Psalm 22 Explained: The Messiah’s Cry and the Cross
Jesus’ cry from the cross about being forsaken quotes the opening of Psalm 22. To understand those words, I need to follow David’s prayer through its suffering to its answer. The psalm describes terrible anguish, but it also tells us that God heard the afflicted One and did not hide His face from Him. By its conclusion, the sufferer is praising God, the nations are turning to the LORD, and generations not yet born will hear what He has done.
David’s Lament and the Greater Son of David
The heading identifies this as a psalm of David. He wrote from real anguish, although Scripture does not identify the crisis behind his prayer. We should not invent an episode in his life to account for every detail.
The heading also includes “The Deer of the Dawn,” probably a tune name or another musical direction, although its precise function is uncertain. It gives us no basis for identifying an otherwise unknown ceremony or calculating the hour of the crucifixion or resurrection. David addressed the psalm to the Chief Musician, so his personal anguish became part of Israel’s public worship. God’s people could pray these words while suffering and waiting for His answer.
This is a lament, a prayer that brings grief and distress before God. David expressed his own dependence on the Lord, while the Holy Spirit inspired his words to speak beyond his circumstances to the greater Son of David. Some details go beyond anything Scripture records David experiencing. The Gospel writers apply the psalm to Jesus, recording Him quoting its opening line while other details unfolded around Him, and Hebrews applies its praise among the brethren to Christ. Those biblical connections give us our reason for reading the psalm as messianic.
The movement from prayer to praise belongs to the prophecy too. Jesus fulfilled particular details of the crucifixion, but the psalm does more than predict separate injuries. It follows a righteous sufferer who trusts God while surrounded by enemies, receives an answer, and declares God’s name in the assembly. His deliverance becomes known far beyond those who first hear it. Christ’s bodily resurrection brings the psalm’s promised deliverance to fulfillment. The study on The Messiah in the Bible follows the promised Savior through His suffering, resurrection, and coming reign.
The Cry of the Sufferer and the Faithfulness of God
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, And from the words of My groaning?
Matthew and Mark record Jesus speaking these words from the cross. He had been betrayed, mocked, beaten, and crucified. His agony was real, and I would misrepresent it by treating the cry as a theatrical signal with no suffering behind it. The sinless Son truly entered the anguish expressed in this lament.
By speaking its opening words, Jesus also brought Psalm 22 before those who witnessed His death and those who would later read the account. We do not need to appeal to a supposed Jewish rule that quoting the first line formally quoted the entire psalm. The Gospels themselves connect its words with the events of the crucifixion. His repeated “My God” remains an address of faith: He prays in terrible pain while help appears far away, without renouncing the Father or declaring that God has become divided.
Within the lament, the unanswered cry is followed by a confession about the God to whom the sufferer is praying:
O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear; And in the night season, and am not silent. But You are holy, Enthroned in the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in You; They trusted, and You delivered them. They cried to You, and were delivered; They trusted in You, and were not ashamed.
The sufferer has cried through the day and night without yet receiving the help he seeks. He does not pretend that the delay is pleasant, but he continues to acknowledge God’s holiness and remembers His faithfulness to Israel’s fathers. They too had needed to cry out, and God had delivered them. Their experience gives him a reason to keep trusting when his own circumstances offer no relief.
Remembering God’s earlier answers gives the sufferer reason to trust Him, but it does not promise immediate escape to everyone who believes. I need to keep that in mind when reading about the cross. Jesus obeyed perfectly while His enemies appeared to prevail, yet their apparent success did not mean that the Father had failed His Son or broken His promises. God’s answer would become publicly evident in the resurrection.
For the moment, the sufferer describes the contempt of those around him:
But I am a worm, and no man; A reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see Me ridicule Me; They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, “He trusted in the LORD, let Him rescue Him; Let Him deliver Him, since He delights in Him!”
“A worm, and no man” describes humiliation at the hands of people who treated the sufferer as though he had no human worth. The reproach, ridicule, and contemptuous gestures in the surrounding lines explain the image. We do not need an elaborate account of dye-making to understand what David is saying about their contempt.
Matthew 27 records people wagging their heads and religious leaders saying, “He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him.” The men charged with teaching Scripture spoke words that fulfilled the prophecy they refused to recognize in Jesus. Their taunt assumed that God’s delight in Him should bring immediate rescue. The Father did delight in His Son, but Jesus’ vindication would come through resurrection rather than escape from the cross.
Verses 9-11 answer that contempt by recalling God’s care from the womb. David’s dependence on Him had begun long before the present crisis. In the greater fulfillment, the eternal, uncreated Son truly became man without ceasing to be God. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the virgin Mary. His human life and dependence on the Father were real, and He always pleased Him.
