21 Save me from the lion's mouth; Yes, from the horns of the wild oxen you have answered me.
But the Lord stood by me, and strengthened me, that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear; and I was delivered out of the mouth of the lion.
God brings them forth out of Egypt; He has as it were the strength of the wild-ox.
"Will the wild ox be content to serve you? Or will he stay by your feeding trough? Can you hold the wild ox in the furrow with his harness? Or will he till the valleys after you?
The wild-oxen shall come down with them, and the bulls with the bulls: and their land shall be drunken with blood, and their dust made fat with fatness.
Therefore they took up stones to throw at him, but Jesus was hidden, and went out of the temple, having gone through the midst of them, and so passed by.
I will no more speak much with you, for the prince of the world comes, and he has nothing in me.
The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you killed, hanging him on a tree. God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins. We are His witnesses of these things; and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him."
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 22
Commentary on Psalms 22 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 22
The Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets, testifies in this psalm, as clearly and fully as any where in all the Old Testament, "the sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow' (1 Pt. 1:11); of him, no doubt, David here speaks, and not of himself, or any other man. Much of it is expressly applied to Christ in the New Testament, all of it may be applied to him, and some of it must be understood of him only. The providences of God concerning David were so very extraordinary that we may suppose there were some wise and good men who then could not but look upon him as a figure of him that was to come. But the composition of his psalms especially, in which he found himself wonderfully carried out by the spirit of prophecy far beyond his own thought and intention, was (we may suppose) an abundant satisfaction to himself that he was not only a father of the Messiah, but a figure of him. In this psalm he speaks,
In singing this psalm we must keep our thoughts fixed upon Christ, and be so affected with his sufferings as to experience the fellowship of them, and so affected with his grace as to experience the power and influence of it.
To the chief musician upon Aijeleth Shahar. A psalm of David.
Psa 22:1-10
Some think they find Christ in the title of this psalm, upon Aijeleth Shahar-The hind of the morning. Christ is as the swift hind upon the mountains of spices (Cant. 8:14), as the loving hind and the pleasant roe, to all believers (Prov. 5:19); he giveth goodly words like Naphtali, who is compared to a hind let loose, Gen. 49:21. He is the hind of the morning, marked out by the counsels of God from eternity, to be run down by those dogs that compassed him, v. 16. But others think it denotes only the tune to which the psalm was set. In these verses we have,
Psa 22:11-21
In these verses we have Christ suffering and Christ praying, by which we are directed to look for crosses and to look up to God under them.
In singing this we should meditate on the sufferings and resurrection of Christ till we experience in our own souls the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings.
Psa 22:22-31
The same that began the psalm complaining, who was no other than Christ in his humiliation, ends it here triumphing, and it can be no other than Christ in his exaltation. And, as the first words of the complaint were used by Christ himself upon the cross, so the first words of the triumph are expressly applied to him (Heb. 2:12) and are made his own words: I will declare thy name unto my brethren, in the midst of the church will I sing praise unto thee. The certain prospect which Christ had of the joy set before him not only gave him a satisfactory answer to his prayers, but turned his complaints into praises; he saw of the travail of his soul, and was well satisfied, witness that triumphant word wherewith he breathed his last: It is finished.
Five things are here spoken of, the view of which were the satisfaction and triumph of Christ in his sufferings:-
In singing this we must triumph in the name of Christ as above every name, must give him honour ourselves, rejoice in the honours others do him, and in the assurance we have that there shall be a people praising him on earth when we are praising him in heaven.