judge’s withdrawal of comfort from the Substitute, not the dissolving of the eternal love between the Father and the Son. The fathers trusted and were delivered; the Son trusted and was delivered through death rather than from it (Hebrews 5:7). Because He was forsaken, the covenant word to His people stands unshaken: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5).

Application

This opening teaches us that honest lament is an act of faith, not a failure of it. Many believers quietly assume that a mature Christian never feels abandoned, and so they hide their darkest hours from God and from one another. Psalm 22, given by the Holy Spirit and prayed by the Lord Jesus Himself, gives the church words for exactly those hours. When prayer seems to strike a closed heaven, the faithful response is not to stop praying but to say “my God” again, and to keep saying it.

Consider how this shapes practice. A believer sitting at a hospital bedside, a parent waiting through years for a prodigal, a man walking through depression: each may bring the “why” to God rather than to bitterness, for Scripture commands, “pour out your heart before him” (Psalm 62:8). Next, rehearse the fathers. When the present contradicts God’s promises, recall what He has done in Scripture and in your own history (vv. 4–5; Psalm 77:11). Then, rest on the cross. Because Christ was forsaken in our place, a believer’s feeling of abandonment is never God’s verdict: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

Where distress is deep or prolonged, reach for the help God ordinarily provides: pastors and elders, faithful friends, and wise medical and counseling care. These are not alternatives to the psalm but means through which God answers it, for He “comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction” (2 Corinthians 1:4).

A warning against misapplication: The cry of verse 1 does not license us to accuse God of unfaithfulness, nor to treat our sufferings as identical to Christ’s. His forsakenness was unique and penal; ours, for those in Christ, is felt but never final. Nor should lament harden into a settled complaint that refuses the comfort of verses 3–5. The psalm itself moves from “why” toward “yet you are holy.”

---

Section 2 — Scorned by Men, Upheld from the Womb (Psalm 22:6–11)

Key Insight

The fathers trusted and were honored; the sufferer trusts and is trodden underfoot: “But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people” (v. 6). The word is tola’ (Hebrew, H8438), the maggot or the crimson-grub from which scarlet dye was made. Some older interpreters found in the dye an allegory of Christ’s blood, but Keil and Delitzsch keep to the plain sense: “the point of comparison in the present instance is not the blood-red appearance, but the suffering so utterly defenceless and even ignominious” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:6). The same image describes Israel in its helplessness, “Fear not, you worm Jacob” (Isaiah 41:14), and the Servant of the LORD is “despised and rejected by men” (Isaiah 53:3). Calvin draws out the wonder of it: “The fact that the Son of God suffered himself to be reduced to such ignominy, yea, descended even to hell, is so far from obscuring, in any respect, his celestial glory, that it is rather a bright mirror from which is reflected his unparalleled grace towards us” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:6).

The contempt becomes gesture and then speech: “All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads” (v. 7). Then the taunt: “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!” (v. 8). The verb behind trusts is galal (Hebrew, H1556), to roll: he has rolled his burden onto the LORD, as the godly are told to do (Psalm 37:5; 1 Peter 5:7). The mockers turn that faith into the punch line. Calvin names the weapon: “Satan has not a more deadly dart for wounding the souls of men than when he endeavors to dislodge hope from our minds, by turning the promises of God into ridicule” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:8).

At the cross the correspondence is word for word. “Those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39), and the chief priests said, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him” (Matthew 27:43). Luke adds that “the rulers scoffed at him” (Luke 23:35). The Lord’s enemies unknowingly recited the psalm that exposed them.

Against the scorn the sufferer sets God’s earliest care: “Yet you are he who took me from the womb; you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts” (v. 9). “On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God” (v. 10). The God of the fathers (v. 4) is also the God of his own beginnings (Psalm 139:13). Keil and Delitzsch observe a further detail that the Gospels make luminous: “Throughout the Old Testament there is never any mention made of a human father, or begetter, to the Messiah, but always only of His mother, or her who bare Him” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:10). The Son born of the virgin was cast upon His Father’s care from the manger and the flight into Egypt to the cross.

The section closes with the first direct petition: “Be not far from me, for trouble is near, and there is none to help” (v. 11). Trouble is near; God seems far; the plea asks that the distances be reversed. Jesus’ disciples “all left him and fled” (Mark 14:50). He went to the cross without a human helper, so that His people would never lack a divine one.

Application

Verses 6–8 prepare us for the reproach that attaches to faith. Scripture does not hide the cost: “all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). Sometimes that persecution is violent; more often in our setting it is the curled lip, the joke at the office, the social-media pile-on, the family member who treats prayer as weakness. Spurgeon put it well: “Reproach is the common heritage of the godly” (Spurgeon, Faith Among Mockers, Sermon No. 1767).

How should we respond? First, as Christ did: “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return” (1 Peter 2:23). The mockers’ accusation, he trusts in the LORD, ought to be true of us; let them say nothing worse. Second, keep rolling the burden onto God, “casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). Third, remember verses 9–10. The God who carried you before you could pray will not drop you now. Parents who bring their children to the means of grace are confessing this very truth, that a child’s life is cast upon God from birth.

Finally, examine whether we are ever among the mockers. Contempt for the weak, the failing, or the strange is the spirit of Golgotha’s crowd. Believers who have been shown such grace should be the last to wag their heads at anyone.

A warning against misapplication: Being mocked does not prove that we are righteous; “let none of you suffer as a murderer or a thief or an evildoer or as a meddler” (1 Peter 4:15). Nor does “I am a worm” (v. 6) teach self-loathing. It describes how the sufferer was treated, not his worth. Every human being bears God’s image (Genesis 1:27), and Christ’s humiliation dignifies the lowly rather than despising them.

---

Section 3 — Encircled by Beasts, Poured Out to the Dust of Death (Psalm 22:12–15)

Key Insight

The complaint now turns outward to the enemies and then inward to the sufferer’s own body. First the beasts: “Many bulls encompass me; strong bulls of Bashan surround me” (v. 12). Bashan, the rich tableland east of the Jordan, was famed for its fattened herds, and its name became a byword for well-fed arrogance: “you cows of Bashan” (Amos 4:1). Then the lion: “they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring lion” (v. 13). Calvin summarizes the effect of the images: “In short, David’s enemies were so blood-thirsty and cruel, that they more resembled wild beasts than men” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:12). In the Passion the powerful played their part: the chief priests and elders, the council, Herod and Pilate, all of them encircling one defenseless Man (Acts 4:25–27).

