Psalm 22

Psalm 22  •  3 min. read  •  grade level: 9
Listen from:
• BibleTruthPublishers.com
This Psalm was the language of the soul of the Lord while He hung on the cross (Matt. 27:4646And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46)). He uttered, perhaps, only the first words of it, but His spirit went through the whole. He begins as though His cries for deliverance from death (Heb. 5:77Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (Hebrews 5:7)) had not been heard, since He was now under the darkness of the withdrawn countenance of God. This was the death of a victim, not of a martyr. It was death under the judgment of sin. Nothing ever could be of like kind. See how the death of the martyr Stephen is different from that of the Lamb of God (Acts 7). But still the perfect sufferer entirely vindicates God—the faithful God of the fathers, and His God from the womb hitherto.
He therefore still cries, presenting all the features of His present distress from the hand of men before the eye of God. (Psa. 22:7-8,12,16-187All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, 8He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. (Psalm 22:7‑8)
12Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. (Psalm 22:12)
16For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. 17I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. 18They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. (Psalm 22:16‑18).) And it is strange, how the enemy, in that hour, were fulfilling the word of God against themselves to the very letter of it. (Psa. 22:88He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him. (Psalm 22:8); Matt. 27:4343He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God. (Matthew 27:43).) But at last the blessed sufferer seems conscious of having been heard (Psa. 22:2121Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. (Psalm 22:21))—heard from the horns of the unicorns—heard, doubtless, by Him who was able to save Him from death (Heb. 5:77Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; (Hebrews 5:7)). For we may observe that the cry of Jesus on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?” was after an interval followed by another, “Father, into thy hands I commend My spirit.” That second cry would naturally arise from a consciousness of the first having been heard. And it may therefore be thought that the Lord here in Psalm 22:2121Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns. (Psalm 22:21) expresses His sense of having been heard by His deliverer from death.
Under this He makes His vows—1St, to declare God’s name to His brethren; 2nd, to praise Him in the congregation (of Israel), and in the great congregation (of all the nations). The first He began to pay immediately on His being delivered from death (John 20:1717Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God. (John 20:17)), and is still fulfilling in all the saints (Rom. 8:1515For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. (Romans 8:15)); the second He will pay in the kingdom when Israel and the nations are gathered, the seed of Jacob glorifying God, and the kindreds of the nations worshipping before Him. For then, as Jesus here pledges, the kingdom and all its offerings shall be the Lord’s.
But upon this Psalm 1 must further observe, that while the Lord Jesus, in the days of His life and ministry on earth was saving and not judging, stooping down and writing on the ground as though He heard not, rather than casting a stone at a guilty one, yet He did refer the world in its wickedness to the judicial eye and observance of God. In John 17 He does this, when He says, “O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee.” This same thing He seems to me to do in this very peculiar and affecting Psalm.