BIBLIOTHECA SACRA 147 (July 1990) 286-308

An Exposition of Psalm 22

Mark H. Heinemann

Lecturer in Practical Theology
German Theological Seminary, Giessen, West Germany

"Extraordinary" is the word for Psalm 22. The craftsmanship of

its poetry, the boldness of its images, and the sweep of its historical

scope all contribute to this impression. But the most striking thing

about Psalm 22 is its messianic character. God inspired David to

write in such a way that certain aspects of the crucifixion of Jesus

Christ were clearly prefigured: His perplexed cry, "My God, my

God"1 (v. 1; see Mark 15:34), the mockings of the onlookers (Ps. 22:6-8;

see Matt. 27:39-43), the piercing of His hands and feet (Ps. 22:16, see

John 20:24-27), and the casting of lots for His garments (Ps. 22:18; see

John 19:24). The fact that the writer to the Hebrews quoted Psalm

22:22 in Hebrews 2:12 as the words of Jesus certainly validates the

view that the psalm is messianic.

In the course of studying the psalm, the messianic aspect must be

kept in mind. A number of intriguing questions arise. What experi-

ences was David describing? In what ways do his descriptions go be-

yond his own experience, if any? Did he knowingly prophesy?

But in seeking to answer these questions, it is important to note

that the psalm has a message in itself for both the readers of that

day and those of the present. This message is summarized in Psalm

22:24: "For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the af-

flicted; and He has not hidden His face from him; but when he cried

to Him, He heard." Despite his feelings of being forsaken by God

and man, and despite his terrible sufferings at the hands of his ene-

mies, David kept praying in faith down to the last moment, and ul-

1All Scripture quotations (other than from Ps. 22, which is translated by the

writer) are from the New International Version.

286

An Exposition of Psalm 22 287

timately found that God had heard his cries for help and had an-

swered him. The messianic aspect serves to underline this theme in

that Jesus Christ became the ultimate example of this kind of faith

under similar circumstances.

Psalm 22 has three virtually equal parts.2 The first section (vv.

1-10) is David's introductory address.3 Faced with severe trials, he

answered his doubts about God's care by remembering God's past

faithfulness to his believing forefathers and to himself. As he

moved through the four small groups of poetic lines in this section,

he told God about his tremendous inner battle with doubt. This con-

flict is reflected by the alternation between his describing the rejec-

tion he felt from God in the present, and his pointing out that God

had faithfully cared for his forefathers and for him in the past.

In the second section (vv. 11-21), David kept asking God for de-

liverance from his trials until he got an answer. This section includes

three parts: his introductory petition, his lament, and his primary

petition followed by God's answer. The two petitions bracket the

lament, in which David described his suffering at the hands of his

inhuman enemies. But this psalm is not just about suffering; it also

tells of victory. After stating at the end of the second section, "You

have heard me," he launched into a third section (vv. 22-31), one of

praise. Having once again experienced God's care in the midst of tri-

als, David publicly praised Him. In the first part of this section, he

2 This view of the psalm's structure is based on two observations: (1) the sections are

easily differentiated by their content; and (2) each of the three sections is delimited

by the use of a repeated word or phrase (vv. 1-10, "my God"; vv. 11-21, "far"; vv. 22-

32, "I will tell" and "They will declare") that brackets the section at the beginning

and end. Using W. G. E. Watson's terms, "my God" would be classified as an "envelope

figure," "far" as a "refrain," and the last device as "distant parallelism." But Watson

admits that these closely related types of poetic tools are not always easy to distin-

guish from one another. In Psalm 22 all three of these devices function like envelope

figures which, according to Kessler's definition (quoted by Watson), work "to frame a

unit; to stablize the material enclosed; to emphasize by repetition and to establish

rhetorical connection of the intervening material" (W. G. E. Watson, Classical He-

breza Poetry [Sheffield: JSOT Press, 19841, pp. 282-86). See note 5 below for a good al-

ternate view of the structure.

