Psalm 22:1
1 To the chief Musician [natsach] upon Aijeleth ['ayeleth]
Shahar, [shachar] A Psalm [mizmowr] of David. [David]
My God, ['el] my God, ['el] why hast thou forsaken [`azab] me? why art thou so far [rachowq] from helping [yashuw`ah]
me, and from the words [dabar] of my roaring [shaagah]? KJV-Interlinear
1 For
the choir director; upon Aijeleth Hashshahar. A Psalm of David.
My God,
my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my
groaning. NASB
The words Aijeleth Shahar,
‘ayeleth shachar,’ mean hind of the morning.
The hind, refers to a young
female deer. The morning refers to the
rise or dawn of a new day.
We look to Prov. 5:19, to
find a bit more information concerning the female deer. The Bible often uses the doe as a thing of
beauty, the feminine gender indicates the nurturing nature of the deer in
nursing its offspring as an infant nurses from its mothers breast to its
delight and satisfaction.
The address to the chief
musician as before in many of the psalms is a reference to the grace of God,
wherein the music plays on regardless of the situation, or circumstances of
life.
Written by David, this psalm
has been quoted in the New Testament, Matt. 27:46, which are the exact words
quoted by Christ when He was hanging on the Cross, during those three hours of
total darkness, beginning at noon on the day of Passover, and ending at 3pm
that same afternoon, then Christ declared the work finished, and subsequently
pushed his breath of life out of Himself, and died physically, after the work
of salvation had been completed.
The verses of this psalm
do not apply to David. David was never
crucified, never without a helper, never despised of the people, never stripped
of his clothes, was never in a state of exhaustion or emaciation, never pierced
in his hands or feet, never made a gazing stock, never had his garments taken,
never had his garments drawn lots for and divided up among his persecutors.
The psalm is messianic in
nature and is a testimony of the details of the events of the crucifixion of
the Messiah, and has no other subject with which it may be referred.
For by the grace of God,
as the music plays on, the judgment of the Lord was the beginning of a new day,
the rise of the new age, and should be considered not with anger or disgust
over the Messiah having been crucified, but with the pleasure and satisfaction
of a new born infant nursing from its mother, giving it new life and
opportunity for something far better.
As grace flows through
history without even a skip of a heartbeat, so too, the work of God in salvation
occurred on time, on schedule, and as planned since eternity past, without even
a moments hesitation or delay.
And then the psalm opens
up with the ultimate judgment of all of history, ‘My God, My God,’ a reference
to the two members of the Trinity, the Father and the Spirit, stepping back and
away from the second member of the Trinity, the Son, as the action of judgment
was beginning and continuing for its three hour duration until its conclusion.
‘Why have you forsaken
me,’ is a rhetorical question, whose answer is found in the scriptures, since Genesis
and the time of Adam, when the Savior was promised, through the time of Moses when
the many sacrifices that have occurred since Adam, were recorded and formalized
in written form. Thus declaring the
intent and plan of God, to become man and to give Himself over in payment of
sin, so that man would have a salvation and the opportunity to be saved.
This was planned in
eternity past, and conducted at the time of the Cross.
‘Why so far from helping
and why so far from my roaring,’ point the extreme nature of this judgment.
Jesus is God. Jesus is man.
The humanity of Jesus went to the Cross and suffered the most violent
and horrible judgment beyond anything that anyone could even begin to imagine. This indicates that God in fact withdraw
while the judgment was occurring. And
when God withdraws from anyone or anything, then that action is extreme and the
most terrible action that can possibly occur.
While the nature of the
events and the treatment of Jesus leading up to the Cross were horrible to say the
least, they were only Satanic attempts to get Jesus to become angry and to fail
prior to the Cross. Jesus held his
poise.
The events of the
judgment which He endured on the Cross at the hand of God, were far, far more
violent and extreme than anything man could cause.
The roaring is the
groaning or physical expressions felt and endured by Jesus. The tears of physical stress and pressure did
not produce deliverance for Jesus. Nothing
man can do in penance can bring salvation or restoration of man to God.
Only Gods work, only Gods
sacrifice, only Gods divine solution is able to bring salvation.
There is nothing that you
can do, think, say, or be sorry for, that will add to your salvation or
restored spiritual life once you have been saved.
