Psalm 22
Exposition
Explanatory Notes and Quaint Sayings
Hints to the Village Preacher
Other Work
TITLE. "To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar. A Psalm of David."
This ode of singular excellence was committed to the most excellent of the
temple songsters; the chief among ten thousand is worthy to be extolled by
the chief Musician; no meaner singer must have charge of such a strain; we
must see to it that we call up our best abilities when Jesus is the theme of
praise. The words Aijeleth Shahar are enigmatical, and their meaning is
uncertain; some refer them to a musical instrument used upon mournful
occasions, but the majority adhere to the translation of our margin,
"Concerning the kind of the morning." This last interpretation is the
subject of much enquiry and conjecture. Calmet believed that the psalm was
addressed to the music master who presided over the band called the "Morning
Hind," and Adam Clarke thinks this to be the most likely of all the
conjectural interpretations, although he himself inclines to the belief that
no interpretation should be attempted, and believes that it is a merely
arbitrary and unmeaning title, such as Orientals have always been in the
habit of appending to their songs. Our Lord Jesus is so often compared to a
hind, and his cruel huntings are so pathetically described in this most
affecting psalm, that we cannot but believe that the title indicates the
Lord Jesus under a well-known poetical metaphor; at any rate, Jesus is the
Hind of the morning concerning whom David here sings.
SUBJECT. This is beyond all others THE PSALM OF THE CROSS. It may have
been actually repeated word by word by our Lord when hanging on the tree; it
would be too bold to say that it was so, but even a casual reader may see
that it might have been. It begins with, "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me?" and ends, according to some, in the original with "It is
finished." For plaintive expressions uprising from unutterable depths of woe
we may say of this psalm, "there is none like it." It is the photograph of
our Lord's saddest hours, the record of his dying words, the lachrymatory of
his last tears, the memorial of his expiring joys. David and his
afflictions may be here in a very modified sense, but, as the star is
concealed by the light of the sun, he who sees Jesus will probably neither
see nor care to see David. Before us we have a description both of the
darkness and of the glory of the cross, the sufferings of Christ and the
glory which shall follow. Oh for grace to draw near and see this great
sight! We should read reverently, putting off our shoes from off our feet,
as Moses did at the burning bush, for if there be holy ground anywhere in
Scripture it is in this psalm.
DIVISION. From the commencement to the twenty-first verse is a most
pitiful cry for help, and from verse 21 to 31 is a most precious foretaste
of deliverance. The first division may be subdivided at the tenth verse,
from verse 1 to 10 being an appeal based upon covenant relationship; and
from verse 10 to 21 being an equally earnest plea derived from the imminence
of his peril.
EXPOSITION
Verse 1. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" This was the
startling cry of Golgotha: Eloi, Eloi, lama sabacthani. The Jews mocked,
but the angels adored when Jesus cried this exceeding bitter cry. Nailed to
the tree we behold our great Redeemer in extremities, and what see we?
Having ears to hear let us hear, and having eyes to see let us see! Let us
gaze with holy wonder, and mark the flashes of light amid the awful darkness
of that midday-midnight. First, our Lord's faith beams forth and deserves
our reverent imitation; he keeps his hold upon his God with both hands and
cries twice, "My God, my God!" The spirit of adoption was strong within
the suffering Son of Man, and he felt no doubt about his interest in his
God. Oh that we could imitate this cleaving to an afflicting God! Nor does
the sufferer distrust the power of God to sustain him, for the title used
— "El" —signifies strength, and is the name of the Mighty God. He
knows the Lord to be the all-sufficient support and succour of his spirit,
and therefore appeals to him in the agony of grief, but not in the misery of
doubt. He would fain know why he is left, he raises that question and
repeats it, but neither the power nor the faithfulness of God does he
mistrust. What an enquiry is this before us! "Why hast thou forsaken
me?" We must lay the emphasis on every word of this saddest of all
utterances. "Why?" what is the great cause of such a strange fact as for
God to leave his own Son at such a time and in such a plight? There was no
cause in him, why then was he deserted? "Hast:" it is done, and the
Saviour is feeling its dread effect as he asks the question; it is surely
true, but how mysterious! It was no threatening of forsaking which made the
great Surety cry aloud, he endured that forsaking in very deed. "Thou:" I
can understand why traitorous Judas and timid Peter should be gone, but
thou, my God, my faithful friend, how canst thou leave me? This is worst
of all, yea, worse than all put together. Hell itself has for its fiercest
flame the separation of the soul from God. "Forsaken:" if thou hadst
chastened I might bear it, for thy face would shine; but to forsake me
utterly, ah! why is this? "Me:" thine innocent, obedient, suffering Son,
why leavest thou me to perish? A sight of self seen by penitence, and of
Jesus on the cross seen by faith will best expound this question. Jesus is
forsaken because our sins had separated between us and our God.
"Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my
roaring?" The Man of Sorrows had prayed until his speech failed him, and
he could only utter moanings and groanings as men do in severe sicknesses,
like the roarings of a wounded animal. To what extremity of grief was our
Master driven? What strong crying and tears were those which made him too
hoarse for speech! What must have been his anguish to find his own beloved
and trusted Father standing afar off, and neither granting help nor
apparently hearing prayer! This was good cause to make him "roar." Yet
there was reason for all this which those who rest in Jesus as their
Substitute well know.
