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Psalms 22:1-30 Bible in Basic English (BBE)

1 <To the chief music-maker on Aijeleth-hash-shahar. A Psalm. Of David.> My God, my God, why are you turned away from me? why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my crying?

2 O my God, I make my cry in the day, and you give no answer; and in the night, and have no rest.

3 But you are holy, O you who are seated among the praises of Israel.

4 Our fathers had faith in you: they had faith and you were their saviour.

5 They sent up their cry to you and were made free: they put their faith in you and were not put to shame.

6 But I am a worm and not a man; cursed by men, and looked down on by the people.

7 I am laughed at by all those who see me: pushing out their lips and shaking their heads they say,

8 He put his faith in the Lord; let the Lord be his saviour now: let the Lord be his saviour, because he had delight in him.

9 But it was you who took care of me from the day of my birth: you gave me faith even from my mother's breasts.

10 I was in your hands even before my birth; you are my God from the time when I was in my mother's body.

11 Be not far from me, for trouble is near; there is no one to give help.

12 A great herd of oxen is round me: I am shut in by the strong oxen of Bashan.

13 I saw their mouths wide open, like lions crying after food.

14 I am flowing away like water, and all my bones are out of place: my heart is like wax, it has become soft in my body.

15 My throat is dry like a broken vessel; my tongue is fixed to the roof of my mouth, and the dust of death is on my lips.

16 Dogs have come round me: I am shut in by the band of evil-doers; they made wounds in my hands and feet.

17 I am able to see all my bones; their looks are fixed on me:

18 They make a division of my robes among them, by the decision of chance they take my clothing.

19 Do not be far from me, O Lord: O my strength, come quickly to my help.

20 Make my soul safe from the sword, my life from the power of the dog.

21 Be my saviour from the lion's mouth; let me go free from the horns of the cruel oxen.

22 I will give the knowledge of your name to my brothers: I will give you praise among the people.

23 You who have fear of the Lord, give him praise; all you seed of Jacob, give him glory; go in fear of him, all you seed of Israel.

24 For he has not been unmoved by the pain of him who is troubled; or kept his face covered from him; but he has given an answer to his cry.

25 My praise will be of you in the great meeting: I will make my offerings before his worshippers.

26 The poor will have a feast of good things: those who make search for the Lord will give him praise: your heart will have life for ever.

27 All the ends of the earth will keep it in mind and be turned to the Lord: all the families of the nations will give him worship.

28 For the kingdom is the Lord's; he is the ruler among the nations.

29 All the fat ones of the earth will give him worship; all those who go down to the dust will make themselves low before him, even he who has not enough for the life of his soul.

30 A seed will be his servant; the doings of the Lord will be made clear to the generation which comes after.

Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Keil & Delitzsch Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 22

Commentary on Psalms 22 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary


Introduction

Eli Eli Lama Asabtani

We have here a plaintive Psalm, whose deep complaints, out of the midst of the most humiliating degradation and most fearful peril, stand in striking contrast to the cheerful tone of Psalms 21:1-13 - starting with a disconsolate cry of anguish, it passes on to a trustful cry for help, and ends in vows of thanksgiving and a vision of world-wide results, which spring from the deliverance of the sufferer. In no Psalm do we trace such an accumulation of the most excruciating outward and inward suffering pressing upon the complainant, in connection the most perfect innocence. In this respect Ps 69 is its counterpart; but it differs from it in this particular, that there is not a single sound of imprecation mingled with its complaints.

