1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning?
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
My God! The first verse contains two remarkable sentences, which, although apparently contrary to each other, are yet ever entering into the minds of the godly together. When the Psalmist speaks of being forsaken and cast off by God, it seems to be the complaint of a man in despair; for can a man have a single spark of faith remaining in him, when he believes that there is no longer any succor for him in God? And yet, in calling God twice his own God, and depositing his groanings into his bosom, he makes a very distinct confession of his faith. With this inward conflict the godly must necessarily be exercised whenever God withdraws from them the tokens of his favor, so that, in whatever direction they turn their eyes, they see nothing but the darkness of night. I say, that the people of God, in wrestling with themselves, on the one hand discover the weakness of the flesh, and on the other give evidence of their faith. With respect to the reprobate, as they cherish in their hearts their distrust of God, their perplexity of mind overwhelms them, and thus totally incapacitates them for aspiring after the grace of God by faith. That David sustained the assaults of temptation, without being overwhelmed, or swallowed up by it, may be easily gathered from his words. He was greatly oppressed with sorrow, but notwithstanding this, he breaks forth into the language of assurance, My God! my God! which he could not have done without vigorously resisting the contrary apprehension that God had forsaken him. There is not one of the godly who does not daily experience in himself the same thing. According to the judgment of the flesh, he thinks he is cast off and forsaken by God, while yet he apprehends by faith the grace of God, which is hidden from the eye of sense and reason; and thus it comes to pass, that contrary affections are mingled and interwoven in the prayers of the faithful. Carnal sense and reason cannot but conceive of God as being either favorable or hostile, according to the present condition of things which is presented to their view. When, therefore, he suffers us to lie long in sorrow, and as it were to pine away under it, we must necessarily feel, according to the apprehension of the flesh, as if he had quite forgotten us. When such a perplexing thought takes entire possession of the mind of man, it overwhelms him in profound unbelief, and he neither seeks, nor any longer expects, to find a remedy. But if faith come to his aid against such a temptation, the same person who, judging from the outward appearance of things, regarded God as incensed against him, or as having abandoned him, beholds in the mirror of the promises the grace of God which is hidden and distant. Between these two contrary affections the faithful are agitated, and, as it were, fluctuate, when Satan, on the one hand, by exhibiting to their view the signs of the wrath of God, urges them on to despair, and endeavors entirely to overthrow their faith; while faith, on the other hand, by calling them back to the promises, teaches them to wait patiently and to trust in God, until he again show them his fatherly countenance. We see then the source from which proceeded this exclamation, My God! my God! and from which also proceeded the complaint which follows immediately after, Why hast thou forsaken me? Whilst the vehemence of grief, and the infirmity of the flesh, forced from the Psalmist these words, I am forsaken of God; faith, lest he should when so severely tried sink into despair, put into his mouth a correction of this language, so that he boldly called God, of whom he thought he was forsaken, his God. Yea, we see that he has given the first place to faith. Before he allows himself to utter his complaint, in order to give faith the chief place, he first declares that he still claimed God as his own God, and betook himself to him for refuge. And as the affections of the flesh, when once they break forth, are not easily restrained, but rather carry us beyond the bounds of reason, it is surely well to repress them at the very commencement. David, therefore, observed the best possible order in giving his faith the precedency - in expressing it before giving vent to his sorrow, and in qualifying, by devout prayer, the complaint which he afterwards makes with respect to the greatness of his calamities. Had he spoken simply and precisely in these terms, Lord, why forsakest thou me? he would have seemed, by a complaint so bitter, to murmur against God; and besides, his mind would have been in great danger of being embittered with discontent through the greatness of his grief. But, by here raising up against murmuring and discontent the rampart of faith, he keeps all his thoughts and feelings under restraint, that they may not break beyond due bounds. Nor is the repetition superfluous when he twice calls God his God; and, a little after, he even repeats the same words the third time. When God, as if he had cast off all care about us, passes over our miseries and groanings as if he saw them not, the conflict with this species of temptation is arduous and painful, and therefore David the more strenuously exerts