Verse 2. "O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not." For our
prayers to appear to be unheard is no new trial, Jesus felt it before us,
and it is observable that he still held fast his believing hold on God, and
cried still, "My God." On the other hand his faith did not render him
less importunate, for amid the hurry and horror of that dismal day he ceased
not his cry, even as in Gethsemane he had agonized all through the gloomy
night. Our Lord continued to pray even though no comfortable answer came,
and in this he set us an example of obedience to his own words, "men ought
always to pray, and not to faint." No daylight is too glaring, and no
midnight too dark to pray in; and no delay or apparent denial, however
grievous, should tempt us to forbear from importunate pleading.
Verse 3. "But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of
Israel." However ill things may look, there is no ill in thee, O God! We
are very apt to think and speak hardly of God when we are under his
afflicting hand, but not so the obedient Son. He knows too well his
Father's goodness to let outward circumstances libel his character. There
in no unrighteousness with the God of Jacob, he deserves no censure; let him
do what he will, he is to be praised, and to reign enthroned amid the songs
of his chosen people. If prayer be unanswered it is not because God is
unfaithful, but for some other good and weighty reason. If we cannot
perceive any ground for the delay, we must leave the riddle unsolved, but we
must not fly in God's face in order to invent an answer. While the holiness
of God is in the highest degree acknowledged and adored, the afflicted
speaker in this verse seems to marvel how the holy God could forsake him,
and be silent to his cries. The argument is, thou art holy, Oh! why is it
that thou dost disregard thy holy One in his hour of sharpest anguish? We
may not question the holiness of God, but we may argue from it, and use it
as a plea in our petitions.
Verse 4. "Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst
deliver them." This is the rule of life with all the chosen family. Three
times over is it mentioned, they trusted, and trusted, and trusted,
and never left off trusting, for it was their very life; and they fared well
too, for thou didst deliver them. Out of all their straits, difficulties,
and miseries faith brought them by calling their God to the rescue; but in
the case of our Lord it appeared as if faith would bring no assistance from
heaven, he alone of all the trusting ones was to remain without deliverance.
The experience of other saints may be a great consolation to us when in deep
waters if faith can be sure that their deliverance will be ours; but when we
feel ourselves sinking, it is poor comfort to know that others are swimming.
Our Lord here pleads the past dealings of God with his people as a reason
why he should not be left alone; here again he is an example to us in the
skilful use of the weapon of all prayer. The use of the plural pronoun
"our" shows how one with his people Jesus was even on the cross. We say,
"Our Father which art in heaven," and he calls those "our fathers" through
whom we came into the world, although he was without father as to the flesh.
Verse 5. "They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee,
and were not confounded." As if he had said, "How is it that I am now left
without succour in my overwhelming griefs, while all others have been
helped? We may remind the Lord of his former lovingkindnesses to his
people, and beseech him to be still the same. This is true wrestling; let
us learn the art. Observe, that ancient saints cried and trusted, and
that in trouble we must do the same; and the invariable result was that they
were not ashamed of their hope, for deliverance came in due time; this same
happy portion shall be ours. The prayer of faith can do the deed when
nothing else can. Let us wonder when we see Jesus using the same pleas as
ourselves, and immersed in griefs far deeper than our own.
Verse 6. "But I am a worm, and no man." This verse is a miracle in
language. How could the Lord of glory be brought to such abasement as to be
not only lower than the angels, but even lower than men. What a contrast
between "I AM" and "I am a worm"! yet such a double nature was found in
the person of our Lord Jesus when bleeding upon the tree. He felt himself
to be comparable to a helpless, powerless, down-trodden worm, passive while
crushed, and unnoticed and despised by those who trod upon him. He selects
the weakest of creatures, which is all flesh; and becomes, when trodden
upon, writhing, quivering flesh, utterly devoid of any might except strength
to suffer. This was a true likeness of himself when his body and soul had
become a mass of misery—the very essence of agony—in the dying pangs
of crucifixion. Man by nature is but a worm; but our Lord puts himself even
beneath man, on account of the scorn that was heaped upon him and the
weakness which he felt, and therefore he adds, "and no man." The
privileges and blessings which belonged to the fathers he could not obtain
while deserted by God, and common acts of humanity were not allowed him, for
he was rejected of men; he was outlawed from the society of earth, and shut
out from the smile of heaven. How utterly did the Saviour empty himself of
all glory, and become of no reputation for our sakes! "A reproach of men"
—their common butt and jest; a byword and a proverb unto them: the sport
of the rabble, and the scorn of the rulers. Oh the caustic power of
reproach, to those who endure it with patience, yet smart under it most
painfully! "And despised of the people." The vox populi was against
him. The very people who would once have crowned him then contemned him,
and they who were benefited by his cures sneered at him in his woes. Sin is
worthy of all reproach and contempt, and for this reason Jesus, the
Sinbearer, was given up to be thus unworthily and shamefully entreated.
Verse 7. "All they that see me laugh me to scorn." Read the evangelistic
narrative of the ridicule endured by the Crucified One, and then consider,
in the light of this expression, how it grieved him. The iron entered into
his soul. Mockery has for its distinctive description "cruel mockings;"