Then the inward collapse, in four images: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast” (v. 14). Water spilled on the ground cannot be gathered up again (2 Samuel 14:14). Bones wrenched from their sockets describe the body under extreme strain. A heart like melting wax describes courage dissolving. Matthew Henry finds grace even in the dislocation: “His bones were put out of joint that he might put the whole creation into joint again, which sin had put out of joint” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 22:14). The Redeemer’s body was broken in its frame so that a broken creation might be set right (Colossians 1:20).

The next verse adds thirst and death: “my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death” (v. 15). A potsherd is a fragment of fired clay, bone-dry. The parched tongue was fulfilled when Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, “I thirst” (John 19:28), and another psalm of the righteous sufferer anticipated the response: “for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink” (Psalm 69:21).

The final clause is the most searching: “you lay me in the dust of death” (v. 15). The enemies are the agents, but God is the ultimate actor. Keil and Delitzsch draw the conclusion: “His enemies, however, would not have power to do all this, if God had not given it to them. Thus it is, so to speak, God Himself who lays him low in death” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:15). Isaiah says the same of the Servant, “it was the will of the LORD to crush him” (Isaiah 53:10), and Peter preached that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23). The phrase “dust of death” recalls the sentence on Adam, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19). The last Adam goes down into the dust under the curse the first Adam brought.

No ordinary affliction of David’s fits these words. Calvin saw their purpose: “But David here speaks of himself in hyperbolical language, and he does this in order to lead us beyond himself to Christ” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:15). David’s language is stretched to the breaking point because it must carry the weight of the cross.

Application

These verses teach us that suffering is real, bodily, and yet never outside God’s hand. The psalm does not spiritualize pain. It speaks of bones, heart, strength, tongue, and dust. Christians sometimes feel that admitting physical exhaustion or emotional collapse is unspiritual, but the Lord Jesus entered fully into bodily weakness. We have “a high priest” who is able “to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Hebrews 4:15).

At the same time, verse 15 assures us that the darkest hour is not chaos. The bulls and lions are real, and their cruelty is genuinely evil, yet they act only within the bounds God sets. Joseph could say to his brothers, “you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good” (Genesis 50:20). The cross is the supreme instance: the greatest crime in history was the means of the greatest mercy.

Consider some specific applications. When you face a hostile workplace, a crushing diagnosis, or the slow weakness of age, name the pressure honestly before God, as the psalmist does. Visit and serve those whose strength is dried up like a potsherd, the chronically ill, the dying, the exhausted caregiver, for in them we meet the likeness of our suffering Lord. And when distress overwhelms body and mind, seek pastoral care and medical help as gifts of God’s providence.

A warning against misapplication: God’s sovereignty over suffering does not make every affliction a punishment for personal sin; the One described here was innocent. Nor does it excuse the oppressor. Peter told the crowd that Jesus was delivered up by God’s plan, yet “you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23).

---

Section 4 — Pierced Hands and Divided Garments (Psalm 22:16–18)

Key Insight

The circle of enemies tightens: “For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet” (v. 16). Dogs in the ancient world were scavengers that ran in packs, and the parallel line explains the figure: they are a company of evildoers, a gathered assembly bent on harm. Matthew Poole presses the point that the last clause does not fit David: “these words cannot with any probability be applied to David, nor to the attempts of his enemies upon him; for their design was not to torment his hands or feet, but to take away his life” (Poole, Commentary, on 22:16).

This line carries the best-known textual question in the Psalter, and it deserves an honest account. The ESV prints “they have pierced my hands and feet” in its main text and adds a footnote: “Some Hebrew manuscripts, Septuagint, Vulgate, Syriac; most Hebrew manuscripts like a lion [they are at] my hands and feet”. Most medieval Hebrew manuscripts read ka’ari, “like a lion,” built on ‘ari (Hebrew, H738). The Septuagint, translated before the time of Christ, reads oryxan, “they dug,” from orysso (Greek, G3736), and the Syriac and the Vulgate agree. A Psalms fragment from Nahal Hever (5/6HevPs), from about the first century A.D., is widely reported to read a verbal form ending in waw rather than yod, though scholars still debate both the letter and the precise sense of the verb (dig, bore, pierce). The Pulpit Commentary summarizes the support for the ESV’s choice: “It has the support of the Septuagint, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate Versions” (Pulpit Commentary, on 22:16). Calvin went further and charged deliberate Jewish corruption of the text, but the translator of his commentary judged more charitably: “In the process of transcription, the change might have been made unintentionally, by the substitution of the letter y, yod, for the letter v, vau, which it so nearly resembles” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, translator’s note on 22:16). The two Hebrew letters differ by a single stroke.

Even on the “like a lion” reading, the line pictures a violent assault directed at hands and feet, and the evangelists show what took place at Golgotha. Thomas would not believe “Unless I see in his hands the mark of the nails” (John 20:25). The prophets also foretold the piercing of the Messiah: “But he was pierced for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), and “when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10).

The next lines describe a body stretched and exposed: “I can count all my bones” (v. 17), and “they stare and gloat over me” (v. 17). Luke records that “the people stood by, watching” (Luke 23:35). Then the executioners’ perquisite: “they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots” (v. 18). John writes that the soldiers divided the outer garments into four shares and cast lots for the seamless tunic, and adds, “This was to fulfill the Scripture” (John 19:24). Calvin explains why God arranged so exact a fulfilment: “To teach us the more certainly that in this psalm Christ is described to us by the Spirit of prophecy, the heavenly Father intended that in the person of his Son those things should be visibly accomplished which were shadowed forth in David” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:18).

Adam’s sin brought the shame of nakedness (Genesis 3:7–10). The last Adam was stripped before the world so that His people might say, “he has clothed me with the garments of salvation” (Isaiah 61:10).

Application

The pierced hands of Christ are the ground of our assurance. The details of the crucifixion were written centuries before Rome nailed anyone to a cross, and God fulfilled them to the letter, even through soldiers gambling at the foot of the cross. The God who kept His word in the smallest details will keep every promise He has made to those who trust His Son.

These verses also correct our hearts. The crowd “stare and gloat” (v. 17). Our age makes spectators of us all; we scroll past images of other people’s suffering, sometimes with curiosity and sometimes with something worse. The cross calls us from spectating to compassion and from compassion to worship. When we contemplate Christ’s sufferings, we should do so with reverence, not sentimentality, remembering that He was pierced “for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5).

Finally, consider the garments. Jesus was stripped of everything, even His clothing, so that we might be clothed with His righteousness. A believer haunted by guilt and shame should look to those pierced hands and that stripped body and hear the gospel: your shame was carried there, and you are covered. When the accuser reopens old sins, answer him with Peter: “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree” (1 Peter 2:24).