The appeal for God to be near does not prove that He had abandoned the sufferer. Before the crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples they would scatter and leave Him alone, then explained that the Father was with Him. His prayer for help must be understood alongside that assurance and the answer recorded later in this psalm.
Enemies Surround Him and His Body Fails
David pictures the enemies surrounding the sufferer as threatening animals. The strong bulls of Bashan suggest intimidating power, drawing on a region known for well-fed cattle. A roaring lion opens its mouth, dogs encircle him, and wild oxen threaten him. Together these images portray powerful enemies ready to inflict violence on someone exposed to them.
At the crucifixion, religious rulers worked through Roman authority, soldiers carried out the sentence, and a crowd mocked Jesus. These enemies fit the psalm’s description without our assigning every animal to a particular official or rank of demons. Jesus could have called for heavenly armies to deliver Him, yet chose to remain. His enemies were responsible for their violence, and His willingness to endure it expressed obedience rather than an inability to stop them.
I am poured out like water, And all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.
The sufferer’s strength is failing as death approaches. A potsherd is a piece of broken pottery, and the comparison with its dryness expresses his exhaustion. His tongue clings to his jaws. At the cross, Jesus endured extreme pain and public exposure as exhaustion and blood loss weakened His body. John records Him saying, “I thirst.” He then received sour wine.
I take that bodily suffering seriously without treating the poetry as a modern medical report. The line about bones out of joint describes bodily distress; it does not require us to diagnose every bone as dislocated. A heart melting like wax conveys failing strength without identifying a particular medical condition.
The words “You have brought Me to the dust of death” address God, so we need to understand His purpose alongside the human violence. Jesus submitted to the saving path the Father willed. Acts affirms God’s foreknowledge while identifying wicked men as those who tortured and killed Him. God’s use of their actions did not make Him the violent executioner or turn their choices into innocent obedience. Their cruelty remained their own, and their hands shed the blood Christ willingly gave for our salvation.
For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet; I can count all My bones. They look and stare at Me.
The NKJV reads, “They pierced My hands and My feet.” That fits crucifixion and the risen Jesus’ invitation for His disciples to examine His hands and feet. David did not die by crucifixion, and Scripture does not record an experience in his life that accounts for these details. We are being directed beyond David to the Messiah.
There is a textual question here. The NKJV’s note on verse 16 gives “like a lion” as the reading of the Masoretic Hebrew text, the traditional text preserved by Jewish scribes. It also notes support for the reading translated as piercing in some Hebrew manuscripts and ancient versions. The difference concerns the wording preserved in manuscripts and early translations, rather than two English meanings of one undisputed Hebrew word.
I retain the NKJV’s wording about piercing. It supplies an action that fits the description of enemies enclosing and staring at the sufferer, and it agrees with the Gospel accounts of Christ’s wounds. “Like a lion my hands and my feet” leaves the action unstated and requires an explanation from the context. The larger biblical witness supports my reading, but its correspondence with crucifixion does not make the textual question disappear.
“I can count all My bones” continues the description of a stretched and exposed body under hostile scrutiny. It does not require us to imagine bones showing through broken skin, nor does it say they were broken. John specifically records that none of Jesus’ bones were broken. The psalm’s imagery and the Gospel’s account can be read together without inventing further injuries.
Divided Garments and the Answer That Changes Everything
They divide My garments among them, And for My clothing they cast lots.
All four Gospels record the division of Jesus’ garments. John explains that His tunic was seamless, so the soldiers cast lots for it rather than tear it apart. While Jesus hung exposed, His executioners treated His clothing as spoil. Their actions added to His humiliation and fulfilled a detail written centuries before.
John does not present the soldiers’ actions as an effort to honor prophecy. Rulers had authorized an execution, and Roman soldiers carried it out publicly. God’s foreknowledge of those acts did not remove anyone’s responsibility for his part in condemning and killing an innocent Man.
In verses 19-21, the sufferer again asks the LORD to come near and rescue him from the sword and from enemies pictured as a dog, lion, and wild oxen. Then the NKJV records the announcement, “You have answered Me.” The One who cried for help will now declare God’s name in praise.
In David’s lament, those words may express confidence in an answer still to come or testimony to deliverance already experienced. The occasion remains unidentified. In Christ, we see the greater fulfillment: the Father heard the Son and raised Him bodily from the dead. Jesus was not spared dying, but He passed through death and rose beyond its power.
