1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises of
4 In you our ancestors trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried, and were saved;
in you they trusted, and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm, and not human;
scorned by others, and despised by the people.
If you want to know why the question of theodicy will never have a definitive answer for us, here is the fundamental reason. If you want to know why atheism will always be a valid response to our experience of life on this planet, meditate upon this psalm. Suppose you have an experience in which you want God to speak or to act so much that it hurts. Suppose you look at an historical event, such as the Holocaust, and ponder why God did not stop that. In other words, the silence of God becomes deafening. If God is silent during the horrors of personal life and human history, then the silence can say a great deal. Belief in God is an affirmation that life triumphs over death, that hope triumphs over despair, that light triumphs over darkness, and that love triumphs over apathy. Yet, what would happen if the silence of God amid tragedy means that death, despair, darkness, and apathy are the final word this universe has to say to humanity?
To the leader: according to The Deer of the Dawn, a musical term that may indicate the melody to which the words were sung. A Psalm of David. The superscription of the Psalm is unique and unclear; it may refer to a musical setting for the psalm or to a now lost collection of psalms. According to the Masoretic Hebrew text (which is v. 1 in the Hebrew), the title is “The Deer of the Dawn.” According to the Greek translation of Symmachus, and the Aramaic Targum, however, the title reads “My help of the Dawn,” translating the Hebrew word ‘eyaluti as “my help,” which appears in verse 19, rather than ‘ayelet, or “deer,” which appears in the Hebrew verse 1. It is fascinating that this psalm, known for its despairing opening, should have such a hopeful name in these two traditions. One should keep in mind that since Mark quotes Jesus as citing the psalm in the Aramaic, he knew its title in Aramaic as well — a title that points to the belief that the help of the Lord will come to the faithful like the dawn. The verses in the psalm alternate between the complaint of the psalmist and the affirmation of the reasons he believes God will answer his complaint.
Psalm 22: 1-21 are a prayer of supplication.
Doubt is an important experience in going deeper with God. These famous persons of faith wrote of their doubt: Mother Teresa, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Anne Lamott, C.S. Lewis and others. The religion arising out of Judaism and Christianity encourages examination of one’s faith and life. Adherents need to be unafraid of doubt. Doubt may lead us to see what is truly reliable. Lamott, for example, once wrote that she had a lot of faith, but also had a lot of fear and little certainty. In fact, the opposite of faith is certainty. Faith includes noticing the mess, emptiness, and discomfort but also the faith that light will return. The fact that Mark records Jesus as quoting from the opening line of this Psalm gives us an opportunity to reflect upon an important event in the spiritual life of most saints. How do you deal with your life with God when God is silent? You have come to a point in your life when you want clarity, you want God to speak and act, but God is silent. Jesus, in the closing hours of his life, had that experience. Through his parables, sayings, and stories of healing and casting out demons, he affirmed the presence and reality of God. Yet, in the last hours of his life, his heavenly Father encountered him with silence.
Psalm 22: 1-11 asks why God, who cared for the ancestors and the psalmist in the past, does not do so now. Verses 1-2 are a cry of despair, total aloneness, seeing only separation between himself and God. 1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?[1] As one of Jesus’ words from the cross, recounted in Aramaic by Matthew and Mark (Matthew 27: 46; Mark 15: 34), the first line of Psalm 22 has become the quintessential cry of despair for the Christian tradition. More of Psalm 22 than simply the first verse figures in the passion narratives, however. While only Matthew and Mark relate Jesus’ quotation, all four evangelists draw parallels from the psalm to Jesus’ execution in some way, which we will see as the Psalm progresses. However, this line has had the heaviest influence on Christian teaching. The fact that Christ, in his suffering, would utter this cry, has signified to Christian theologians throughout history that Christ was indeed fully human. The fact that he could feel the thoroughly human emotion of despair, despite his divine nature, is both a scandal and a miracle by which Christians affirm the dual nature of Christ. Even as the Son of the Father, he experienced the silence of God. In fact, in the closing hours of his life, the silencing of his Father is deafening. Jesus no doubt knew the entire psalm whose first line he is citing, and therefore we can understand his quote of the Psalm to the understood to possess not only the human emotion of despair, but also the paradoxically human emotion of hope despite despair that is evident in the rest of the psalm. Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning? 2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer; and by night, but find no rest. The writer of this psalm is experiencing the silence of God at a critical moment in his life. He wants God to help and hear. He wants God to speak and act. God is silent.