A warning against misapplication: Do not rest the case for Christ on one disputed word, as though the gospel stood or fell with ka’aru. The Christological reading of Psalm 22 rests on the whole psalm and on the apostles’ use of it. Yet neither should textual questions be waved away; honest study of the evidence strengthens faith rather than threatening it.

---

Section 5 — The Plea That Was Answered (Psalm 22:19–21)

Key Insight

The lament reaches its final petition: “But you, O LORD, do not be far off! O you my help, come quickly to my aid!” (v. 19). The emphatic “But you” answers the “Yet you” of verses 3 and 9. Everything around the sufferer is hostile; his eyes now fix on the LORD alone. The word rendered my help is ‘eyaluth (Hebrew, H360), strength or power, found only here. Keil and Delitzsch call it “the very essence of strength, as it were the idea, or the ideal of strength” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:19). The man whose strength is “dried up like a potsherd” (v. 15) names God Himself as his strength.

The petitions then retrace the enemies in reverse order: “Deliver my soul from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dog!” (v. 20). “Save me from the mouth of the lion!” (v. 21). The dogs, the lion, and the bulls of verses 12–16 return as dog, lion, and wild oxen. The phrase my precious life translates yachid (Hebrew, H3173), “only one,” the word used when God told Abraham, “Take your son, your only son Isaac” (Genesis 22:2). It names the one irreplaceable life a person has to lose. On the lips of Christ it is the life of the Father’s only Son, offered up as Isaac was not.

Then, in the middle of verse 21, the prayer breaks into answer: “You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!” (v. 21). The ESV footnote explains that the Hebrew reads answered. The cry of verse 2, “you do not answer,” is met by “you have answered me.” Keil and Delitzsch read it as a perfect of confidence, “inasmuch as in the very midst of his supplication there springs up in the mind of the suppliant the assurance of being heard and answered” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:21). The whole psalm turns on this one word.

How was Christ answered, since He died? Hebrews gives the key: Jesus “offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7). He was heard, yet not spared the cross. Calvin explains: “he was more mightily delivered than if God had prevented him from falling a victim to death, even as it is a much greater deliverance to rise again from the dead than to be healed of a grievous malady” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:21). “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).

The beasts also point beyond human enemies. Behind the bulls, dogs, and lions stood the adversary who “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8). At the cross Christ broke his power, for “through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). God “disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (Colossians 2:15). The answer of verse 21 is the resurrection, and with it the defeat of every enemy of God’s people.

Application

This section teaches us to pray urgently, specifically, and in hope. The psalmist does not offer a vague wish; he names his enemies and asks God to come quickly. Our prayers are often too general to be answered recognizably. Name the fear, the temptation, the danger, and ask the LORD to act.

The phrase “my precious life” (v. 20) also calls us to value our own souls. Matthew Henry turns it into a searching application: “I have but one soul to take care of, and therefore the greater is my shame if I neglect it and the greater will the loss be if I let it perish” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 22:20). Many people guard their health, their money, and their reputation with great care while neglecting the one thing they cannot replace. Jesus asked, “what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26).

Finally, notice that assurance came in the praying. The sufferer did not wait to feel heard before he prayed; he prayed until he knew he was heard. Christians who persevere in prayer often find that God answers the heart before He changes the circumstances. And because Christ has been answered from the horns of the wild oxen, every believer can face Satan’s accusations knowing that the decisive battle has already been won.

A warning against misapplication: Verse 21 does not promise that believers will always be rescued from physical danger or death. Christ Himself was answered through death, not by escape from it. God may answer His children by resurrection rather than rescue, and those who teach otherwise distort the psalm into a prosperity promise it never makes.

---

Section 6 — Praise in the Great Congregation (Psalm 22:22–26)

Key Insight

The forsaken one now stands in the assembly as its leader in worship: “I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you” (v. 22). The change of tone is as sudden as the answer of verse 21. Matthew Henry captures the identity of the speaker in both halves: “The same that began the psalm complaining, who was no other than Christ in his humiliation, ends it here triumphing, and it can be no other than Christ in his exaltation” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 22:22).

The New Testament confirms the reading. Hebrews places verse 22 on the lips of Christ to prove His solidarity with His people: “he is not ashamed to call them brothers, saying, ‘I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise’” (Hebrews 2:11–12). On the morning of His resurrection Jesus said to the women, “go and tell my brothers” (Matthew 28:10), and to Mary, “go to my brothers” (John 20:17). Calvin draws the conclusion: “The apostle, therefore, justly deduces from this, that under and by the name of brethren, the right of fraternal alliance with Christ has been confirmed to us” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:22). The word for congregation is qahal (Hebrew, H6951), which the Septuagint renders ekklesia (Greek, G1577). The risen Christ declares the Father’s name in the midst of His church.

The summons spreads to all Israel: “You who fear the LORD, praise him! All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him, and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!” (v. 23). The reason follows: “For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him” (v. 24). The word ‘enuth (Hebrew, H6039) means affliction or lowliness, the bowed-down state of the sufferer. God hid His face for a time (vv. 1–2), but He did not hide it finally. The Father accepted the offering of the Son and vindicated Him by raising Him from the dead (Romans 4:25).

Next comes the vow: “From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will perform before those who fear him” (v. 25). A neder (Hebrew, H5088) was a promise made to God in distress and paid with a peace offering after deliverance. The offering became a meal, and the poor were welcomed to it: “The afflicted shall eat and be satisfied; those who seek him shall praise the LORD! May your hearts live forever!” (v. 26). The ‘anavim (Hebrew, H6035), the lowly or meek, sit at the deliverer’s table. Keil and Delitzsch see the fulfilment: “How natural, then, is the thought of the sacramental eucharist, in which the second David, like to the first, having attained to the throne through the suffering of death, makes us partakers of the fruits of His suffering!” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:26).

The thanksgiving of the risen Christ becomes the feast of His people. Whenever the church eats the bread and drinks the cup, it proclaims “the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26). The afflicted eat and are satisfied, and their hearts live forever, because the Afflicted One was heard.

Application

This section shows that corporate worship is the fruit of the cross. Christ’s first act after His deliverance in the psalm is to declare God’s name among His brothers. The Christian life is not a solitary path; the gathered congregation is where the risen Christ leads the praise of His people, and we are told not to neglect “to meet together” (Hebrews 10:25).

When God delivers us, we should tell of it among His people. Testimony is not self-display but praise; as the psalmist says, “From you comes my praise” (v. 25). Calvin warned against those who, under pretense of praising God, “trumpet forth their own praises” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:25). Speak so that others will glorify God, not admire you.

