There are several quotations from and references to Psalm 22 in the gospels.
Matthew 27:46: And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?
Matthew 27:42,43: He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, I am the Son of God.
John 19:23,24: Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took His garments and made four parts, to each soldier a part, and also the tunic. Now the tunic was without seam, woven from the top in one piece. They said therefore among themselves, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be, that the Scripture might be fulfilled which says: They divided My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots. Therefore the soldiers did these things.
See also Mark 15:24,34, Luke 23:34 and John 19:28. All of them relate the psalm directly to our Lord’s crucifixion.
David is not talking in this psalm about himself. The events of verses 16 and 18 did not happen to him. This is a purely prophetic psalm, in which David, carried along by the Holy Spirit, speaks, not of himself and his own sufferings, but only of the sufferings of his great Son. Matthew Henry says,
In singing this psalm we must keep our thoughts fixed upon Christ, and be so affected with his sufferings as to experience the fellowship of them, and so affected with his grace as to experience the power and influence of it.
In fact, it is not really David who speaks, but Christ himself, for this is a prayer of Christ in his suffering, as verse 1 makes clear. That means that we have here, in a very special way, the voice of Christ himself pouring out his complaint before God and calling on him for help.
That does not mean that we cannot learn anything about our own suffering from this Psalm. We can, but in this case, we learn more by the example of our Lord, than by direct application of the psalm to our lives. Perhaps the greatest lesson we learn from his example is that of obedience and submission in the times when all our knowledge of God and of his love is merely in the abstract. There are times when we feel forsaken, have no experience of his favor, but must still believe and obey.
Furthermore, as Romans 6 teaches us, we are crucified with Christ, so that we see here what he has accomplished on our behalf. He was forsaken that we might never be forsaken. He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement of our peace was on him, and with his stripes we are healed.
The psalm has two parts. Verses 1-21 are the savior’s prayer in suffering. Verse 22-31 turn from suffering to praise. That dramatic change turns on the pivot of the last line of verse 21, You have answered me, just one word in the Hebrew. In this chapter we consider only the first part of the psalm.
1. Forsaken by God (verses 1-11)
Verses 1-11 focus on the Messiah’s internal suffering, his spiritual and mental anguish because God forsook him. Verses 12-21 focus on his external physical suffering, what his enemies were doing and had done to him. Both sections conclude with a petition. In verse 11,
Be not far from me For trouble is near, and there is none to help.
Note the juxtaposition of the words far and near. Trouble is near: it is therefore important that help be near also, but it is not.
Then in verse 19:
But you, O Lord, do not be far from me.
This petition extends through verse 21.
The problem for him was that the Lord was indeed far from him.
Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
God had forsaken him. For him this was strictly true. We sometimes feel that God has forsaken us and use similar words, but we have his promise that he will never leave us. The Messiah however was bearing the full burden of God’s anger, and his cry was a cry of utter desolation.
This forsaking was prolonged:
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not hear; and in the night season and am not silent.
It began really with his incarnation, and continued throughout all of his life on earth, but the gospels make clear that it was especially after his transfiguration that the cross began to weigh heavily. It was then that he set his face like a flint to go to Jerusalem, and it was then also that he began to talk to his disciples about what the Jews would do to him. Finally, and especially in the Garden of Gethsemane he cried all night. Now it is day, and the cup from which he had sought deliverance is still before him. He must drink it down to the last bitter dregs. He still cries, now with that most desolate of all cries, but God does not hear.
The suffering did not pass but intensified as he drew near the end. In the garden his distress was deep, but the anguish of the cross tore the actual words of verse 1 from him. So great was his suffering that he did not know at that moment the answer to his question, why have you forsaken me? This was, without question, the worst possible thing that could happen to him. He was innocent. He loved his God fervently and purely. God’s lovingkindness was better than life to him. Yet God was not there to help him when he needed him most, in fact was pouring out on him his righteous anger. He cried to God, but God did not answer.
The knowledge that God dealt more severely with him than with our fathers added to his suffering.
Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.
Four times he speaks of their trust, three times of their deliverance. He had trusted too, and yet there was nothing for him. He was a worm and not a man, of far less value to his God than any one of the fathers.
Another aspect of his suffering was the cruel taunting of his enemies (verses 7 and 8). Just when God had forsaken him to know nothing but the heavy hand of his wrath, they taunted him with these bitter words: He trusted in God, that he would deliver him. Let him deliver him, since he delights in him. There was a precise fulfillment of this at the cross. His enemies used these very words against him, as quoted above from Matthew 27. There is more here than simply the expected fulfillment of what the Old Testament Scriptures had foretold. Were his enemies unaware that they were quoting Psalm 22? They were leaders of the Jews, well versed in the Scriptures. They knew. There was therefore a double mockery in their words. They were not only saying, “He trusted in the Lord. Let him deliver him” and adding sarcastically, “since he delights in him.” They were also twisting the knife in the wound by quoting sarcastically from a psalm they knew to be messianic: “Surely you are the messiah, for of the messiah the Scriptures say, He trusted in the Lord… Now we believe you.” They mocked him deliberately with the mocking words of Psalm 22.
Not the least of his troubles was the contradiction between his trust and God’s anger. Note the following sequence:
Verse 2 I cry, but you do not hear.
Verse 3 But you are holy
Verse 6 But I am a worm
Verse 9 But you are he who took me out of the womb.
I, but you, but I, but you. He’s bewildered, tossed to and fro, finding no answers. You are my God, you are holy, but you do not help me. He acknowledges as truth that God had answered the prayers of our fathers, but he has at this time no personal experience of that faithfulness. He confesses that God has been his God from his mother’s belly, but this becomes almost an accusation against God, because God has so completely forsaken him. He cannot reconcile God’s anger with his own perfect trust and obedience.