3 Claus Westermann (following Hermann Gunkel, Die Psalmen [Gottingen: Vanden-

hoek and Ruprecht, 19261, p. 90) categorizes this psalm as an individual lament. As

such, it contains the typical elements in almost the typical order: introductory ad-

dress, lament, petition (in this psalm, split into two parts, an introductory petition be-

fore the lament and the primary petition after the lament), confidence of being heard

(in this psalm taking the place of the confession of confidence usually found after the

lament, and consisting of one phrase at the end of v. 21), and praise (including both the

vow of praise, vv. 22, 25; declarative praise, v. 24; and the two elements usually found

in the praise categories, call to praise, v. 23; and descriptive praise, v. 28). Wester-

mann writes, "This is the basic structure, but it never becomes a rigid pattern! The

possibilities for variation are exceptionally abundant." His terminology is used in

part in the outline presented here (Claus Westermann, Lob and Klage in den Psalmen,

6th ed. [Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1983], pp. 48-51, 118-19).

288Bibliotheca Sacra / July-September 1990

praised the Lord and exhorted his fellow believing Israelites to do

the same. In the second part, he predicted that God would be wor-

shiped by all nations and proclaimed by future generations.

Introductory Address (vv. 1-10)

In his introductory address David, faced with severe trials, an-

swered his doubts about God's care by remembering God's faithful-

ness to his believing forefathers and to himself.4

1 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far

from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?

20 my God, I cry out by day, and You do not answer, and at night, but I

have no rest.

3But You are holy, You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

4 In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them.

5To You they cried out, and were delivered; in You they trusted and

were not ashamed.

6But I am a worm, and not a man; a reproach of men and despised by

the people.

7All who see me mock me; they sneer, shaking their heads:

8 “Commit yourself to the LORD! Let Him rescue him--let Him deliver

him, since He delights in him."

9Yet You took me out of the womb, causing me to trust upon my

mother's breasts.

10From birth I was cast upon You; from my mother's womb You have

been my God.

SINCE GOD APPARENTLY DID NOT RESPOND TO HIS CONTINUAL PLEAS

FOR HELP, DAVID ASKED GOD WHY HE HAD FORSAKEN HIM (vv. 1-2)

The wrenching cry "My God, my God, why have You forsaken

me?" is one of the most striking opening lines in the Psalms. David's

emotional pain is emphasized by the twofold repetition of "My

God," and yet the threefold repetition of the possessive suffix "my"

in the first two verses also emphasizes that he was clinging to his

relationship to God as his last hope in the face of despair. This is

the hope to which he returned at the close of this 10-verse section.

Jesus cried out these words when He died on the cross (Matt.

27:46; Mark 15:34). He must have read this psalm many times, al-

ready having at age 12 extensive knowledge of the Scriptures (Luke

4 The superscription reads, "For the director of music: to the tune of 'The Doe of the

Morning.' A psalm of David." Though the significance of this superscription is un-

known, it probably refers to either the tune or the content of the psalm. It could also

possibly be translated "On the help at daybreak." See Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1-50,

Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 19 (Waco, TX: Word Books, 1983), p. 196, and Derek

Kidner, Psalms 1-72 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1973), pp. 41-42.

An Exposition of Psalm 22 289

2:46-47). It seems logical to deduce that on the cross Jesus repeated

the words of Psalm 22:1 to express His agony and to emphasize the

prophetic connection between Himself and the psalm.

In the second half of verse 1 a key word "far" is used for the first

time in the psalm.5 "Far" also occurs in verse 11 ("Do not be far from

me, for trouble is near and there is no one to help") and in verse 19 in

the final petition for help.6 The repetition of key words or phrases

is sometimes used in the Psalms to develop important themes.7 The

concept of being far from God is used in this psalm to help communi-

cate David's total aloneness and helplessness in the face of the

threat of death. By contrast, he associated the nearness of God with

rescue from his enemies, almost as if to say, "If God is near, then He

will do what is right and all will be well."

