To the Chief Musician. Upon the Deer of the Dawn. a Psalm of David
1. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you far from my salvation,
From the words of my roaring?
2. O My God, I cried by day and you did not answer,
And by night, and there was no silence for me.
3. And you are holy,
Enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4. In you our fathers have trusted.
They have trusted, and you have delivered them.
5. To you they have cried and they have escaped.
In you they have trusted and they have not been shamed.
6. And I am a worm and not a man,
A reproach of man and despised by the people.
7. All who see me will deride me.
They will open the lip. They will shake the head:
8. “Commit yourself to Yahweh. He will deliver.
Let him rescue him because he delights in him.”
9. But you are he who drew me forth from the belly.
You caused me to trust on the breasts of my mother.
10. Upon you I have been cast from the womb.
From the belly of my mother
You have been my God.
11. Do not be far from me,
For distress is near,
For there is no help.
12. Many bulls have surrounded me.
Strong ones of Bashan have encircled me.
13. They open upon me their mouth,
A lion tearing and roaring.
14. Like water I am poured out,
And separated are all my bones.
My heart is like wax.
It is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15. Like a potsherd my strength is dried,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws,
and on the dust of death you will set me.
16. For dogs have surrounded me.
The congregation of the wicked has enclosed me.
They pierced my hands and my feet.
17. I counted all my bones.
They looked. They saw me.
18. They divided my clothing among them,
And for my garment they cast lots.
19. And you, O Yahweh, do not be far from me.
O my strength, to my help make haste.
20. Rescue from the sword my soul,
From the paw of the dog my only one.
21. Save me from the mouth of the lion,
and from the horns of the wild oxen you have answered me.
22. I will recount your name to my brothers.
In the midst of the assembly I will praise you.
23. Those who fear Yahweh, praise him!
All seed of Jacob, Glorify him!
And stand in awe of him, all seed of Israel!
24. For he has not despised and he has not abhorred the affliction of the afflicted one,
And he has not hidden his face from him,
And when he cried to him he has heard.
25. From you will be my praise in the great assembly.
My vows I will pay in the presence of those who fear him.
26. The afflicted ones will eat and be satisfied.
Those who seek him will praise Yahweh.
May your heart live to perpetuity.
27. All the ends of the earth
Will remember and turn unto Yahweh,
And all the clans of the nations
Will worship before your face.
28. For to Yahweh is the kingdom,
And he rules among the nations.
29. All the fat ones of earth
Will eat and worship before his face.
All those going down to dust will bow,
and he who cannot make his soul live.
30. A seed will serve him.
It will be counted to the Lord for a generation.
31. They will come and declare his righteousness to a people being born,
Because he has done it.
Other psalms commonly recognized as Messianic prophesy of him either directly or by the types and shadows of the Old Testament ceremonial institutions. Thus, we can understand Psalm 2 as speaking first of David and the throne of Yahweh above the cherubim in the Most Holy Place and through him of his Son. Psalms 45, 69 and 89 are similar. Hebrews 2 teaches us that Psalm 8 is first about the glory of redeemed man in the new creation and then about Jesus. Believers in Israel would have confessed “Yahweh is my shepherd” (Ps. 23) perhaps even without understanding that Jesus is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10). Psalm 68, a prophecy of the ascension of Christ, refers also to the procession of the ark of the covenant through the wilderness (compare v. 1 with Num. 10:35) and probably to David’s bringing the ark to Jerusalem (2 Sam. 6). Psalm 24 is similar. Psalm 72 celebrates the peace and prosperity of Solomon’s reign as well as that of Jesus.
Some psalms are exclusively about Jesus. In Psalm 110 David prophesies about his Son and Lord, and even speaks to him: “Yahweh is at your right hand; He will strike kings in the day of his wrath.” The psalm is not about David at all. Only of his Son can we say, “You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.”
In some of the other “Messianic” psalms, we hear the voice of our savior directly, but the words were also the words of the psalmist and can be ours. There is nothing in Psalm 40 that David could not have said about himself, and indeed that we cannot say about ourselves as sanctified in Christ, even though Hebrews 10:5–10 tells us that Jesus Christ confessed verses 6–8 to his Father on his coming into the world.
In other psalms we hear his voice uniquely. Thus Peter says of Psalm 16:8-10 that David could not have been speaking of himself. The Lord was talking about his own burial and resurrection (Acts 2:25-31). “The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone” (Ps. 118:22) is true only of Christ. Therefore, it is he who says, “Open to me the gates of righteousness; I will go through them, And I will praise the LORD.”
This is what we hear also in Psalm 22. No other man, including David, could say “They pierced my hands and my feet,” or “They divided my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots.” David probably did not even understand what he had written. This psalm is uniquely and only about Jesus Christ crucified (v. 1-21), raised and exalted (v. 22-31).
But notice then how wonderful the psalm is. The gospels tell us that Jesus cried “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” They do not tell us that there was much more to his prayer of desolation than that. Psalm 22:1-21 gives us all of it. It permits us to see into his private prayer life in a way that even the New Testament does not.
When we grasp that, then we can also hear the prayers of our Lord in many other psalms, even those we can make our own because of our partaking in his sufferings. “LORD, how are they increased who trouble me” (Ps. 3). “Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness” (Ps. 4). “O LORD, rebuke me not in anger” (Ps. 6). “The LORD is my rock, and my fortress” (Ps. 18). “O magnify the LORD with me” (Ps. 34). And many others.
That is the wonder and beauty of the Psalms. They are the songs of our savior and ours only because they were first his.