himself in seeking the confirmation of his faith. Faith does not gain the victory at the first encounter, but after receiving many blows, and after being exercised with many tossings, she at length comes forth victorious. I do not say that David was so courageous and valiant a champion as that his faith did not waver. The faithful may put forth all their efforts to subdue their carnal affections, that they may subject and devote themselves wholly to God; but still there is always some infirmity remaining in them. From this proceeded that halting of holy Jacob, of which Moses makes mention in Genesis 32:24; for although in wrestling with God he prevailed, yet he ever after bore the mark of his sinful defect. By such examples God encourages his servants to perseverance, lest, from a consciousness of their own infirmity, they should sink into despair. The means therefore which we ought to adopt, whenever our flesh becomes tumultuous, and, like an impetuous tempest, hurries us into impatience, is to strive against it, and to endeavor to restrain its impetuosity. In doing this we will, it is true, be agitated and sorely tried, but our faith will, nevertheless, continue safe, and be preserved from shipwreck. Farther, we may gather from the very form of the complaint which David here makes, that he did not without cause redouble the words by which his faith might be sustained. He does not simply say that he was forsaken by God, but he adds, that God was far from his help, in as-much as when he saw him in the greatest danger, he gave him no token to encourage him in the hope of obtaining deliverance. Since God has the ability to succor us, if, when he sees us exposed as a prey to our enemies, he nevertheless sits still as if he cared not about us, who would not say that he has drawn back his hand that he may not deliver us? Again, by the expression, the words of my roaring, the Psalmist intimates that he was distressed and tormented in the highest degree. He certainly was not a man of so little courage as, on account of some slight or ordinary affliction, to howl in this manner like a brute beast. [1] We must therefore come to the conclusion, that the distress was very great which could extort such roaring from a man who was distinguished for meekness, and for the undaunted courage with which he endured calamities. As our Savior Jesus Christ, when hanging on the cross, and when ready to yield up his soul into the hands of God his Father, made use of these very words, (Matthew 27:46,) we must consider how these two things can agree, that Christ was the only begotten Son of God, and that yet he was so penetrated with grief, seized with so great mental trouble, as to cry out that God his Father had forsaken him. The apparent contradiction between these two statements has constrained many interpreters to have recourse to evasions for fear of charging Christ with blame in this matter. Accordingly, they have said that Christ made this complaint rather according to the opinion of the common people, who witnessed his sufferings, than from any feeling which he had of being deserted by his father. But they have not considered that they greatly lessen the benefit of our redemption, in imagining that Christ was altogether exempted from the terrors which the judgment of God strikes into sinners. It was a groundless fear to be afraid of making Christ subject to so great sorrow, lest they should diminish his glory. As Peter, in Acts 2:24, clearly testifies that "it was not possible that he should be holden of the pains of death," it follows that he was not altogether exempted from them. And as he became our representative, and took upon him our sins, it was certainly necessary that he should appear before the judgment-seat of God as a sinner. From this proceeded the terror and dread which constrained him to pray for deliverance from death; not that it was so grievous to him merely to depart from this life; but because there was before his eyes the curse of God, to which all who are sinners are exposed. Now, if during his first conflict "his sweat was as it were great drops of blood," and he needed an angel to comfort him, (Luke 22:43,) it is not wonderful if, in his last sufferings on the cross, he uttered a complaint which indicated the deepest sorrow. By the way, it should be marked, that Christ, although subject to human passions and affections, never fell into sin through the weakness of the flesh; for the perfection of his nature preserved him from all excess. He could therefore overcome all the temptations with which Satan assailed him, without receiving any wound in the conflict which might afterwards constrain him to halt. In short, there is no doubt that Christ, in uttering this exclamation upon the cross, manifestly showed, that although David here bewails his own distresses, this psalm was composed under the influence of the Spirit of prophecy concerning David's King and Lord.
1 - "Et de faict, il n'estoit point de si petit courage, que pour quelque real leger il hurlast ainsi comme une beste brute." -- Fr. "The original word [for roaring] properly denotes the roaring of a lion, and is often applied to the deep groaning of men in sickness. See among other places, Psalm 32:3; 38:9." -- Bishop Mant.