When one is in trouble, one often wants to blame someone. Neither Jesus nor the psalmist is assigning blame to God as the cause of his plight. Humans, being naturals at assigning credit and blame, are wont to construct a framework on which to hang their victimhood, and God often becomes the chief cause of pain in the minds of many people, whether through overt action or inexcusable absence. Most pastors have heard a suffering person in his or her office at some point asking, “Why did God do this to me?” or “Why did God let this happen to me?” The question that the psalmist asks, and that Jesus cries out is, instead, “Where is God in the midst of my suffering?” More specifically, we might ask, “What do we do when there seems to be no evidence that God is with us?” In the last hours of the life of Jesus, we have an answer to that question. We continue to give our lives for others and trust that God will speak and act.
Suffering reaches to the depth of all living things. After living things come to life, they mature and die. In human beings, an important part of maturing is the struggle toward adult life, as we move through the various stages of life, facing the challenges problems present, learning lessons, and moving on to the next stage is an important part of our maturity.
Yet, sometimes, more often than we care to admit, the problems surround us in a way that makes us feel overwhelmed. We want help. We extend a hand to someone, a friend, an organization for which we have worked, a church, and to God, and it seems as if no one is listening. No one, it seems, will be there.
“Why” is a common question for people to ask. We keep pushing the boundaries and limits of reasoning. We want to know. It seems as if some of our questions reach a limit. A rational explanation, especially in suffering, does seem to address the question. Somehow, we think life ought to be easier than this.
True, some of the obstacles and challenges in life we have put there. We need to have the strength to make the personal changes we need to make. Yet, sometimes, life throws so much at us, more than we think we can bear. We can have the faith that God is here. We can have faith that God will give us strength. We can have faith that these obstacles and challenges will be part of forming us into the people God intended. Of course, sometimes, such faith is difficult to have.
A message concerning suffering can be tough, both for the listener and for the one who gives it. Both of us know we will find no answers. Fear of experiencing suffering can lead us to hold back and fail to take the risks that are part of a human life. It can lead you to retreat from people. Yet, the people you need to accompany you through life are there. The only genuinely meaningless suffering is when you let suffering make you retreat into loneliness and despair. Suffering becomes meaningful when you let it open you to people in such a way that you become a source of inspiration to others. Human life is full of risk. Do not let the risk hold you back from engaging life fully and confidently. Yes, suffering is part of it, but life has far more positive to offer if we engage it.
Psalm 22: 3-5 senses the vast difference between God and persons, as well as God's continued silence. Typical of the lament, the poet appeals to the faithfulness of God as a confession of trust and a reason to hope. Abandonment is not the last word. 3 Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.[2]Exodus 15:11 contains a similar phrase. The notion of prayers forming the throne upon which God sits is a beautiful image. 4 In you, our ancestors trusted; they trusted, and you delivered them. 5 To you they cried, and God saved them; in you, they trusted, and God did not put them to shame. The psalm is one in which the psalmist relates the all-too-common human situation of the endurance of suffering in the seeming absence of God. One reason it seems so unfair to the psalmist that God should be silent in his hour of need, however, is because he has known God to rescue the faithful from suffering in the past. The psalmist raises this issue by referring to the ancestors who trusted in the Lord. If God rescued them, he argues, why am I not experiencing the same type of salvation at God’s hand?