Verse 26 also directs the church’s table fellowship toward the afflicted. Jesus taught, “when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind” (Luke 14:13). Churches should make room at their meals, their homes, and the Lord’s Table for the lowly who seek Him. Spurgeon rejoiced that in every generation “seekers are learning to be singers” (Spurgeon, Good News for Seekers, Sermon No. 1312). Every new believer is a new voice in the great congregation.

Finally, keep your vows. Promises made to God in a time of trouble should be kept when the trouble has passed (Ecclesiastes 5:4–5).

A warning against misapplication: The vows of verse 25 are thanksgiving freely offered for grace received, not bargains to earn God’s help or burdens He has not commanded. Nor does the meal of verse 26 make the Lord’s Supper a repeated sacrifice; Christ offered Himself once for all, and the Supper is a feast upon that finished sacrifice.

---

Section 7 — All the Ends of the Earth Shall Turn to the LORD (Psalm 22:27–31)

Key Insight

The circle of praise now widens to the whole world: “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD, and all the families of the nations shall worship before you” (v. 27). Two verbs describe conversion. The nations will remember, zakar (Hebrew, H2142), the God they had forgotten, and turn, shuv (Hebrew, H7725), the Old Testament’s word for repentance. “All the families of the nations” echoes God’s promise to Abraham, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3). Calvin recognized that no event in David’s reign could fulfil this: “This passage, beyond all doubt, shows that David stops not at his own person, but that under himself, as a type, he describes the promised Messiah” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:27). David subdued nations; he never converted them to the worship of the true God.

The reason is God’s kingship: “For kingship belongs to the LORD, and he rules over the nations” (v. 28). Meluchah (Hebrew, H4410) is royal rule, and mashal (Hebrew, H4910) is to exercise dominion. The Father had promised the Son, “I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession” (Psalm 2:8). The suffering of the King is the means by which His kingdom comes.

The worshipers include every rank and condition: “All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, even the one who could not keep himself alive” (v. 29). The fat and the famished, the powerful and the dying, all bow before Him. Matthew Henry turns the last clause into a gospel invitation: “Seeing we cannot keep alive our own souls, it is our wisdom, by an obedient faith, to commit our souls to Jesus Christ, who is able to save them and keep them alive for ever” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 22:29).

Finally the praise runs forward through time: “Posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation” (v. 30). “They shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it” (v. 31). God’s tsedaqah (Hebrew, H6666), His saving righteousness and covenant faithfulness, is the message handed from generation to generation. Calvin draws the ecclesiological lesson: “it is by the preaching of the grace of God alone that the Church is kept from perishing” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:31).

The last word of the psalm is the single verb ‘asah (Hebrew, H6213): “he has done it” (v. 31). Keil and Delitzsch compare it with the last word from the cross: “It is the last word of the Psalm, just as τετέλεσται is the last word of the Crucified One” (Keil and Delitzsch, Commentary on the Psalms, on 22:31). John 19:30 does not quote the psalm, but the echo is unmistakable. The psalm that opened with the Son’s cry of dereliction ends with the announcement that God has accomplished the salvation it describes. The cry “why have you forsaken me?” has become the proclamation “It is finished” (John 19:30).

Application

The close of Psalm 22 gives the church confidence in its mission. The cross is not a private consolation for a few; it is the means by which “all the families of the nations shall worship” (v. 27). That is why Jesus sent His disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19), and why John saw “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation” (Revelation 7:9). Christians should pray, give, and go with expectation, because the outcome has been promised.

The psalm also lays a duty on every household and congregation: the story of what God has done must be told “to the coming generation” (v. 30). Parents are to teach God’s words “diligently to your children” (Deuteronomy 6:7), and ministers are to entrust the gospel “to faithful men, who will be able to teach others also” (2 Timothy 2:2). If one generation falls silent, the next will not know.

Verse 29 humbles the prosperous and comforts the dying. The wealthy must bow and eat at the same table as the poor, and those going down to the dust may find in Christ a life they cannot keep for themselves.

Above all, the message is “he has done it” (v. 31). The gospel announces what God has accomplished in Christ, not what we must achieve. Our proclamation rests on a finished work.

A warning against misapplication: The universal language of verses 27–29 does not teach that every individual will be saved; it promises a people from every nation, gathered through the preaching of the gospel (Romans 10:14). Nor does it license triumphalism or the identification of Christ’s kingdom with any earthly nation or political program. His kingdom advances by Word and Spirit, not by the sword.

---

Cross References

Comparative Gospel Study

Not Applicable as Direct Comparison — Psalm 22 is an Old Testament individual lament that becomes a thanksgiving hymn, not Gospel narrative. However, Psalm 22:1–31 anticipates key Gospel themes:

• The cry of dereliction. The opening line becomes the only saying from the cross recorded by both Matthew and Mark, given in Aramaic and translated: “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (Matthew 27:46) and “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (Mark 15:34). Both evangelists set it in the darkness at the ninth hour, so that the Gospel narrative itself identifies Jesus as the forsaken sufferer of verse 1.
• The mockery of the crowd. Verses 7–8 are echoed in the passion accounts: “those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads” (Matthew 27:39), and the chief priests taunted, “He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him” (Matthew 27:43). Luke records that “the rulers scoffed at him” (Luke 23:35), showing that the psalm’s scoffers found their counterparts in Israel’s leaders.
• The thirst and the body exposed. Verses 15 and 17 anticipate the physical agony of the cross. John records Jesus saying “I thirst” (John 19:28) so that Scripture might be fulfilled, and Luke notes that “the people stood by, watching” (Luke 23:35), as the psalm’s onlookers “stare and gloat” (v. 17).
• The division of the garments. All four Gospels report that the soldiers cast lots for Jesus’ clothing (Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:34), and John expressly cites verse 18 as fulfilled (John 19:24). The detail shows God’s sovereign hand over even the indifferent acts of Roman soldiers.
• The risen Christ and His brothers. Verse 22 anticipates the resurrection appearances, when Jesus first calls His disciples His brothers: “go and tell my brothers” (Matthew 28:10). The forsaken One of the cross becomes the risen Lord who gathers His family, as Hebrews 2:12 confirms.
• The gathering of the nations. Verses 27–28 anticipate the Great Commission, in which the risen King, to whom all authority has been given, sends His disciples to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 28:19). The kingship of verse 28 is exercised through the gospel going to every people.