My God, my God - These are the very words uttered by the Saviour when on the cross Matthew 27:46; and he evidently used them as best adapted of all the words that could have been chosen to express the extremity of his sorrow. The fact that he employed them may be referred to as "some" evidence that the psalm was designed to refer to him; though it must be admitted that this circumstance is no conclusive proof of such a design, since he might have used words having originally another reference, as best fitted to express his own sufferings. The language is abrupt, and is uttered without any previous intimation of what would produce or cause it. It comes from the midst of suffering - from one enduring intense agony - as if a new form of sorrow suddenly came upon him which he was unable to endure. That new form of suffering was the feeling that now he was forsaken by the last friend of the wretched - God himself. We may suppose that he had patiently borne all the other forms of trial, but the moment the thought strikes him that he is forsaken of God, he cries out in the bitterness of his soul, under the pressure of anguish which is no longer to be borne. All other forms of suffering he could bear. All others he had borne. But this crushes him; overpowers him; is beyond all that the soul can sustain - for the soul may bear all else but this. It is to be observed, however, that the sufferer himself still has confidence in God. He addresses him as his God, though he seems to have forsaken him: "My God; My God."
Why hast thou forsaken me? - Why hast thou abandoned me, or left me to myself, to suffer unaided and alone? As applicable to the Saviour, this refers to those dreadful moments on the cross when, forsaken by people, he seemed also to be forsaken by God Himself. God did not interpose to rescue him, but left him to bear those dreadful agonies alone. He bore the burden of the world's atonement by himself. He was overwhelmed with grief, and crushed with pain, for the sins of the world, as well as the agonies of the cross, had come upon him. But there was evidently more than this; "what" more we are unable fully to understand! There was a higher sense in which he was forsaken of God, for no mere physical sufferings, no pains of dying even on the cross, would have extorted this cry. If he had enjoyed the light of his Father's countenance; if these had been merely physical sufferings; if there was nothing else than what is apparent to our view in the record of those sufferings, we cannot suppose that this cry would have been heard even on the cross.
There is evidently some sense in which it was true that the dying Saviour was given up to darkness - to mental trouble, to despair, "as if" He who is the last hope of the suffering and the dying - the Father of mercies - had withdrawn from him; as if he were personally; a sinner; as if he were himself guilty or blameworthy on account of the sins for which he was making an expiation. In some sense he experienced what the sinner will himself experience when, for his own sins, he will be at last forsaken of God, and abandoned to despair. Every word in this wonderful exclamation may be supposed to be emphatic. "Why." What is the cause? How is it to be accounted for? What end is to be answered by it? "Hast thou." Thou, my Father; thou, the comforter of those in trouble; thou, to whom the suffering and the dying may look when all else fails. "Forsaken." Left me to suffer alone; withdrawn the light of thy countenance - the comfort of thy presence - the joy of thy manifested favor. "Me." Thy well-beloved Son; me. whom thou hast sent into the world to accomplish thine own work in redeeming man; me, against whom no sin can be charged, whose life has been perfectly pure and holy; why, now, in the extremity of these sufferings, hast thou forsaken me, and added to the agony of the cross the deeper agony of being abandoned by the God whom I love, the Father who loved me before the foundation of the world, John 17:24. There is a reason why God should forsake the wicked; but why should he forsake his own pure and holy Son in the agonies of death?
Why art thou so far from helping me? - Margin, from my salvation. So the Hebrew. The idea is that of one who stood so far off that he could not hear the cry, or that he could not reach out the hand to deliver. Compare Psalm 10:1.
And from the words of my roaring - The word used here properly denotes the roaring of a lion, Job 4:10; Isaiah 5:29; Zac 11:3; and then the outcry or the groaning of a person in great pain, Job 3:24; Psalm 32:3. It refers here to a loud cry for help or deliverance, and is descriptive of the intense suffering of the Redeemer on the cross. Compare Matthew 27:50; Luke 23:46.
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? - Show me the cause why thou hast abandoned me to my enemies; and why thou seemest to disregard my prayers and cries? For a full illustration of this passage, I beg the reader to refer to my note on Matthew 27:46.