It is David, who here struggles upward out of the gloomiest depth to such a bright height. It is a Davidic Psalm belonging to the time of the persecution by Saul. Ewald brings it down to the time preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, and Bauer to the time of the Exile. Ewald says it is not now possible to trace the poet more exactly. And Maurer closes by saying: illue unum equidem pro certo habeo, fuisse vatem hominem opibus praeditum atque illustrem, qui magna auctoritate valeret non solum apud suos, verum etiam apud barbaros . Hitzig persists in his view, that Jeremiah composed the first portion when cast into prison as an apostate, and the second portion in the court of the prison, when placed under this milder restraint. And according to Olshausen, even here again, the whole is appropriate to the time of the Maccabees. But it seems to us to be confirmed at every point, that David, who was so persecuted by Saul, is the author. The cry of prayer אל־תרחק (Psalms 22:12, Psalms 22:20; Psalms 35:22; Psalms 38:22, borrowed in Psalms 71:12); the name given to the soul, יחידה (Psalms 22:21; Psalms 35:17); the designation of quiet and resignation by דומיה (Psalms 22:3; Psalms 39:3; Psalms 62:2, cf. Psalms 65:2), are all regarded by us, since we do not limit the genuine Davidic Psalms to Psalms 3:1 as Hitzig does, as Davidic idioms. Moreover, there is no lack of points of contact in other respects with genuine old Davidic hymns (cf. Psalms 22:30 with Psalms 28:1, those that go down to the dust, to the grave; then in later Psalms as in Psalms 143:7, in Isaiah and Ezekiel), and more especially those belonging to the time of Saul, as Ps 69 (cf. Psalms 22:27 with Psalms 69:33) and Ps 59 (cf. Psalms 22:17 with Psalms 59:15). To the peculiar characteristics of the Psalms of this period belong the figures taken from animals, which are heaped up in the Psalm before us. The fact that Ps 22 is an ancient Davidic original is also confirmed by the parallel passages in the later literature of the Shı̂r (Psalms 71:5. taken from Psalms 22:10.; Psalms 102:18. in imitation Psalms 22:25, Psalms 22:31.), of the Chokma (Proverbs 16:3, גּל אל־ה taken from Psalms 22:9; Psalms 37:5), and of prophecy (Isaiah, Isaiah 49:1, Isaiah 53:1; Jeremiah, in Lamentations 4:4; cf. Psalms 22:15, and many other similar instances). In spite of these echoes in the later literature there are still some expressions that remain unique in the Psalm and are not found elsewhere, as the hapaxlegomena אילוּת and ענוּת . Thus, then, we entertain no doubts respecting the truth of the לדוד . David speaks in this Psalm, - he and not any other, and that out of his own inmost being. In accordance with the nature of lyric poetry, the Psalm has grown up on the soil of his individual life and his individual sensibilities.

There is also in reality in the history of David, when persecuted by Saul, a situation which may have given occasion to the lifelike picture drawn in this Psalm, viz., 1 Samuel 23:25. The detailed circumstances of the distress at that time are not known to us, but they certainly did not coincide with the rare and terrible sufferings depicted in this Psalm in such a manner that these can be regarded as an historically faithful and literally exact copy of those circumstances; cf. on the other hand Psalms 17:1-15 which was composed at the same period. To just as slight a degree have the prospects, which he connects in this Psalm with his deliverance, been realised in David's own life. On the other hand, the first portion exactly coincides with the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and the second with the results that have sprung from His resurrection. It is the agonising situation of the Crucified One which is presented before our eyes in Psalms 22:15 with such artistic faithfulness: the spreading out of the limbs of the naked body, the torturing pain in hands and feet, and the burning thirst which the Redeemer, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, announced in the cry διψῶ , John 19:28. Those who blaspheme and those who shake their head at Him passed by His cross, Matthew 27:39, just as Psalms 22:8 says; scoffers cried out to Him: let the God in whom He trusts help Him, Matthew 27:43, just as Psalms 22:9 says; His garments were divided and lots were cast for His coat, John 19:23., in order that Psalms 22:19 of our Psalm might be fulfilled. The fourth of the seven sayings of the dying One, Ἠελί, Ἠελί κ. τ. λ . , Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34, is the first word of our Psalm and the appropriation of the whole. And the Epistle to the Hebrews, Hebrews 2:11., cites Psalms 22:23 as the words of Christ, to show that He is not ashamed to call them brethren, whose sanctifier God has appointed Him to be, just as the risen Redeemer actually has done, Matthew 28:10; John 20:17. This has by no means exhausted the list of mutual relationships. The Psalm so vividly sets before us not merely the sufferings of the Crucified One, but also the salvation of the world arising out of His resurrection and its sacramental efficacy, that it seems more like history than prophecy, ut non tam prophetia, quam historia videatur (Cassiodorus). Accordingly the ancient Church regarded Christ, not David, as the speaker in this Psalm; and condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia who expounded it as contemporary history. Bakius expresses the meaning of the older Lutheran expositors when he says: asserimus, hunc Psalmum ad literam primo, proprie et absque ulla allegoria, tropologia et ἀναγωῇ integrum et per omnia de solo Christo exponendum esse . Even the synagogue, so far as it recognises a suffering Messiah, hears Him speak here; and takes the “hind of the morning” as a name of the Shechı̂na and as a symbol of the dawning redemption.