Old Testament Connections

Pentateuch

• God’s sentence on Adam, “for you are dust, and to dust you shall return” (Genesis 3:19), stands behind “the dust of death” (v. 15) and “all who go down to the dust” (v. 29).
• The promise that the offspring of the woman would bruise the serpent’s head while His heel was bruised (Genesis 3:15) frames the psalm’s conflict between the sufferer and the beasts.
• The Abrahamic promise, “in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed” (Genesis 12:3), is echoed by “all the families of the nations” (v. 27).
• Abraham’s “only son” (Genesis 22:2) and his confidence that “God will provide for himself the lamb” (Genesis 22:8) illuminate the “precious life,” literally only one, of verse 20.
• The exodus began when “God heard their groaning” (Exodus 2:24); the psalm’s fathers who “cried and were rescued” (v. 5) recall that deliverance.
• The vow offering eaten before the LORD (Leviticus 7:16) is the background to verses 25–26.
• The law’s declaration that “a hanged man is cursed by God” (Deuteronomy 21:23) explains why the pierced, exposed sufferer is the forsaken one.

Historical Books

• David’s years as a fugitive from Saul (1 Samuel 19–31) provide the type: the anointed but uncrowned king hunted, mocked, and surrounded before his enthronement.
• The Davidic covenant promised that David’s “throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16), the hope that makes the sufferer’s vindication a matter of world history.

Wisdom Literature

• Psalm 69, another psalm of the righteous sufferer, adds “for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink” (Psalm 69:21), fulfilled at the cross.
• Psalm 2 promises the Son “the ends of the earth your possession” (Psalm 2:8), the inheritance described in verse 27.
• Psalm 23 and Psalm 24 follow as companion psalms, the Shepherd who leads His flock and the King of glory who enters His temple.
• Job’s cry that God does not answer him (Job 30:20) shows that the righteous have long voiced the complaint of verse 2.

Major Prophets

• The Servant of Isaiah 53 is “despised and rejected by men” (Isaiah 53:3), “pierced for our transgressions” (Isaiah 53:5), crushed by “the will of the LORD” (Isaiah 53:10), and afterward “shall see his offspring” (Isaiah 53:10), the same movement from suffering to fruitfulness found in Psalm 22.
• Israel is called “you worm Jacob” (Isaiah 41:14), the same image as verse 6.
• The Servant is made “a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:6), the hope of verse 27.
• Isaiah’s feast “for all peoples” on the mountain of the LORD (Isaiah 25:6) is the universal fulfilment of the thanksgiving meal of verses 26 and 29.

Minor Prophets

• Zechariah foresees Israel looking “on him whom they have pierced” (Zechariah 12:10) and declares that “the LORD will be king over all the earth” (Zechariah 14:9), the two halves of Psalm 22.
• Malachi announces that God’s “name will be great among the nations” (Malachi 1:11), the worldwide worship of verse 27.
• Habakkuk’s complaint, “how long shall I cry for help, and you will not hear?” (Habakkuk 1:2), voices the same anguish as verse 2.
• Amos’s rebuke of the “cows of Bashan” (Amos 4:1) shows the proverbial arrogance behind the “bulls of Bashan” of verse 12.

New Testament Fulfillment

Gospels and Acts

• Jesus cries verse 1 from the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34).
• The mockers repeat verses 7–8 (Matthew 27:39, 43; Luke 23:35).
• Jesus’ thirst fulfils verse 15 (John 19:28), and the soldiers’ lots fulfil verse 18 (John 19:24).
• Thomas asks to see “the mark of the nails” (John 20:25), the wounds of verse 16.
• The risen Jesus calls His disciples brothers (Matthew 28:10; John 20:17), as in verse 22.
• Jesus teaches that “everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled” (Luke 24:44).
• Peter preaches that Christ was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23) and raised because “it was not possible for him to be held by it” (Acts 2:24).

Paul’s Epistles

• Christ was made “to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21) and redeemed us “by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13), the theological meaning of the forsakenness of verse 1.
• The Father “did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all” (Romans 8:32).
• Christ “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), and now “every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:10), as all bow before Him in verse 29.
• Christ is “the firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29), the family of verse 22.
• God “disarmed the rulers and authorities” (Colossians 2:15), the defeat of the beasts.
• In the Supper believers “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Corinthians 11:26), the feast of verse 26.

General Epistles and Revelation

• Hebrews quotes verse 22 as Christ’s words (Hebrews 2:12) and teaches that Jesus “was heard because of his reverence” (Hebrews 5:7), the answer of verse 21.
• Christ destroyed “the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14).
• Peter speaks of “the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Peter 1:11), the two halves of the psalm, and describes Christ entrusting Himself to God when reviled (1 Peter 2:23).
• The devil “prowls around like a roaring lion” (1 Peter 5:8), the lion of verses 13 and 21.
• John sees “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation” (Revelation 7:9), and hears that “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15), the fulfilment of verses 27–28.

Redemptive-Historical Context

Creation. The God whom the sufferer addresses is the Creator who formed him in the womb (vv. 9–10) and who rules the nations as King (v. 28). Its final vision of every nation bowing before the LORD is the restoration of what humanity was made for, to “worship before you” (v. 27).

Fall. Every element of the lament bears the marks of the fall. Human beings made in God’s image behave like bulls, lions, and dogs (vv. 12–16). Death is a return to “the dust of death” (v. 15), the sentence pronounced on Adam (Genesis 3:19). The nations have forgotten God and must “remember and turn” (v. 27). Above all, the cry of forsakenness (v. 1) expresses the deepest consequence of sin: separation from the face of God. Adam hid from God’s presence; the Son bore the withdrawal of that presence for His people.

Redemption. Psalm 22 is the Old Testament’s fullest portrait of redemption accomplished through suffering. David, the anointed but persecuted king, is the type. His anguish is described in language that reaches far beyond his own experience, and the New Testament shows its fulfilment in Jesus Christ, the Son of David. At the cross the forsaken One cried verse 1 (Matthew 27:46), was mocked in the words of verses 7–8 (Matthew 27:39, 43), thirsted (John 19:28), and was stripped of His garments (John 19:24). There He was made “to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He was heard, not by being spared death, but by being raised (Hebrews 5:7; Acts 2:24). The turn of verse 21 is Easter morning.

The psalm then shows how redemption advances God’s plan of salvation. The risen Christ declares the Father’s name to His brothers (v. 22; Hebrews 2:12), gathers the congregation, and spreads a feast for the afflicted (v. 26). The church is born from the cross and the empty tomb.

Patterns established. The psalm teaches a pattern that runs through all of Scripture: suffering before glory, humiliation before exaltation (Luke 24:26; 1 Peter 1:11). The same pattern shapes the life of the church, for believers share Christ’s sufferings in order to share His glory (Romans 8:17).