Yet he remains obedient. He does not question God’s holiness but asserts it. He does not deny that God helped the fathers but confesses it again and again. He does not fall into unbelief but acknowledges that God has been his God from his mother’s womb. Even at the height of his torment, in the utter desolation of complete forsakenness, he cries, My God, My God. He is obedient even to death.
This is the pattern for our suffering. Even when forsaken and without the experience of God’s favor, we must believe and obey. But it is also the means of our salvation, for what he bore, he bore in our place to deliver us from what we deserve and he suffered.
2. Surrounded by bulls (verses 12-21)
Verses 12-21 describe especially the Messiah’s physical suffering.
Verses 12 and 13 are general in character. The enemies are strong bulls of Bashan who surround him. Bashan was a land east of the Jordan that the Israelites conquered on their way to Canaan. The half tribe of Manasseh received its inheritance there. It was good land for grazing cattle, so bulls from there would be large, healthy, and more aggressive. Here it represents the strength of unbelief in opposition to God and Zion, as also in Psalm 68:15-16. It may even be an allusion to prominent men. They are a raging and a roaring lion whose mouth is open to devour him. Note that bulls is plural, lion singular. This happens again in verse 21, where lion is singular and wild oxen plural. So, it is possible, as some have suggested, that there is a reference here to the Devil, who goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.
Verses 14-18 give us a description of the physical torments of the cross and their effects on the spirit. It’s not always possible to interpret accurately the figures of speech here, so some might disagree about the details.
I am poured out like water probably refers to the slow running down of his life especially from the time of the transfiguration on, even more especially in Gethsemane and after. All my bones are out of joint may be a reference to the general lack of vigor and robust health that must have begun to afflict him as the terror of the cross oppressed him more and more. Spiritual oppression combined with physical weakness would make his bones feel as if they were coming apart. My heart is like wax and melting is a common metaphor in the Scriptures for loss of courage. It bespeaks the terror and horror with which he reacted to the suffering both in anticipation and in experience.
In 14 and 15 we see the Anointed suffering, but not necessarily directly from these enemies. They have their part in his suffering, but it is all the sufferings piled together, including the anticipation of what is to come that produces all of this.
In verse 15 we see physical strength failing, agonizing thirst (remember the words I thirst), and death. There is an emphasis here on dryness. His strength is as dry as a potsherd. There is no moisture or vitality left in him. His mouth is so dry that his tongue sticks to his jaws. God has brought him to dry dust, exactly according to his curse on Adam.
Calvin says about this verse:
The dreadful encounter of our redeemer with death, by which there was forced from his body blood instead of sweat; his descent into hell, by which he tasted of the wrath of God which was due to sinners; and in short, his emptying of himself could not be adequately expressed by any of the ordinary forms of speech. Moreover David speaks of death as those who are in trouble are accustomed to speak of it, who, struck with fear, can think of nothing but of their being reduced to dust and to destruction.
In 16-18 we see exactly what the enemies did to him.
He calls them dogs. In Israel dogs were not family pets, but wild scavengers that ran in packs. The name is opprobrious: they are, from a spiritual point of view, a vicious rabble waiting for him to grow weak enough so that they can tear him to pieces without endangering themselves.
There is no way at all to account for the last line of verse 16 without direct reference to the cross. The crucifixion fulfilled it, as we read in John 20:25. To take it in some metaphorical sense hardly seems possible. They pierced my hands and my feet.
The idea behind I can count all my bones is not near starvation, but the emaciation of spiritual oppression and approaching death. It may even refer to the stretching out of the torso that brings the bones into prominence for one who is crucified. He can count his bones because his head is hanging down and his own torso and legs are the most prominent things in his range of vision.
In addition to all this he is an object of unholy curiosity to the passersby. They look and stare at his pain, his nakedness, and his humiliation, and they gloat.
Finally, he is naked and ashamed. Most of his clothing, his only earthly possession, is being torn up to be divided among the soldiers, and for his valuable outer robe they are casting lots. Again, the cross fulfilled it.
This section also ends with prayer, six lines seeking again the help of the Lord.
Do not be far from me.
Hasten to help me!
Deliver me!
Save me!
He calls his enemies dogs, a lion, and wild oxen. The phrase power of the dogs is “hand or paw of the dogs.” The lion’s mouth, of course, is able to tear and kill. The wild oxen have dangerous horns to impale him.
The cry is very urgent. He repeats it four times and asks for haste. That is necessary because his trouble threatens his soul. The KJV has for the last part of verse 20: my darling from the power of the dog. That’s an accurate rendering of the Hebrew, and it is a reference to the soul. His physical life is not the most important thing here, but his soul is precious to him because it is that by which he knows God. To have his soul destroyed would mean an end of all joy, and permanent and complete desolation.
All of this physical suffering is also part of the being forsaken by God. His enemies would have had no power against him unless God had given it. It is one of the ways that God expresses his anger against him. Indeed, this is how we must see all of his suffering. His friends forsake him because God withholds their help. He was condemned to die, not just because of the injustice of his earthly judge, but by the representative of God, acting on God’s behalf. In all things he sees the hand of God against him. This is what makes the suffering so bitter.
That’s an important lesson for us too. The explanation for our troubles and sorrows is the work of God. Sometimes it is chastisement of our sins, as it could not be in the case of our Lord. Sometimes it is trial of our faith. Sometimes it is so that God may show his power in us. But always it comes from his hands, no matter what its nature.
For us, however, there is always the assurance that it is for our good. He makes all things work together for our good. But for Christ there was not at this time that assurance. He was under the curse of God, and his God was pouring out on him the fulness of his anger against our sins.
That’s what we must take away from this first part of the psalm. We could put as a header to it the words of Isaiah 53: the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.