Psalm 22: 6-8 shows the real strain is on his faith, his mind overcome with sorrow and grief. He describes his desperate situation. He feels less than human. 6 Nevertheless, I am a worm[3], and not human, scorned by others, and despised by the people. 7 All who see me mock at me; they make mouths at me, curling their lips as a gesture of derision,they shake their heads; 8 “Commit your cause to the Lord; let him deliver— let him rescue the one in whom he delights!” The author experiences the desertion of other people. They mock his attempt to commit his cause to the Lord. He receives scorn from those who think that God will not help him. The crowd at the execution of Jesus mocks him with these words (Psalm 22: 7-8 compared with Matthew 27: 43; Mark 15: 29-31; Luke 23: 35).
Psalm 22: 9-11 shows that, though his faith is under attack, he finds renewed strength. He hopes that God who was with him since conception will not abandon him now. 9 Yet, you took me from the womb; you kept me safe on my mother’s breast. 10 On you, my mother cast me from my birth, and since my mother bore me, you have been my God. 11 Do not be far from me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help. He can look upon his life and see the faith of his mother nurturing him. If no one else helps him in his time of trouble, he wants God to help him.
We need to have confidence of the presence of God in our pain. Some of us need to offer a simple prayer: “Be as near to me as my troubles are.” Our prayer may not be so much to ask God to lighten our load as to give us a stronger back.[4]
Psalm 22: 12-21 paint the opponents of the psalmist as animal predators. The mixing of metaphors and similes of diverse types is common in the psalms.
Verses 12-13 shows the strong emotion that fear of enemies brings him. 12 Many bulls encircle me, strong bulls of Bashan surround me. Bashan refers to the territory ruled by the Syrian city-states, such as Damascus, who were frequently enemies who threatened the northern border of Israel. The area was famous for its fat, strong cattle, which are predators here. 13 they open wide their mouths at me, like a ravening and roaring[5] lion. The lion calls to mind the iconography of the Assyrian empire, whose rise to power spelled the end of the northern kingdom and contributed to the fall of Judah as well. Such images may be military images drawn from the history of the struggles of Israel with its neighbors.
Many of us need to look at our obstacles in a unique way. Many of us think life is about to begin. Yet, we think some obstacle is in the way. We must go through that first. We have some unfinished business, time still to serve, or a debt we need to pay. With that behind us, life would begin. Yet, the obstacles we face are our lives. They shape our character and personality. They shape our destiny.[6]
I almost want to apologize for asking the following question, for it can seem so insensitive. Yet, something within me says that I must ask it. Can the struggles, obstacles, and suffering that are part of a human life have any positive effect? I am not ignoring the genuine pain we experience. Yet, if we assume the significance of this space and time we inhabit, if we look honestly at our experience, do we not have to agree that some of our times of greatest personal growth have been through some of the struggles we have had? Suffering and pain increase our awareness of life. Suffering becomes meaningful to the extent that it calls for protection and healing in those attacked by pain. It can show to us our limits and potential. Suffering can become meaningful because of how others respond to this suffering and how the one who suffers responds to it.[7]
The bulls of Bashan that surround us and threaten us are not all things beyond our control. Some of the demands and responsibilities they represent are the result of choices we have made. We need to say “No.” Our greatest enemy is that we attempt and start many projects in such a way that we feel overwhelmed, achieve nothing, and leave everything unfinished. We entertain the wish to undertake an excellent task that we will never accomplish. Such wishes may distract us from accomplishing something less grand, yet within our reach. Our enemy, in other words, is devising plans and beginnings and finishing nothing.[8]
Psalm 22: 14-18 may not refer to an illness but may be the result of distress. It is a graphic description of a moral illness. The psalmist feels his body stop working and disintegrate. He sees himself die; his body so dried up that it turns to dust. The scorners are like dogs hunting prey. They gloat at his death and are eager to take his possessions. 14 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; 15 my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled. This event in his life has caused profound distress, to the point that it affects him physically. This event feels like death to him. Verses 17-18 recalls Isaiah 53:5, and thus one wonders why the Gospel writers did not make use of it. 17 I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me; 18 they divide my clothes among themselves and for my clothing, they cast lots. All four gospels relate the fact that soldiers divided his clothes among the executioners of Jesus (Matthew 27: 35; Mark 15: 24; Luke 23: 34; John 19: 24).