New Covenant. The vow offering of verse 25 and the meal of verse 26 point to the New Covenant feast of the Lord’s Supper, where the church eats in thanksgiving upon a sacrifice already offered. The ingathering of the nations (v. 27) fulfils the Abrahamic promise and shows that the people of God is no longer confined to one nation (Galatians 3:8).

Already and not yet. The psalm’s promises are being fulfilled now and await their completion. Already, the gospel has gone to the ends of the earth, and families of every nation worship the LORD. Already, the church tells “the coming generation” (v. 30) that “he has done it” (v. 31). Yet not every knee has bowed, and many still go down to the dust without Him. The full answer to verse 27 awaits the day when “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ” (Revelation 11:15).

Consummation. The psalm ends with a people yet unborn hearing of God’s righteousness (v. 31). It looks to the consummation, when “a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation” (Revelation 7:9) will stand before the throne and the Lamb, and the One who was forsaken will be surrounded by brothers forever.

---

Systematic Theology Connection

The Atonement and the Satisfaction of Divine Justice

Psalm 22 opens the inner reality of the cross. The cry “why have you forsaken me?” (v. 1) is not merely the expression of a suffering man; on the lips of Christ it is the voice of the Substitute bearing the judgment of God against sin. Scripture interprets it plainly: God “made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21), and Christ redeemed us “by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13).

The Westminster Confession describes this suffering: Christ “endured most grievous torments immediately in his soul, and most painful sufferings in his body” (WCF 8.4). The Larger Catechism adds that, having “felt and borne the weight of God’s wrath, he laid down his life an offering for sin, enduring the painful, shameful, and cursed death of the cross” (WLC 49). Through this, “The Lord Jesus, by his perfect obedience, and sacrifice of himself, which he, through the eternal Spirit, once offered up unto God, hath fully satisfied the justice of his Father” (WCF 8.5).

The psalm shows both halves of that satisfaction. In verses 1–21 the Son bears the penalty: forsaken, mocked, poured out, laid in the dust of death. In verse 24 the Father declares His acceptance: “he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted” (v. 24). The resurrection is the Father’s receipt for a debt fully paid (Romans 4:25).

The practical implications are profound. Because Christ was forsaken, those united to Him will never be. Their sins have been judged in Him, and “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). The believer’s assurance rests not on the strength of his own faith but on the completeness of Christ’s satisfaction. The Heidelberg Catechism draws exactly this comfort, confessing that in my greatest temptations I may be assured that my Lord Jesus Christ, by His anguish and hellish agonies on the cross, “has delivered me from the anguish and torments of hell” (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 44).

The Person of Christ: Two Natures in One Person

The cry of verse 1 raises a question that only the doctrine of Christ’s person can answer: how can the eternal Son be forsaken by the Father? The Westminster Confession teaches that in Christ “two whole, perfect, and distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition, or confusion” (WCF 8.2). The forsaking of the cross did not sever that union or divide the Trinity. The Son did not cease to be God, nor did the Father cease to love Him (John 10:17).

What Christ endured, He endured as the God-man in His human nature, which was capable of real anguish, fear, thirst, and death (vv. 14–15). Yet His divine nature gave His sufferings infinite worth. The Larger Catechism explains why the Mediator had to be God: “that he might sustain and keep the human nature from sinking under the infinite wrath of God, and the power of death; give worth and efficacy to his sufferings” (WLC 38). It explains why He had to be man: that He might “suffer and make intercession for us in our nature, have a fellow-feeling of our infirmities” (WLC 39).

Psalm 22 displays both natures. The sufferer is truly human, a worm and not a man in the eyes of His enemies (v. 6), cast on God from His mother’s womb (v. 10), dried up like a potsherd (v. 15). He is also the One whose deliverance brings the ends of the earth to worship (v. 27), a scope no mere man could bear.

The practical implication is that we have a Savior who is both able and sympathetic. Because He is God, His sacrifice is sufficient for all His people. Because He is man, He knows from the inside what forsakenness, mockery, and bodily weakness feel like (Hebrews 4:15). The church may bring its darkest cries to One who has prayed Psalm 22 Himself.

The Humiliation and Exaltation of Christ

Psalm 22 is structured on the two states of Christ. Verses 1–21 portray His humiliation; verses 22–31 portray His exaltation. Matthew Henry’s summary is apt: the psalm speaks “Of the humiliation of Christ … Of the exaltation of Christ” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 22:1).

The Shorter Catechism defines the first state: “Christ’s humiliation consisted in his being born, and that in a low condition, made under the law, undergoing the miseries of this life, the wrath of God, and the cursed death of the cross; in being buried, and continuing under the power of death for a time” (WSC 27). Every element appears in the psalm: birth from the womb (vv. 9–10), the miseries of mockery and suffering (vv. 6–8, 12–18), the wrath of God (v. 1), the cursed death of the cross (v. 16), and the dust of death (v. 15).

The Catechism defines the second state: “Christ’s exaltation consisteth in his rising again from the dead on the third day, in ascending up into heaven, in sitting at the right hand of God the Father, and in coming to judge the world at the last day” (WSC 28). The psalm anticipates this exaltation in the answer of verse 21, the declaration of God’s name among the brothers (v. 22), and the universal reign of verse 28.

Paul describes the same movement: Christ “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8), and therefore God highly exalted Him, so that “every knee should bow” (Philippians 2:10). Psalm 22:29 says the same: before Him “shall bow all who go down to the dust” (v. 29).

The practical implication is that the pattern of Christ becomes the pattern of His people. Believers are called to share His sufferings with the confidence that they will share His glory (Romans 8:17). Humiliation is not the end of the story. The way of the cross is the way to the crown.

The Sovereignty of God in Providence

The sufferer attributes his death to God: “you lay me in the dust of death” (v. 15). His enemies are the immediate agents, but God is sovereign over the whole event. The Westminster Confession teaches that “God, from all eternity, did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely, and unchangeably ordain whatsoever comes to pass: yet so, as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures” (WCF 3.1).

The cross is the clearest demonstration. Peter preached that Jesus was “delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God” (Acts 2:23), while charging his hearers with killing Him “by the hands of lawless men” (Acts 2:23). God’s providence, the Confession says, “extendeth itself even to the first fall, and all other sins of angels and men; and that not by a bare permission” (WCF 5.4), yet the sinfulness of those acts proceeds only from the creature.