The words of my roaring? - שאגתי shaagathi, The Vulgate, Septuagint, Syriac, Ethiopic, and Arabic, with the Anglo-Saxon, make use of terms which may be thus translated: "My sins (or foolishness) are the cause why deliverance is so far from me." It appears that these versions have read שגגתי shegagathi, "my sin of ignorance," instead of שאגתי shaagathi, "my roaring:" but no MS. extant supports this reading.
"To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David." My (a) God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? [why art thou so] far from helping me, [and from] the words of my (b) roaring?
(a) Here appears that horrible conflict, which he sustained between faith and desperation.
(b) Being tormented with extreme anguish.
My God, my God,.... God is the God of Christ as he is man; he prepared a body for him, an human nature; anointed it with the oil of gladness; supported it under all its sorrows and sufferings, and at last exalted it at his own right hand:, and Christ behaved towards him as his covenant God; prayed to him, believed in him, loved him, and was obedient to him as such; and here expresses his faith of interest in him, when he hid his face from him, on account of which he expostulates with him thus, "why hast thou forsaken me?" which is to be understood, not as if the hypostatical or personal union of the divine and human natures were dissolved, or that the one was now separated from the other: for the fulness of the Godhead still dwelt bodily in him; nor that he ceased to be the object of the Father's love; for so he was in the midst of all his sufferings, yea, his Father loved him because he laid down his life for the sheep; nor that the principle of joy and comfort was lost in him, only the act and sense of it; he was now deprived of the gracious presence of God, of the manifestations of his love to his human soul, and had a sense of divine wrath, not for his own sins, but for the sins of his people, and was for a while destitute of help and comfort; all which were necessary in order to make satisfaction for sin: for as he had the sins of his people imputed to him, he must bear the whole punishment of them, which is twofold the punishment of loss and the punishment of sense; the former lies in a deprivation of the divine presence, and the latter in a sense of divine wrath, and both Christ sustained as the surety of his people. This expostulation is made not as ignorant of the reason of it; he knew that as he was wounded and bruised for the sins of his people, he was deserted on the same account; nor as impatient, for he was a mirror of patience in all his sufferings; and much less as in despair; for, in these very words, he strongly expresses and repeats his faith of interest in God; see Psalm 22:8; and also Isaiah 50:6. But this is done to set forth the greatness and bitterness of his sufferings; that not only men hid their faces from him, and the sun in the firmament withdrew its light and heat from him, but, what was most grievous of all, his God departed from him. From hence it appears that he was truly man, had an human soul, and endured sorrows and sufferings in it; and this may be of use to his members, to expect the hidings of God's face, though on another account; and to teach them to wait patiently for him, and to trust in the Lord, and stay themselves upon their God, even while they walk in darkness and see no light;
why art thou so far from helping me? or from my salvation; from saving and delivering him out of his sorrows and sufferings? not that he despaired of help; he firmly believed he should have it, and accordingly had it: but he expostulates about the deferring of it. He adds,
and from the words of my roaring? which expresses the vehemency of his spirit in crying to God, the exceeding greatness of his sorrows, and his excruciating pains and sufferings: this is what the apostle means by his "strong crying and tears", Hebrews 5:7; or "the words of my roaring are far from my salvation"; there is a great space or interval between the one and the other, as Gussetius (u) observes.
(u) Comment. Ebr. p. 788.
The Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets, testifies in this psalm, clearly and fully, the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. We have a sorrowful complaint of God's withdrawings. This may be applied to any child of God, pressed down, overwhelmed with grief and terror. Spiritual desertions are the saints' sorest afflictions; but even their complaint of these burdens is a sign of spiritual life, and spiritual senses exercised. To cry our, My God, why am I sick? why am I poor? savours of discontent and worldliness. But, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" is the language of a heart binding up its happiness in God's favour. This must be applied to Christ. In the first words of this complaint, he poured out his soul before God when he was upon the cross, Matthew 27:46. Being truly man, Christ felt a natural unwillingness to pass through such great sorrows, yet his zeal and love prevailed. Christ declared the holiness of God, his heavenly Father, in his sharpest sufferings; nay, declared them to be a proof of it, for which he would be continually praised by his Israel, more than for all other deliverances they received. Never any that hoped in thee, were made ashamed of their hope; never any that sought thee, sought thee in vain. Here is a complaint of the contempt and reproach of men. The Saviour here spoke of the abject state to which he was reduced. The history of Christ's sufferings, and of his birth, explains this prophecy.
