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Psalm 22:1
The psalm begins with perhaps the most heart-rending cry in history: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Psalm 22:1). As Matthew and Mark attest, Jesus Himself spoke these words as He was about to die: "And about the ninth hour [mid-afternoon] Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46; see also Mark 15:34).
Our Savior's cry of abandonment marks His awareness that His Father had indeed turned from Him, being burdened and defiled by all human sin (Isaiah 53:6; II Corinthians 5:21; Hebrews 2:9). As Isaiah 59:2 informs us, "But your iniquities have separated you from your God; and your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear." Because He had never been sinful, Jesus had never known separation from the Father, and His feeling of desertion and rejection may have been the deepest cut of all.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
David the ProphetRelated Topics: David as Prophet | David the Prophet | Eli,Eli,Lama Sabachthani | Jesus Christ's Feeling of Desertion | Jesus Christ's Feeling of Rejection | Our Savior's Cry of Abandonment | Separation from God | Sin Separates | Sin Separates Us from God | Sin, Defilement of | Why Have You Forsaken Me?
Psalm 22:1
Psalm 22 begins with the exact words Jesus quoted when He was on the cross and all the sins of the world were put upon Him. The Father forsook Him because He cannot abide sin.
This was written about a thousand years before Christ died, and crucifixion was not practiced in the region at the time. The Romans brought this form of execution into prominence as a way to humiliate and dispose of their enemies. They would line the roads with stakes and crosses on which they would hang their enemies as an example for the rest of the world to see. Nevertheless, they did not start their murderous rush through the ancient Middle East and Europe until about the first century BC. So, roughly 900 years before it became common practice, David wrote about crucifixion.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Christ's Death, Resurrection, and AscensionRelated Topics: Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Psalm 22 | Psalms | Psalms, Prophetic | Roman Executions
Psalm 22:1-31
Perhaps the easiest way to see David as a prophet is to survey one of his most clearly prophetic psalms, Psalm 22. Anyone familiar with the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus Christ can see the obvious parallels, and the writers of the gospel accounts—especially Matthew—bring them out through direct quotations of this psalm. Henry Halley, author of Halley's Bible Handbook, writes of this psalm, "[T]hough written a thousand years before Jesus, it is so vivid a description of the crucifixion of Jesus that one would think of the writer as being personally present at the Cross" (p. 254).
No one knows what event of David's life, if any, provides the background to his plaintive song, but it must have been the nadir of his sufferings, the most likely guess being sometime during Saul's pursuit of him. However, even if it is based on David's experience of persecution, Psalm 22 is so specific and detailed in its descriptions of Christ's crucifixion that it can in reality only be a divinely inspired prophecy of the execution of the Son of God—a full millennium before the events took place in Roman Jerusalem.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
David the ProphetRelated Topics: Crucifixion of Jesus Christ | David as Greatest of Old Testament Prophets | David as Prophet | David's Plaintive Songs | David's Prophecies of Christ's Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Prophecies of Christ's Suffering | Prophecies of Jesus Christ | Prophecies of Jesus Christ's Death | Prophetic Psalms | Psalm 22
Psalm 22:1
One cannot read this Psalm without seeing clear parallels to Christ's crucifixion. It describes an experience of David, who recorded his reflections—which became a prophecy of Christ's final hours.
John W. Ritenbaugh
Prophets and Prophecy (Part Three)Related Topics: Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Psalm 22 | Psalms | Psalms, Prophetic | Roman Executions
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What Does Psalms 22:1 Mean?
Psalm 22 stands as one of David's most clearly prophetic psalms, so vivid in its depiction of crucifixion that its writer seems present at the Cross. Written roughly a thousand years before Christ, and centuries before the Romans made crucifixion a prominent form of execution, it can only be a divinely inspired prophecy of the Son of God's death. Its opening cry, quoted by Jesus as He died ("Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani," Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34), marks His awareness that His Father had turned from Him. Burdened and defiled by all human sin, Jesus experienced the separation that iniquity brings (Isaiah 59:2). Having never sinned, He had never known such abandonment, and this rejection may have been the deepest cut of all.