The psalm also shows the tender side of providence. God took the sufferer from the womb and made him trust at his mother’s breasts (v. 9). The Confession teaches that God doth “uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least, by his most wise and holy providence” (WCF 5.1). That providence reached even to the soldiers’ dice (v. 18; John 19:24). And it has a particular aim: “As the providence of God doth, in general, reach to all creatures; so, after a most special manner, it taketh care of his church, and disposeth all things to the good thereof” (WCF 5.7).

The practical implications are comfort and humility. Believers can face hostility, illness, and death knowing that nothing touches them outside the Father’s hand. At the same time, God’s sovereignty never excuses sin. The oppressors in the psalm remain guilty, and Christians must never use providence as a cover for cruelty or passivity in the face of injustice.

Assurance of Salvation and Spiritual Desertion

Verses 1–2 describe a believer who feels forsaken by God while still calling Him “my God.” Although Christ’s forsakenness was unique, the psalm gives words to believers who pass through seasons of spiritual darkness. The Westminster Confession speaks of such experiences honestly: “True believers may have the assurance of their salvation divers ways shaken, diminished, and intermitted” (WCF 18.4), including “by God’s withdrawing the light of his countenance, and suffering even such as fear him to walk in darkness and to have no light” (WCF 18.4).

Yet the Confession immediately adds that such believers are “never utterly destitute of that seed of God, and life of faith, that love of Christ and the brethren, that sincerity of heart, and conscience of duty, out of which, by the operation of the Spirit, this assurance may, in due time, be revived” (WCF 18.4). The psalmist’s repeated “my God” is that seed of faith, holding on when feeling has fled.

The Confession also distinguishes the believer’s experience from condemnation. Those who are justified “can never fall from the state of justification” (WCF 11.5), though they may for a time lack the felt light of God’s countenance. Christ was forsaken judicially so that His people would never be.

The psalm models the way back to assurance. The sufferer remembers God’s faithfulness to the fathers (vv. 4–5), recalls God’s care from his birth (vv. 9–10), and keeps praying (vv. 11, 19). Assurance revives as the believer looks away from his feelings to God’s promises and acts.

Practically, pastors and friends should not treat a believer’s darkness as proof of unbelief. They should help the sufferer pray Psalm 22, rehearse God’s promises, and wait for the light to return, while also attending to bodily and emotional needs through appropriate care. The Christ who prayed this psalm is now the High Priest who sympathizes with every believer who prays it after Him (Hebrews 4:15).

The Covenant of Grace

Psalm 22 is soaked in covenant language. The sufferer addresses God as “my God” (vv. 1, 10), appeals to the fathers whom God delivered (vv. 4–5), calls on “all you offspring of Jacob” (v. 23), and foresees “all the families of the nations” worshiping (v. 27), the language of God’s promise to Abraham (Genesis 12:3). The Westminster Confession describes this covenant: “the Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the covenant of grace; wherein he freely offereth unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ; requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved” (WCF 7.3).

The psalm shows the covenant’s unity across the testaments. The fathers trusted and were delivered (v. 4); David trusted and was delivered; Christ, the Mediator of the covenant, trusted and was raised. In Him the promise to Abraham reaches its goal, for “the Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham” (Galatians 3:8).

The psalm also shows the covenant’s generational reach. The sufferer was cast upon God from his birth (v. 10), and the psalm closes with posterity serving the LORD and the story being told “to the coming generation” (v. 30). Peter declared that “the promise is for you and for your children” (Acts 2:39), and God uses the faithful teaching of each generation to call the next.

Finally, the psalm shows the covenant’s grace. Nothing in the sufferer earns his deliverance; he is a worm, poured out, laid in the dust. The deliverance is entirely God’s work: “he has done it” (v. 31). The Confession’s language fits exactly: God freely offers life and salvation by Jesus Christ.

Practically, believers should live as covenant people, trusting the God of their fathers, raising their children in the nurture of the Lord, and resting not in their own performance but in the covenant faithfulness of God, who has kept every promise in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).

The Nature and Catholicity of the Church

The second half of Psalm 22 describes the gathering of a people around the vindicated Sufferer. He declares God’s name “to my brothers” and “in the midst of the congregation” (v. 22), pays His vows “in the great congregation” (v. 25), and sees “all the families of the nations” worshiping (v. 27). Hebrews applies verse 22 to Christ and His church (Hebrews 2:11–12).

The Westminster Confession defines the church in terms that echo the psalm: “The catholic or universal church, which is invisible, consists of the whole number of the elect, that have been, are, or shall be gathered into one, under Christ the Head thereof” (WCF 25.1). The visible church “is also catholic or universal under the gospel (not confined to one nation, as before under the law)” (WCF 25.2). Psalm 22:27 announces exactly this widening, from the offspring of Jacob to the ends of the earth.

The psalm also shows how the church is gathered and preserved: by the declaration of God’s name (v. 22), by the proclamation of His righteousness from generation to generation (vv. 30–31), and by the fellowship meal of the afflicted (v. 26). The Confession teaches that “Unto this catholic visible church Christ hath given the ministry, oracles, and ordinances of God, for the gathering and perfecting of the saints, in this life, to the end of the world” (WCF 25.3). The Shorter Catechism names these means: “his ordinances, especially the word, sacraments, and prayer” (WSC 88).

The practical implications are several. The church should welcome the afflicted and the prosperous to the same table (vv. 26, 29). It should pray and labor for the nations. It should take seriously its calling to tell the next generation. And every believer should cherish the gathered congregation, since there the risen Christ leads the praises of His brothers and sisters.

---

Reformed Theology

Reformed theology reads Psalm 22 within the unity of the covenant of grace and the person and work of Christ the Mediator. The psalm is not treated as a detachable prediction but as the prayer of the anointed king, which the Spirit of Christ shaped so that it reaches beyond David to the Son of David. Calvin held both truths together: David “sets before us, in his own person, a type of Christ, who he knew by the Spirit of prophecy behoved to be abased in marvellous and unusual ways” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:1). Matthew Henry was even more direct: “of him, no doubt, David here speaks, and not of himself, or any other man” (Matthew Henry, Commentary, on 22:1).

Typology and fulfilment. Reformed interpreters generally hold that the psalm is typical and prophetic at once. Keil and Delitzsch, though Lutheran, articulated a reading widely adopted in Reformed circles: David’s experience is a real type, and the Spirit raises his hyperbole into prophecy. Geerhardus Vos taught that revelation unfolds organically, so that the shape of David’s suffering is the seed of Christ’s. Spurgeon put it memorably: “Here the Prophet explains the Evangelist, just as in ordinary cases the Evangelist is the expositor of the Prophet” (Spurgeon, The Triumph of Christianity, Sermon No. 1047).