Psalm 22:19-31 begins the movement from lamentation to hope. Matthew uses it in several places as part of the prophecy of the Messiah. The theme of the psalm is anguish of mind and religious doubt. Yet, one should not miss that the passage of hope that follows this extended passage of complaint is more than twice as many verses long. It is hard to hear the painful description of the plight of the psalmist without letting that become the most salient image of this psalm. However, the hopeful verses of Psalm 22 outnumber the despairing ones almost two to one.
In Psalm 22:19-21a, the author at his lowest point again asks the Lord to help. 19 However, you, O Lord, do not be far away! O my help come quickly to my aid! 20 Deliver my soul from the sword, my life from the power of the dog! 21aSave me from the mouth of the lion!
Amid the turmoil of life, we too often find ourselves alternating between the major and the minor key. The struggles of life may lay us low for a time, as we have seen in verses 1-21a, but upon further prayer and reflection, we discover deeper levels of devotion. Giving time to reflect can make room for more ambiguity in our lives than we would care to admit.
Psalm 22: 21b-31 express praise for the ultimate deliverance the Lord brings, when the Lord will have heard and responded to the cry for help by the writer. These verses voice the fervent belief that the entire world will, step-by-step, turn to the Lord and worship the Lord. Notice the widening circles of praise. Psalm 22:21b-24 is an extended declaration of the Lord’s sovereign grace and power to save. We note the transition from imperative to past tense. The Lord has already rescued the writer. 21bFrom the horns of the wild oxen, you have rescued me.[9] The Lord has answered the plea for help. Therefore, he will gladly witness to the deliverance of the Lord. Verses 22-31 invite a widening circle to unite with the psalmist in praise. 1) He begins with his kin. The recovery of the psalmist is a sign of the power and mercy of the Lord, as example for all, and an occasion for praise. With his reintegration into the community, all Israel is invited to join him in praise. 22 I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters; 2) he continues with the invitation to praise to his fellow worshippers: in the midst of the congregation, I will praise you. 23 You who fear the Lord, referring to all those who worship the Lord, offer praise! All you offspring of Jacob glorify the Lord; stand in awe of the Lord, all you offspring of Israel! We should note that offering praise, glorifying, and standing in awe are building upon and parallel to each other in thought. 24 For the Lord did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; the Lord did not hide the face of the Lordfrom me, but heard when I cried to the Lord. Here is the reason to offer praise, glory, and awe to the Lord. The Lord has not ignored the suffering of the writer.
Psalm 22: 25-31 are a psalm of thanksgiving. They continue the hopeful end of the psalm that begins as a powerful lament. The anguish and doubt of the lament give way to the hope we find at the end, beginning in verse 19. Thanksgiving is a typical part of the lament. The darkness of the soul has vanished. The Lord has answered the prayer. The congregation receives an assurance of an answer. The Lord has granted glorious deliverance. The grace of the Lord is sovereign and has power to save. All the nations will realize the power of the Lord and worship the Lord. Not even death can stop the kingly rule of the Lord over all creation. 25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation; my vows I will pay before those who fear the Lord. In Leviticus 7:16, people were to bring offerings that the male priests were to eat. In Numbers 15:3, they were to make an offering before the Lord to fulfill a vow. Therefore, 26 the poor shall eat with them and receive satisfaction; those who seek the Lord shall praise the Lord. May your hearts live forever! 3) The circle of praise that began with kin (verse 22) and extended to fellow worshippers (verse 22b) now extends to the entire earth, a large step for a writer in the Old Testament to take. Psalm 86:9 reminds us that the Lord has made all the nations, so they shall bow down and glorify the Lord. Isaiah 56:1-8 promises that the eunuch and foreigner will not be separate from the people of the Lord. Rather, they will become ministers before the Lord and love the name of the Lord. Malachi 1:11 anticipates a time when the name of the Lord shall be great among the nations. Consistent with this vision, then, the writer says that 27 all the ends of the earth (goyim, nations, heathen, or Gentiles) shall remember by vividly calling to mind the deliverance of the Lord and turn[10] to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before the Lord. Psalm 47:6-9 affirms that God is the king of all the earth and nations, so that the princes of the nations shall gather as the people of the God of Abraham, for even the shields of the earth belong to God. Zechariah 14:9 prophesies that the Lord will become king over all the earth. Revelation 11:15 has the voices in heaven singing that the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of the Lord and the Messiah, who will reign forever. 