Verse 2 has two synthetically parallel lines that form a merism

in which "by day" and "by night" together convey the meaning "con-

tinually." To complete the parallel, the last phrase (lit., "and si-

lence is not to me") is translated "and I have no rest," in this case,

the rest from anxiety that would come if God answered him.8

DAVID ACKNOWLEDGED THAT GOD IS HOLY AND NEVER BETRAYED HIS

BELIEVING FOREFATHERS' TRUST (vv. 3-5)

The words "But You" (waw adversative) that begin verse 3 mark

a strong contrast between what David has just told God about how he

felt and the reminder he was now going to give God about what kind

of God he knew Him to be. Perhaps he was reminding himself as

well in an attempt to control his strong feelings.

5 N. H. Ridderbos maintains that "far" is a structural key that divides verses 1-21,

what he calls the "lament song" section of the psalm, into three parts (1-10, 11-18, 19-

21). This approach has the appeal of having a simple structural key and a good fit

with Westermann's typical individual lament structure. This is fine as far as it goes,

but the problem is that the repeated "far" does not mark off the obvious break be-

tween verse 21 and 22 and so is better seen as functioning as a catchword that links just

the first two major sections (Die Psalmen [Berlin: Walter de Gruvter, 19721, pp. 185-

89; cf. Watson, Classical Hebrew Poetry, p. 288).

6 The fact that "far" is used in verses 11 and 19 to describe God's relationship to the

psalmist supports the NIV translation of the second half of verse 1: "Why are you so

far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning?" instead of the rendering of

the NASB--"Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning"--which empha-

sizes the relationship between the psalmist's prayer and his deliverance. See J. A.

Alexander, The Psalms (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1975), pp. 98-99.

7The use of "far" corresponds to what Robert Alter calls "anaphora," defined as

"the rhetorically emphatic reiteration of a single word or brief phrase, in itself not a

syntactically complete unit" (The Art of Biblical Poetry [New York: Basic Books,

1985], p. 64).

8 This phrase could also be translated "[I] am not silent' (NIV). The language used

here produces an ironic play on words in which the psalmist stated that he had no

"silence" as he complained about God's silence.

290Bibliotheca Sacra I July-September 1990

The psalmist told God He is holy, meaning separate, or set

apart.9 Perhaps his idea was, "Because You are holy (i.e., set apart

from sin) I know You would never break your covenant with me by

suddenly abandoning me."10 But this notion of God's being set apart

is clarified by the second half of the line, "You who are enthroned

[lit., "sitting"] upon the praises of Israel." That is, God is set apart

and distinct from all others in that He has faithfully delivered

God-fearing Israelites of days gone by. He has been greatly praised

for this, and these praises form, in a figurative sense, a throne on

which God sits as King.11 Later David added to this his own praise

of God in Psalm 22:22-26 and celebrated the kingship of the Lord in

the verses following that (vv. 27-31).

In the spirit of this concept, in verses 4 and 5 David built a

three-line "throne" of synonymously parallel expressions of praise

for coming to the aid of his believing forefathers. He emphasized

the idea that God comes to the aid of those who trust Him. The rep-

etition of "but You" (v. 3), "in You" (v. 4), "to You," and "in You" (v.

5), as well as the threefold repetition of the idea of trust followed

by deliverance, also conveys the psalmist's point.

If the last word in verse 5 is translated "ashamed," rather than

"disappointed" (NASB, NIV), the important contrast that connects

verses 3-5 with verses 6-8 is established.12 David used this figura-

tive language (metonymy of effect and understatement) instead of

simply repeating "deliver" again so that he could more directly con-

trast the faith-victories of his forefathers with the shame he

presently felt as he was mocked for trusting God in the face of his

own apparent faith-defeat. This shame is described in the next

three verses.

9 See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English

Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1907), s.v. “wOdqA,” p. 872.