The atonement. Reformed theology insists that the cry of verse 1 expresses a real forsaking under the wrath of God. Calvin warned that denying it would “greatly lessen the benefit of our redemption” (Calvin, Commentary on Psalms, on 22:1). The Westminster Standards confess that Christ “felt and borne the weight of God’s wrath” (WLC 49), and the Heidelberg Catechism finds in Christ’s anguish the believer’s deliverance from hell (Heidelberg Catechism, Q. 44). Modern Reformed writers such as R. C. Sproul have stressed that the cross is where the Father poured out the curse of the covenant on the Son, and Sinclair Ferguson has emphasized that the forsakenness was experienced by the incarnate Son within an unbroken Trinitarian love.

Israel and the church. The psalm’s widening circles, from the brothers (v. 22) to the offspring of Jacob (v. 23) to all the families of the nations (v. 27), are read as the one people of God expanded in Christ. G. K. Beale and O. Palmer Robertson have traced how the Old Testament hope of the nations’ ingathering is fulfilled in the church, where Jew and Gentile are one in the Messiah (Galatians 3:8; Ephesians 2:14).

Sacraments. Calvin and Keil both linked the thanksgiving meal of verse 26 with the Lord’s Supper. Reformed theology receives the Supper as a feast upon Christ’s finished sacrifice, in which the Spirit truly nourishes believers by faith, not as a repeated offering.

Mission and generations. Calvin saw in verses 27–31 the spread of the gospel from Judea to the world and the perpetuity of the church through the preaching of grace. The Reformed tradition’s emphasis on covenant households, catechesis, and missions grows directly from these verses. John Piper has argued that the psalm’s vision fuels missions with confidence in God’s sovereign purpose to be worshiped among all peoples. The final word, “he has done it” (v. 31), anchors all of this in the finished work of God.

---

Dispensational Theology

Dispensational interpreters share with Reformed readers a strong conviction that Psalm 22 is messianic and that its first half describes the crucifixion with remarkable precision. The differences emerge chiefly in how the second half, especially verses 27–31, is located in God’s program.

Literal-grammatical hermeneutic. Writers such as C. I. Scofield, Charles Ryrie, and John Walvoord emphasize a consistent literal reading of prophecy. Applied to Psalm 22, this means that the details of verses 14–18 are taken as direct predictions fulfilled at Calvary: the pierced hands and feet, the thirst, and the casting of lots. Dispensationalists often present the psalm as one of the clearest proofs of predictive prophecy and of Jesus’ messiahship, and they generally support the reading “pierced” in verse 16 on the basis of the Septuagint.

Distinct dispensations. In the dispensational scheme, the psalm spans more than one dispensation. Verses 1–21 belong to the first coming and the cross. Verse 22, quoted in Hebrews 2:12, is commonly applied to the present church age, in which the risen Christ declares the Father’s name among His brothers, the church. Many dispensational writers, however, see the “great congregation” of verse 25 and the worldwide worship of verses 27–31 as finding their full and literal fulfilment in the future millennial kingdom.

Israel and the church. Dispensational theology maintains a distinction between Israel and the church. The “offspring of Jacob” and “offspring of Israel” (v. 23) are read as referring to ethnic Israel, and some dispensational expositors, following A. C. Gaebelein, see in verses 23–26 the future restoration and praise of a believing Jewish remnant. The church is viewed as a distinct people called out during the present age, sharing in the blessings of the risen Christ without replacing Israel’s national promises.

The kingdom program. Verse 28, “kingship belongs to the LORD” (v. 28), is read in connection with the future earthly reign of Christ on the throne of David. J. Dwight Pentecost, in Things to Come, describes the millennial kingdom as a time when the nations will literally come to Jerusalem to worship the King (Zechariah 14:9, 16). Dispensationalists therefore often read verses 27–29 as a description of that coming reign, when the curse is lifted and the nations bow before Christ in visible submission. Progressive dispensationalists such as Craig Blaising and Darrell Bock see a greater degree of present inauguration of the Davidic kingdom in Christ’s resurrection and ascension, while still awaiting a future national fulfilment for Israel.

Assessment. Reformed readers share the dispensationalist’s high view of predictive prophecy and the literal fulfilment of the passion details. They differ in reading the ingathering of the nations in verses 27–31 as already being fulfilled in the worldwide church, the one people of God in Christ, rather than chiefly in a future millennial order. Both traditions affirm that the crucified Christ will be universally acknowledged as King, and both find in verse 31 the confident announcement that God will finish what He began.

---

Bibliography

Commentaries

• Barnes, Albert. Notes on the Old Testament: Psalms.
• Calvin, John. Commentary on the Book of Psalms. Vol. 1. Translated by James Anderson. Calvin Translation Society.
• Gill, John. Exposition of the Entire Bible.
• Henry, Matthew. Commentary on the Whole Bible. Vol. 3, Job to Song of Solomon.
• Keil, C. F., and F. Delitzsch. Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament: Psalms.
• Poole, Matthew. Annotations upon the Holy Bible.
• Spence, H. D. M., and Joseph S. Exell, eds. The Pulpit Commentary: Psalms.
• Kidner, Derek. Psalms 1–72. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries.
• Ross, Allen P. A Commentary on the Psalms. Vol. 1.
• VanGemeren, Willem A. Psalms. In The Expositor’s Bible Commentary.

Sermons and Devotional Works

• Spurgeon, Charles H. Faith Among Mockers. Sermon No. 1767. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
• Spurgeon, Charles H. Good News for Seekers. Sermon No. 1312. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
• Spurgeon, Charles H. The Triumph of Christianity. Sermon No. 1047. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.
• Spurgeon, Charles H. My God, My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me? Sermon preached March 2, 1890. Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit.

Confessional Standards

• The Westminster Confession of Faith.
• The Westminster Larger Catechism.
• The Westminster Shorter Catechism.
• The Heidelberg Catechism.

Theological Works

• Beale, G. K. A New Testament Biblical Theology.
• Ferguson, Sinclair B. The Whole Christ.
• Piper, John. Let the Nations Be Glad!
• Robertson, O. Palmer. The Flow of the Psalms.
• Sproul, R. C. The Truth of the Cross.
• Vos, Geerhardus. Biblical Theology: Old and New Testaments.

Dispensational Works

• Blaising, Craig A., and Darrell L. Bock. Progressive Dispensationalism.
• Gaebelein, A. C. The Annotated Bible.
• Pentecost, J. Dwight. Things to Come.
• Ryrie, Charles C. Dispensationalism.
• Scofield, C. I. The Scofield Reference Bible.
• Walvoord, John F. The Millennial Kingdom.