Psalm 22:1-16

Rachel Workman: ¹ My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
    Why are you so far away when I groan for help?
² Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
    Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.
I can relate to this. When you need God the most is seems like he is the most silent. I think of all the times I’ve watched my children and listened to them while they poured their hurting hearts out to me. I don't offer a solution and I don't appear to "try and fix it". Most times I am just silently listening. But in my mind and heart I'm devising a plan to help them. I don't rescue them; I silently help them in a way they are not usually aware of. I suppose it's the same way with God.
³ Yet you are holy,
    enthroned on the praises of Israel.
⁴ Our ancestors trusted in you,
    and you rescued them.
⁵ They cried out to you and were saved.
    They trusted in you and were never disgraced.
⁶ But I am a worm and not a man.
    I am scorned and despised by all!
⁷ Everyone who sees me mocks me.
    They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
⁸ “Is this the one who relies on the Lord?
    Then let the Lord save him!
If the Lord loves him so much,
    let the Lord rescue him!”
⁹ Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb
    and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ I was thrust into your arms at my birth.
    You have been my God from the moment I was born.
¹¹ Do not stay so far from me,
    for trouble is near,
    and no one else can help me.
¹² My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;
    fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!
¹³ Like lions they open their jaws against me,
    roaring and tearing into their prey.
¹⁴ My life is poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax,
    melting within me.
¹⁵ My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.
    My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
    You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.
¹⁶ My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;
    an evil gang closes in on me.
    They have pierced^[a] my hands and feet.

The suffering described here isn’t that of a sick man in bed or a soldier in battle. It’s the description of a criminal being executed! Numerous quotations from the psalm in the four gospels, as well as Hebrews 2:10–12, indicate that this is a messianic psalm. We may not know how this psalm related to the author’s personal experience, but we do know that David was a prophet (Acts 2:30), and in this psalm he wrote about the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
It is remarkable that David should describe crucifixion because it was not a Jewish means of capital punishment, and it’s unlikely that he ever saw it occur. David the prophetic psalmist (Acts 2:30) saw what would happen to Messiah centuries later.

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Allen Michaels:  ¹ My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?
    Why are you so far away when I groan for help?

David was obviously enduring some great trial, but through his suffering he, like the Messiah to come, gained victory. Jesus, the Messiah, quoted this verse while hanging on the cross carrying our burden of sin (Matthew 27:46). It was not a cry of doubt, but an urgent appeal to God.

² Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer.
    Every night I lift my voice, but I find no relief.

³ Yet you are holy,
    enthroned on the praises of Israel.
⁴ Our ancestors trusted in you,
    and you rescued them.
⁵ They cried out to you and were saved.
    They trusted in you and were never disgraced.

⁶ But I am a worm and not a man.
    I am scorned and despised by all!

When we feel the sting of rejection, we must keep in mind the hope and victory that God promises us,

⁷ Everyone who sees me mocks me.
    They sneer and shake their heads, saying,
⁸ “Is this the one who relies on the Lord?
    Then let the Lord save him!
If the Lord loves him so much,
    let the Lord rescue him!”

⁹ Yet you brought me safely from my mother’s womb
    and led me to trust you at my mother’s breast.
¹⁰ I was thrust into your arms at my birth.
    You have been my God from the moment I was born.

¹¹ Do not stay so far from me,
    for trouble is near,
    and no one else can help me.

God’s loving concern does not begin on the day we are born and conclude on the day we die. It reaches back to those days before we were born, and reaches ahead along the unending path of eternity. Our only sure help comes from a God whose concern for us reaches beyond our earthly existence. When faced with such love, how could anyone reject it?

¹² My enemies surround me like a herd of bulls;
    fierce bulls of Bashan have hemmed me in!
¹³ Like lions they open their jaws against me,
    roaring and tearing into their prey.
¹⁴ My life is poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart is like wax,
    melting within me.
¹⁵ My strength has dried up like sunbaked clay.
    My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
    You have laid me in the dust and left me for dead.
¹⁶ My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs;
    an evil gang closes in on me.
    They have pierced my hands and feet.

Like a bull using its great strength when blinded with passion, so the leaders of the Jewish nation, blind to reason and indifferent to right, with unrestrained violence and rage, used their position of power in deadly opposition to the Lord. As a roaring lion, bent upon the destruction of its prey, they were determined that Christ would die.