The obscure words Aijeleth Shahar in this title have various explanations. Most interpreters agree in translating them by "hind of the morning." But great difference exists as to the meaning of these words. By some they are supposed (compare Psalm 9:1) to be the name of the tune to which the words of the Psalm were set; by others, the name of a musical instrument. Perhaps the best view is to regard the phrase as enigmatically expressive of the subject--the sufferer being likened to a hind pursued by hunters in the early morning (literally, "the dawn of day")--or that, while hind suggests the idea of a meek, innocent sufferer, the addition of morning denotes relief obtained. The feelings of a pious sufferer in sorrow and deliverance are vividly portrayed. He earnestly pleads for divine aid on the ground of his relation to God, whose past goodness to His people encourages hope, and then on account of the imminent danger by which he is threatened. The language of complaint is turned to that of rejoicing in the assured prospect of relief from suffering and triumph over his enemies. The use of the words of the first clause of Psalm 22:1 by our Saviour on the cross, and the quotation of Psalm 22:18 by John (John 19:24), and of Psalm 22:22 by Paul (Hebrews 2:12), as fulfilled in His history, clearly intimate the prophetical and Messianic purport of the Psalm. The intensity of the grief, and the completeness and glory of the deliverance and triumph, alike appear to be unsuitable representations of the fortunes of any less personage. In a general and modified sense (see on Psalm 16:1), the experience here detailed may be adapted to the case of all Christians suffering from spiritual foes, and delivered by divine aid, inasmuch as Christ in His human nature was their head and representative. (Psalm. 22:1-31)
A summary of the complaint. Desertion by God, when overwhelmed by distress, is the climax of the sufferer's misery.
words of my roaring--shows that the complaint is expressed intelligently, though the term "roaring" is figurative, taken from the conduct of irrational creatures in pain.
(Hebrews.: 22:2-3) In the first division, Psalm 22:2, the disconsolate cry of anguish, beginning here in Psalm 22:2 with the lamentation over prolonged desertion by God, struggles through to an incipient, trustfully inclined prayer. The question beginning with למּה (instead of למּה before the guttural, and perhaps to make the exclamation more piercing, vid., on Psalm 6:5; Psalm 10:1) is not an expression of impatience and despair, but of alienation and yearning. The sufferer feels himself rejected of God; the feeling of divine wrath has completely enshrouded him; and still he knows himself to be joined to God in fear and love; his present condition belies the real nature of his relationship to God; and it is just this contradiction that urges him to the plaintive question, which comes up from the lowest depths: Why hast Thou forsaken me? But in spite of this feeling of desertion by God, the bond of love is not torn asunder; the sufferer calls God אלי (my God), and urged on by the longing desire that God again would grant him to feel this love, he calls Him, אלי אלי. That complaining question: why hast Thou forsaken me? is not without example even elsewhere in Psalm 88:15, cf. Isaiah 49:14. The forsakenness of the Crucified One, however, is unique; and may not be judged by the standard of David or of any other sufferers who thus complain when passing through trial. That which is common to all is here, as there, this, viz., that behind the wrath that is felt, is hidden the love of God, which faith holds fast; and that he who thus complains even on account of it, is, considered in itself, not a subject of wrath, because in the midst of the feeling of wrath he keeps up his communion with God. The Crucified One is to His latest breath the Holy One of God; and the reconciliation for which He now offers himself is God's own eternal purpose of mercy, which is now being realised in the fulness of times. But inasmuch as He places himself under the judgment of God with the sin of His people and of the whole human race, He cannot be spared from experiencing God's wrath against sinful humanity as though He were himself guilty. And out of the infinite depth of this experience of wrath, which in His case rests on no mere appearance, but the sternest reality,
(Note: Eusebius observes on Psalm 22:2 of this Psalm, δικαιοσύνης ὑπάρχων πηγὴ τὴν ἡμετέραν ἁμαρτίαν ἀνέλαβε καὶ εὐλογίας ὢν πέλαγος τὴν ἐπικειμένην ἡμῖν ἐδέξατο κατάραν, and: τὴν ὡρισμένην ἡμῖν παιδείαν ὑπῆλθεν ἑκὼν παιδεία γὰρ ειρήνης ἡμῶν ἐπ ̓ αὐτὸν, ᾗ φησὶν ὁ προφήτης.)