28 For dominion belongs to the Lord, and the Lord rules over the nations. 4) The invitation to praise extends to the dead: 29 To the Lord, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before the Lord shall bow all who go down to the dust, usually a reference to the dead or the almost dead, a poetic way to reinforce the idea of the surroundings verses that everyone, in every time and in every place, should praise the Lord, and I shall live for the Lord. All human beings are dust-to-dust mortals, including those who are currently dying (and even those who are already dead). Moreover, all, both the vigorous and the dying, will bow down to Yahweh. See such passages as Isaiah 45:23 (cited by Romans 14:11 and alluded to in Philippians 2:10, affirms that every knee shall bend, and every tongue confess. Revelation 5:13 looks forward to a time when every creature in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, will sing praise, honor, and glory to God and the Lamb. 5) The invitation to praise extends to generations unborn. 30 Posterity will serve the Lord; future generations will be told about the Lord, 31 and proclaim the deliverance of the Lord to a people yet unborn, saying that the Lord has done it. The power of the Lord to save will be proclaimed to future generations. John 17:20 has a similar concern for those who will believe through the word of the apostles. Thus, the Psalm seems to conclude with the hope of the messianic universal rule of the Lord.
A human life has many twists and turns. It has corners around which we cannot see. We can focus upon only the difficulties. In that way, the mind is its own place. It can make a heaven of hell, or it can make a hell of heaven.[11] We can focus upon the thorns of the rose bush and complain. We can also focus on the roses and rejoice because thorns have roses.[12] We wrestle with the ambiguities of a human life. It may well be true that one who is a pessimist early in life knows too much, while one who is an optimist later in life knows too little.[13] It may even be true that we treat someone as wise who despairs when others hope, whereas we dismiss those who hope when others despair.[14] Yet, it seems like this psalm is pointing us to embracing the ambiguity of a human life. The point is not to think negative or positive, optimistic, or pessimistic, but to embrace it all as the multi-layered reality in which human life consists. Thus, this Psalm, beginning with so much anguish, ends with an ever-widening circle of praise to the Lord. We need to embrace both the threat of nothingness and the fullness of being, both the abyss and the promise of life.
Psalm 22 makes me think of exploring the theme of singing in time of trouble, or the song that comes in the night. The experience that the Lord was present in times of trouble has inspired many songs. They express the experience that God reached out to deliver from certain catastrophe.
Some hymns come to mind. “It is well with my soul” (1876) refers to sorrows like sea billows roll, and that the devil will try to ruin, and trials may come, it is well with my soul. “Jesus, lover of my soul” (Charles Wesley 1740) refers to the nearer waters rolling and the tempest still high, that one sinks, faints, and falls, and that the Lord is the one who raises the fallen, cheers the faint, heals the sick, and leads the blind.
One could also look at Beth Moore’s CD Songs of Deliverance. It is the culmination of a music project to go with her book Get Out of That Pit: Straight Talk About God’s Deliverance. Amy Grant, Steven Curtis Chapman, CeCe Winans and Travis Cottrell lead an all-star cast of Christian recording artists singing their own stories of deliverance that echo the themes of the book. Her book proposes that if God can lift her out of the pit then God can lift anyone. She says she had dirt, darkness, anger, desperation, and confusion that brought her into the pit. Her book shares lessons of hope from which all can learn. Deliverance is waiting, she says, regardless of how you were stuck no matter how long you have been down, or whether you think you deserve it.