To ourselves, who regard the whole Psalm as the words of David, it does not thereby lose anything whatever of its prophetic character. It is a typical Psalm. The same God who communicates His thoughts of redemption to the mind of men, and there causes them to develop into the word of prophetic announcement, has also moulded the history itself into a prefiguring representation of the future deliverance; and the evidence for the truth of Christianity which is derived from this factual prophecy ( Thatweissagung ) is as grand as that derived from the verbal prediction ( Wortweissagung ). That David, the anointed of Samuel, before he ascended the throne, had to traverse a path of suffering which resembles the suffering path of Jesus, the Son of David, baptized of John, and that this typical suffering of David is embodied for us in the Psalms as in the images reflected from a mirror, is an arrangement of divine power, mercy, and wisdom. But Ps 22 is not merely a typical Psalm. For in the very nature of the type is involved the distance between it and the antitype. In Ps 22, however, David descends, with his complaint, into a depth that lies beyond the depth of his affliction, and rises, with his hopes, to a height that lies far beyond the height of the reward of his affliction. In other words: the rhetorical figure hyperbole (Arab. mubâlgt , i.e., depiction, with colours thickly laid on), without which, in the eyes of the Semite, poetic diction would be flat and faded, is here made use of by the Spirit of God. By this Spirit the hyperbolic element is changed into the prophetic. This elevation of the typical into the prophetic is also capable of explanation on psychological grounds. Since David has been anointed with the oil of royal consecration, and at the same time with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the kingship of promise, he regards himself also as the messiah of God, towards whom the promises point; and by virtue of this view of himself, in the light of the highest calling in connection with the redemptive history, the historical reality of his own experiences becomes idealised to him, and thereby both what he experiences and what he hopes for acquire a depth and height of background which stretches out into the history of the final and true Christ of God. We do not by this maintain any overflowing of his own consciousness to that of the future Christ, an opinion which has been shown by Hengstenberg, Tholuck and Kurtz to be psychologically impossible. But what we say is, that looking upon himself as the Christ of God, - to express it in the light of the historical fulfilment, - he looks upon himself in Jesus Christ. He does not distinguish himself from the Future One, but in himself he sees the Future One, whose image does not free itself from him till afterwards, and whose history will coincide with all that is excessive in his own utterances. For as God the Father moulds the history of Jesus Christ in accordance with His own counsel, so His Spirit moulds even the utterances of David concerning himself the type of the Future One, with a view to that history. Through this Spirit, who is the Spirit of God and of the future Christ at the same time, David's typical history, as he describes it in the Psalms and more especially in this Psalm, acquires that ideal depth of tone, brilliancy, and power, by virtue of which it (the history) reaches far beyond its typical facts, penetrates to its very root in the divine counsels, and grows to be the word of prophecy: so that, to a certain extent, it may rightly be said that Christ here speaks through David, insofar as the Spirit of Christ speaks through him, and makes the typical suffering of His ancestor the medium for the representation of His own future sufferings. Without recognising this incontestable relation of the matter Ps 22 cannot be understood nor can we fully enter into its sentiments.

The inscription runs: To the precentor, upon (after) the hind of the morning's dawn, a Psalm of David . Luther, with reference to the fact that Jesus was taken in the night and brought before the Sanhedrim, renders it “of the hind, that is early chased,” for

Patris Sapientia, Veritas divina,

Deus homo captus est horâ matutinâ .