Wicked men tortured and crucified Jesus, but He voluntarily gave Himself to be slain as the perfect sacrifice for our sins. The saving value of His offering rests on His sinless perfection, and His shed blood and death completed that sacrifice before His burial and bodily resurrection. The Father did not punish, curse, abandon, strike, bruise, or pour wrath on Jesus. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct, coequal, coeternal Persons, one God acting in unity to redeem us. The study on The Blood of Christ for Salvation explains His sacrifice, atonement, and reconciliation more fully.
His cry about being forsaken does not establish that Jesus underwent the final punishment of unbelievers. Their judgment in the Lake of Fire is the second death, the irreversible destruction of body and soul. Scripture does not teach that an eternity of punishment was compressed into His hours on the cross or that He continued suffering in hell afterward. He promised the repentant thief that they would be together in Paradise, declared His sacrifice finished, and entrusted His spirit into the Father’s hands. Those events give us no reason to add hatred or separation within the Trinity to the account of His death.
Christ’s sacrifice was complete at His death, but the psalm’s promise of deliverance also directs us to His bodily resurrection. The One who suffered and died is alive, declaring God’s name among His brethren. We cannot leave Him in the grave and still account for the praise that follows His deliverance.
The Risen Messiah Leads Praise to the Nations
For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard.
Verse 24 explains why the afflicted One can praise God. He was heard, and God had neither despised His affliction nor hidden His face from Him. I have to allow that explicit statement to govern how I understand the opening question. Verse 1 gives voice to agony while help appears delayed; verse 24 declares what God actually did. I cannot use the question to teach that the Father secretly did the opposite of what the psalm says.
Earlier, in verse 22, the delivered One promises to declare God’s name to His brethren and praise Him in the assembly. Paul, the author of Hebrews, applies those words to Christ in Hebrews 2:12. That chapter describes Jesus tasting death for everyone and being crowned with glory and honor. He is not ashamed to call those He sanctifies His brethren. The risen Messiah identifies with His people and leads their praise.
The assembly’s praise then reaches beyond those gathered. The poor eat and are satisfied, while the ends of the earth remember and turn to the LORD. Families from every nation worship Him because the kingdom belongs to Him and He rules over the nations. In Christ’s fulfillment of the psalm, His deliverance draws people from every nation into the worship of God.
That worldwide worship also looks beyond the present spread of the gospel. The LORD rules now, and Jesus will return bodily to exercise His royal authority openly. I understand the wider prophetic passages to teach that Christ will gather the church before the seven-year Tribulation, then return after that Tribulation to begin His literal thousand-year reign. Psalm 22 does not supply that full timeline. It agrees with the wider pattern in which the Messiah suffers before His glory is revealed and the rejected One is acknowledged as King. A Complete Bible Study on Isaiah considers the suffering Servant and the coming kingdom alongside the divine Child and the Holy One.
The final verses look ahead to generations who will serve God and declare His righteousness to people not yet born. They will proclaim that He has done this. I recognize completed divine work in those words, but they are not linguistically identical to “It is finished” in John 19:30. The connection is in the accomplishment being proclaimed, not a claim that the Hebrew and Greek phrases are the same expression.
We participate in that proclamation when we explain what God has done in Christ. Someone who has never heard the gospel needs to understand why Jesus suffered and shed His blood, how His death answers our need for salvation, and that the One who was buried rose bodily. We then call that person to repent and believe in the living Savior. Generations who were not present at Calvary can hear this testimony and trust the Messiah whose work we proclaim.
The invitation we proclaim is genuine for every person because Christ died for the sins of the whole world. People can resist His grace and reject the Savior, but everyone who repents and believes is forgiven and born again, and God justifies him, declaring him righteous in Christ. The Holy Spirit indwells and seals every true believer, who is eternally secure in Christ. A superficial profession does not establish new birth, and genuine faith does not make a believer sinless. Obedience is evidence of the life God has given; it neither earns nor keeps salvation. We therefore have no permission to use security as an excuse for lawlessness.
David’s prayer also teaches me how to speak to God when help seems far away. He named his anguish, remembered God’s faithfulness, and continued asking for help. I can bring fear and pain before the Lord without pretending they are pleasant or treating them as proof that He has changed. His revealed character gives me reason to keep praying when I cannot yet explain what I am experiencing.
My Final Thoughts
I do not believe we can read Psalm 22 carefully and conclude that the Father abandoned His Son. Jesus’ suffering was real, and wicked men put Him to death as He willingly gave His life for our sins. Yet the psalm says God heard Him, and His bodily resurrection brought the lament to its victorious fulfillment. His people still proclaim that answer to the nations. When I am waiting for help, I can speak honestly to the God who hears, trusting the crucified and risen Messiah who will return as King.