[1] Although the “privatization” of the deity is not unknown in prose passages in the Hebrew Bible (usually in the set expression “the Lord my God,” e.g., Deuteronomy 26:14; Joshua 14:8, 9; II Samuel 24:24; etc.), referring to the deity with the first-person singular possessive pronoun is much more common in poetry, especially in the psalms (e.g., 3:7; 5:2; 7:6; 18:2; etc., and including numerous instances of “O Lord my God”). The psalmist’s point should not be lost: Yahweh, and not another deity, is the psalmist’s god, and it is from Yahweh, and not any other god, that the psalmist expects action.
[2] Some of the textual difficulty presented by this psalm is found in the various translations of verse 3. The Masoretic text literally reads, “But you holy dwelling praises of Israel,” which the NRSV has reasonably rendered, “Yet you are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.” The Revised English Bible reads, “You, the praise of Israel, are enthroned in the sanctuary,” the New American Bible reads, “Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One; you are the glory of Israel,” and the New Jerusalem Bible reads, “Yet you, the Holy One, who make your home in the praises of Israel ....” The general idea of the verse is clear, but the exact sense is not, and referring to Yahweh as “enthroned on the praises of Israel” is unique to this psalm and is late theological metaphoric imagery almost certainly derived from the period after the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem (where Yahweh was classically understood to be enthroned on or above the temple’s cherubim, e.g., 1 Samuel 4:4; 2 Samuel 6:2; 2 Kings 19:15; 1 Chronicles 13:6; Psalm 80:1; 99:1; etc.).
[3] The psalmist’s comparison of himself to a “worm” and not a man (the Hebrew word is the gender-specific `ish) in verse 6 is uncommon but not unknown in the Hebrew Bible (e.g., Job 17:14; 25:6; and esp. Isaiah 41:14). Ordinarily, the Hebrew word tole’ah/ tola’at denotes simply a physical worm (possibly the vine-weevil of Jonah 4:7, the maggots of Exodus 16:20, 24, or the tree larva coccus ilicis, that feeds on the Mediterranean oak, producing a scarlet-crimson fluid used for dying, reflected in Isaiah 1:18, “like crimson” [ka-tola’]).
[4] Phillips Brooks
[5] It is interesting to note, however, that the word for the roaring of the lion here (sho’eg), has the same verbal root as the word in verse 1 describing the groaning of the writer (sha’agati).
[6] Alfred D’Souza
[7] Paul Tillich (Systematic Theology, Part III, I, D3c)
[8] St. Francis de Sales, Finding God’s Will for You
[9] Notice the shift between 21a's imperative verb and 21b's past tense indicative verb. NET and CEB similarly use English past tense indicative verbs in verse 21b to translate the Hebrew, which actually says, "You (have) answered me." God's having answered David's plea for help means that he already has favorably responded to him by rescuing him. However, note that some other translations (such as NIV and Tanakh) continue the imperatival sense of 21a in 21b. In this understanding the psalmist is still awaiting God's deliverance. Curiously to us, the King James Version translates 21b, "for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." The translators possibly were rendering literally the Greek LXX's monokerwV or the Latin Vulgate's unicornis, both of which mean "one-horned (animal)." Were they understanding rhinoceroses?
[10] shub (pronounced "shuve"), which often means to repent or turn (back) to God.
[11] John Milton, Paradise Lost.
[12] Alphonse Karr, A Tour Round My Garden.
[13] The man who is a pessimist before 48 knows too much; if he is an optimist after it he knows too little. --Mark Twain.
[14] I have observed that not the man who hopes when others despair, but the man who despairs when others hope is admired by a large clan of persons as a sage. --John Stuart Mill, "Speech on perfectibility," 1828. utilitarian.org. Retrieved October 16, 2017.
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