comes the cry of His complaint which penetrates the wrath and reaches to God's love, ἠλὶ ἠλὶ λαμὰ σαβαχθανί, which the evangelists, omitting the additional πρόσχες μοι
(Note: Vid., Jerome's Ep. ad Pammachium de optimo genere interpretandi, where he cries out to his critics, sticklers for tradition, Reddant rationem, cur septuaginta translatores interposuerunt "respice in me!")
of the lxx, render: Θεέ μου, θεέ μου, ἵνα τί με ἐγκατέλιπες. He does not say עזתּני, but שׁבקתּני, which is the Targum word for the former. He says it in Aramaic, not in order that all may understand it-for such a consideration was far from His mind at such a time-but because the Aramaic was His mother tongue, for the same reason that He called God אבּא doG dellac in prayer. His desertion by God, as Psalm 22:2 says, consists in God's help and His cry for help being far asunder. שׁאגה, prop. of the roar of the lion (Aq. βρύχημα), is the loud cry extorted by the greatest agony, Psalm 38:9; in this instance, however, as דּברי shows, it is not an inarticulate cry, but a cry bearing aloft to God the words of prayer. רחוק is not to be taken as an apposition of the subject of עזבתני: far from my help, (from) the words of my crying (Riehm); for דברי שׁאגתי would then also, on its part, in connection with the non-repetition of the מן, be in apposition to מישׁועתי. But to this it is not adapted on account of its heterogeneousness; hence Hitzig seeks to get over the difficulty by the conjecture משּׁועתי ("from my cry, from the words of my groaning"). Nor can it be explained, with Olshausen and Hupfeld, by adopting Aben-Ezra's interpretation, "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me, far from my help? are the words of my crying." This violates the structure of the verse, the rhythm, and the custom of the language, and gives to the Psalm a flat and unlyrical commencement. Thus, therefore, רחוק in the primary form, as in Psalm 119:155, according to Ges. 146, 4, will by the predicate to דברי and placed before it: far from my salvation, i.e., far from my being rescued, are the words of my cry; there is a great gulf between the two, inasmuch as God does not answer him though he cries unceasingly.
In Psalm 22:3 the reverential name of God אלחי takes the place of אלי the name that expresses His might; it is likewise vocative and accordingly marked with Rebia magnum. It is not an accusative of the object after Psalm 18:4 (Hitzig), in which case the construction would be continued with ולא יענה. That it is, however, God to whom he calls is implied both by the direct address אלהי, and by ולא תענה, since he from whom one expects an answer is most manifestly the person addressed. His uninterrupted crying remains unanswered, and unappeased. The clause ולא־דמיּה לּי is parallel to ולא תענה, and therefore does not mean: without allowing me any repose (Jeremiah 14:17; Lamentations 3:49), but: without any rest being granted to me, without my complaint being appeased or stilled. From the sixth to the ninth hour the earth was shrouded in darkness. About the ninth hour Jesus cried, after a long and more silent struggle, ἠλί, ἠλί. The ἀνεβόησεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Matthew 27:46, and also the κραυγὴ ἰσχυρά of Hebr. Psalm 5:7, which does not refer exclusively to the scene in Gethsemane, calls to mind the שׁאגתי of Psalm 22:2. When His passion reached its climax, days and nights of the like wrestling had preceded it, and what then becomes audible was only an outburst of the second David's conflict of prayer, which grows hotter as it draws near to the final issue.
My God - Who art my friend and father, though now thou frownest upon me. The repetition denotes, the depth of his distress, which made him cry so earnestly. Forsaken - Withdrawn the light of thy countenance, the supports and comforts of thy spirit, and filled me with the terrors of thy wrath: this was in part verified in David, but much more fully in Christ. Roaring - My out - cries forced from me, by my miseries.
*More commentary available at chapter level.