My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Psalm 22
Far from my salvation are the words of my groaning.
O my God, I call by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but I have no rest.
Yet You are holy,
Enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
In You our fathers trusted;
They trusted and You rescued them.
To You they cried out and were granted escape;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed.
But I am a worm and not a man,
A reproach of men and despised by the people.
All who see me mock me;
They smack their lip, they wag their head, saying,
“Commit yourself to Yahweh; let Him rescue him;
Let Him deliver him, because He delights in him.”
Yet You are He who brought me out of the womb;
You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.
Upon You I was cast from birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb.
Be not far from me, for distress is near;
For there is none to help.
Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
They open wide their mouth at me,
As a lion that tears and roars.
I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within me.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And You lay me in the dust of death.
For dogs have surrounded me;
A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
They pierced my hands and my feet.
I count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;
They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.
But You, O Yahweh, be not far off;
O my Strength, hasten to my help.
Deliver my soul from the sword,
My only life from the power of the dog.
Save me from the mouth of the lion;
From the horns of the wild oxen You have answered me.
I will surely recount Your name to my brothers;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
You who fear Yahweh, praise Him;
All you seed of Jacob, glorify Him,
And stand in awe of Him, all you seed of Israel.
For He has not despised and He has not abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
And He has not hidden His face from him;
But when he cried to Him for help, He heard.
Of You is my praise in the great assembly;
I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him.
The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise Yahweh.
May your heart live forever!
All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to Yahweh,
And all the families of the nations will worship before You.
For the kingdom is Yahweh’s
And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,
All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep his soul alive.
Their seed will serve Him;
It will be recounted about the Lord to the coming generation.
They will come and will declare His righteousness
To a people who will be born, that He has done it.
Introduction
Perhaps the most on-the-nose Messianic Psalm, Psalm 22. Jesus directly quotes it while hanging on the cross when He shouts “Eli, Eli lama sabachthani!” (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). The Psalm further, then, describes key details of His crucifixion: people despising and mocking Him (verse 6), taunts of letting God rescue Him (verse 7), the piercing of His hands and feet (verse 16), and the division of His garments afterward (verse 18).
It is hard to think that this Psalm was written centuries before Christ’s crucifixion due to the striking resemblance it bears. Passages like this Psalm or Isaiah 53 serve as excellent proof that our faith is not in vain, but that our God keeps His promises.
The bulls of Bashan
Some strange characters appear in verse 12 of the Psalm: the bulls of Bashan who surround Him. Bashan is a region in northern Israel. It is a region that was formerly under the dominion of the evil giant-king Og, whose bed was more than 13 feet long and nearly 6 feet wide (Deuteronomy 3:11). He is called “the last of the Rephaim,” a clan of giants whose territory mirrored that of the Anakim, another giant clan in the promised land (Numbers 13:32-33).
In Bashan lies Mount Hermon, the site of Og’s capital and a place of pagan Ba’al worship. To the Canaanites, the Greeks, and even many Jews, Mount Hermon was considered the entrance to hell. Many believed the cave at its base to be a bottomless pit from which only evil spirits emerge. Evil spirits like the Rephaim, who are later referred to as such in Isaiah 14 and Psalm 88.
So who are the bulls of Bashan? Paul references them in 1 Corinthians 2 when he tells us, “But we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the wisdom which has been hidden, which God predestined before the ages to our glory, which none of the rulers of this age has understood; for if they had understood it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.” They are the hidden and invisible rulers of this world who were overthrown at Christ’s resurrection. Their power was broken, and He claimed what formerly was theirs.
All the families of the nations
In Matthew 12 (and Luke 11 and Mark 3), Jesus drives a demon out from a man. But the Pharisees see this and conclude that He must be performing these miracles by the power of Satan. He responds to them with this parable: “How can anyone enter the strong man’s house and carry off his property, unless he first binds the strong man? And then he will plunder his house.”
In this case, Jesus came to the strong man’s house, bound up the strong man, and made off with his goods. The strong man represents the invisible rulers of the earth who were set over the gentile nations (Deuteronomy 32:8), and the strong man’s goods are those very nations. After Jesus ascended, He sent the Holy Spirit who caused the disciples to proclaim the glory of God in all the various languages of the people listening. If Babel fragmented humanity in sin, then Pentecost united humanity in Christ. The rest of the book of Acts recounts the influx of gentiles into the household of God.
And if you are reading this, chances are you are one of those gentiles who has been welcomed into the body of Christ. You come from “the ends of the earth” to “remember and turn to Yahweh.” Your family is “of the nations” and every Sunday you “worship before [Him].” He rules over the nations now that the power of Satan is broken. Because He fulfilled this Psalm, you can rightly declare, “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (Hosea 13:14; 1 Corinthians 15:55)
May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.
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