10 J. J. S. Perowne, The Book of Psalms (1878; reprint, Grand Rapids: Zondervan Pub-

lishing House, 1966, p. 240). It could also be asserted that the psalmist mentioned

God's holiness at this point in order to explain God's silence--the idea being that

David's sinfulness was the cause of the problem. But this view is rejected because (1)

elsewhere in the Psalms, David was open and honest about personal sin when that

was his problem (Pss. 32, 38, 51, etc.), yet there is no confession of sin in Psalm 22; and

(2) the silence of God is only temporary and God in fact did hear his cry (vv. 21, 24).

11 A. F. Kirkpatrick believes this may be a figurative adaptation of the idea of God

being enthroned between the cherubim on the ark of the covenant (Exod. 25:22), as di-

rectly rectly expressed in Psalms 80:1 and 99:1 (The Book of Psalms[1902; reprint, Grand

Rapids: Baker Book House, 1982], p. 116).

12 Charles A. Briggs, The Book of the Psalms, The International Critical

Commentary, 2 vols. (1906; reprint, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1969), p. 194. See

Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament; s.v.

p. 101, which lists the basic meaning of the root as "be ashamed."

An Exposition of Psalm 22291

DAVID, HOWEVER, FELT SUBHUMAN BECAUSE PEOPLE WERE MOCKING

HIM FOR TRUSTING GOD (vv. 6-8)

Another contrastive wawand emphatic pronoun ("But I ...") in-

troduce a second small section in which David described to God his

feelings of rejection. He felt shame, the shame of being mocked for

his seemingly futile cries to God. He felt like a "worm," a subhuman

who was not in the same category as his forefathers. Besides feeling

ignored by God, he was also rejected by men. He was a "reproach"

and "despised." In verse 7 David intensified the word picture of the

mockery: they "mock," "sneer,"13 and were "shaking their heads."

Then in verse 8 he told the Lord specifically what they were saying.

The first word of verse 8 is translated as an imperative:

"Commit yourself to the Lord."14 This first clause should be under-

stood as an ironic, mocking charge to the helpless psalmist. The rest

of the verse, with all its pronouns in the third person, can be seen as

the mockers' cynical comments to one another in David's hearing.

The phrase, "since [yKi taken causally] He delights in him," implies

that the mockers were aware that he claimed to have a close, posi-

tive relationship with the Lord. From the New Testament perspec-

tive one can see a close resemblance between what David described

and what happened to Jesus. This claim by Jesus of a special rela-

tionship to God was derided by the mockers at the foot of the cross

(Matt. 27:43, "for he said, 'I am the Son of God"'). It is this close re-

lationship that David held up to God in the last of the four small

parts of this section.

NEVERTHELESS DAVID POINTED OUT TO GOD THAT HE HAD BEEN DAVID'S

GOD SINCE BIRTH (vv. 9-10)

David repeated the yKi that began the ironic last phrase of the

last section, but now gave it an adversative sense and tied to it an-

other emphatic pronoun--"Yet You...."15 In this way he rebounded

from the mockers' questioning of his relationship to God into a rebut-

tal in which he insisted that he had always had the closest possi-

13 Literally, "separate the lip." This is taken as a description of a sneering facial

expression, but it could also describe the movement of lips in (insulting) speech, as the

NIV translates it: "hurl insults."

14 See Brown, Driver, and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old

Testament, s.v.“llaGA,” p. 165. Proverbs 16:3 has the identical construction.

15 See E. Kautzsch, Gesenins' Hebrew Grammar, 2d Eng. ed. by A. E. Cowley (1910;

reprint, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1974), p. 500, §163b. This translation assumes that

follows a negation virtually contained in the previous sentence in the form of an ironic

expression "since He delights in him." Another option would be to take it emphati-

cally as "indeed" (cf. Bruce K. Waltke and Michael O'Connor, An Introduction to Bib-

lical Hebrew Syntax [Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 19891, p. 665, sec. 39.3.4e).

292Bibliotheca Sacra / July-September 1990

ble relationship to God. The idea that this relationship was of the

longest possible standing is strongly emphasized by the fourfold rep-

etition of birth images ("out of the womb," "upon my mother's