Holy Bible - Obsidian Study Guide

Psalm 22 - My God My God

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Psalm 22 - My God My God

Overview

  • Testament: Old
  • Book: Psalms
  • Psalm Number: 22
  • Type: Lament / Messianic
  • Author: David
  • Summary: A profound lament of forsakenness, mockery, physical suffering, and deliverance that is fulfilled with extraordinary precision at the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.

Content and Significance

Psalm 22 opens with one of the most haunting cries in all of Scripture: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” — words Jesus himself spoke from the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). The psalm is classified as an individual lament, but the precision of its prophetic detail and its explicit quotation by Christ at his death establish it as the preeminent messianic lament psalm. David wrote from his own experience of abandonment and distress, yet he was moved by the Spirit to describe a suffering that transcended his own.

The opening movement (vv. 1-21) is a sustained cry of desolation. The psalmist feels forsaken despite crying day and night; God seems silent while Israel’s fathers trusted and were delivered. Then comes a devastating portrait of the sufferer’s condition: “I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” The language of public humiliation and mockery is specific — “all they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.” The Gospels record this very mockery at Calvary, word for word (Matthew 27:39-43).

The physical description is equally precise and remarkable: “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.” Crucifixion produces exactly these physiological effects — severe dehydration, joint dislocation from hanging, and cardiac distress. The psalm continues: “they pierced my hands and my feet” — a detail with no known historical parallel in David’s life but fulfilled literally at the crucifixion. “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture” (v. 18) is directly fulfilled in John 19:23-24, where the soldiers divide Jesus’ clothes and cast lots for his seamless robe.

Remarkably, the psalm does not end in death. At verse 24 the tone turns: “For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hidden his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.” This is the resurrection turn — the lament resolves into praise when the LORD answers out of apparent silence. The psalm closes with universal proclamation: all the ends of the world shall remember and turn, the kingdom belongs to the LORD, and “a seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this” — a promise of a posterity that will proclaim the sufferer’s deliverance across generations.

Psalm 22 stands at the intersection of genuine Davidic prayer, prophetic anticipation, and exact fulfillment. It demonstrates that the cross was not a tragedy overwhelming God’s purposes but the culmination of a redemptive plan foreshadowed centuries earlier in Israel’s own hymnody. The church has always read it as the key to understanding the cry of dereliction and the meaning of the crucifixion — not a moment of divine abandonment without resolution, but the darkest hour immediately preceding the vindication of resurrection.

Key Themes

  • The cry of dereliction and the experience of divine abandonment
  • Physical and social suffering described with prophetic precision
  • The piercing of hands and feet; casting of lots
  • Trust maintained within the lament
  • The resurrection turn: answered prayer and universal praise
  • Messianic fulfillment at the crucifixion of Christ

Important Verses

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” — Psalm 22:1

“But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.” — Psalm 22:6

“They pierced my hands and my feet.” — Psalm 22:16

“They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” — Psalm 22:18

“For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hidden his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.” — Psalm 22:24

Cross-References

  • NT: Matthew 27:46 — Jesus cries “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” from the cross
  • NT: Matthew 27:39-43 — mockers shake their heads and taunt, fulfilling vv. 7-8
  • NT: John 19:23-24 — soldiers cast lots for his seamless robe, explicitly fulfilling v. 18
  • NT: Hebrews 2:12 — quotes v. 22 (“I will declare thy name unto my brethren”) as spoken by Christ
  • Related: Psalm 2 - The LORD and His Anointed — companion messianic psalm
  • Related: Psalm 110 - Sit at My Right Hand — Christ’s enthronement after his humiliation

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