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The Suffering Messiah of Psalm 22
Through
the inspired pen of David (Psalm 22: 1-31) we are endowed with yet another
stunning portrait of the suffering Messiah. Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 collaborate
in presenting a crystal clear prophecy of the Jesus of Nazareth.
Forsaken and Rejected
The sufferer depicted in David's
Psalm cries out,
"My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me? why are thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my
roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night
season, and am not silent" (v.1-2).
Jesus quotes these very words
when He was at the point of death on the cross:
"About the ninth hour Jesus
cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, 'My
God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matt. 27:44-45).
As mentioned previously, God
forsook Jesus because it was at the cross that he had become a sacrifice for the
sins of mankind. The sufferer of Psalm 22 seems to recognize that God's holiness
cannot tolerate sin, and answers His own question in the very next verse:
"But thou are holy, O thou
that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in thee: they
trusted, and thou didst deliver them. They cried unto thee, and were delivered:
they trusted in thee, and were not confounded" (v.3-6).
The Israelites who trusted in God
were delivered from death. Not so the sufferer of Psalm 22. He contrasted
himself to them by saying:
"But I am a worm, and no
man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people" (v.7).
This could not refer to the
prophet David, since God delivered him from every evil attack (1 King 1:29). Nor
could it refer to the nation as a whole for the righteous nation that trusted in
God was always delivered from calamity. It must, therefore, refer to a singular
individual. In fact, it refers to the same individual spoken of by Isaiah.
"But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the
people" is strikingly parallel to Isaiah's statement: "He was despised
and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and as one
from whom men hide their face he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isa.
53:3). The venomous hatred heaped upon the suffering Messiah escalates
throughout v.7-18 climaxing in His tortuous death:
"All they that see me laugh
me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on
the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in
him" (v.8-9).
These words were spoken to Jesus
as He was writhing in agony upon the cross:
And those who passed by
blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who destroy the temple
and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down
from the cross.” Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and
elders, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of
Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He
trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, 'I am
the Son of God.'” Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him
with the same thing (Matt. 27:39-44).
"Be not far from me; for
trouble is near; for there is none to help. Many bulls have compassed me: strong
bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a
ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all my bones are
out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My
strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and
thou hast brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have compassed me: the
assembly of the wicked have enclosed me: [they pierced my hands and my feet, LXX].
I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments
among them, and cast lots upon my vesture" (v.12-19).
Here the Sufferer is brought into
the "dust of death" by His torturers. This is the identical fate of
the Servant in Isaiah 53: "... For he was cut off out of the land of the
living; through the transgressions of my people was he stricken" (Isa.
53:8).
It is understood that Jewish
theologians say that Christian translators out of a doctrinal bias mistranslate
Psalm 22:17 to fit their preconceived concept of Jesus. Most Jewish Bibles
translate this passage as follows: "Like a lion, they threaten my hands and
my feet."
First, even if this is the most
accurate rendering, this would in no way invalidate the application of the
passage to Jesus. (Incidentally, the New Testament never quotes Psalm 22:17.) In
Psalm 22, David gives a prophetic description of a crucifixion which includes
several particulars: The bones out of joint (v. 14); exhaustion and extreme
thirst (v. 15); the piercing of the hands and feet (v. 16); the bones being
visible from the severe stretching induced (v. 16); being a public spectacle of
reproach (v. 16); nakedness caused by the stripping of and gambling for His
clothes (v. 17-18); and the inevitable "death" (v. 14). This is a
graphic description of a crucifixion, which Jesus fulfilled to the smallest
detail in A.D. 33:
When [the Romans] had crucified
[Jesus], they divided up his clothes by casting lots, that it might be fulfilled
which was spoken by the prophet: "They divided My garments among them, and
for My clothing they cast lots" (Matthew. 27:35, see also John 19:23-25).
Second, the charge of doctrinal
bias could just as well be leveled at today's Jewish theologians. Granted, many
copies of Hebrew manuscripts read "like a lion," but a few say
"pierced."1 So also do some ancient versions. To
objectively settle this dispute, we should go to a source that was translated
well before the controversy began. Some 200 years before Jesus was born, 70
Jewish scholars translated the Hebrew manuscripts into what is called the Greek
Septuagint. Their translation reads: "The assembly of the wicked doers has
beset me round: they pierced my hands and my feet." Thus the preponderance
of the evidence points toward "pierced" being a proper translation.
Third, the words "like a
lion my hands and feet" do not make much sense in the context. Recognizing
this, the Jewish translator adds the words "like a lion they threaten my
hands and feet." It a well known fact that lions do not attack the hands
and feet of their prey, they go for the throat. But even permitting the
insertion of these words, we can see that the people represented by the lion are
biting, piecing if you will, the hands and feet of the sufferer, giving roughly
the same connotation as the Septuagint.
"I will declare thy name
unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee. Ye that
fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him,
all ye the seed of Israel" (v.22-23).
The prophecy suddenly shifts from
the death of the Messiah to His resurrection and subsequent appearance to His
brethren. After His resurrection, Jesus appeared to Mary declaring: "Do not
cling to Me, for I have not yet ascended to My Father; but go to My brethren and
say to them, 'I am ascending to My Father and your Father, and to My God and
your God.'" (John 20:17). Jesus also promised to be with His disciples even
after His ascension (Matt. 18:20; 28:19-20).
“For
he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath
he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard. My praise shall
be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear
him” (24-25).
Though God lets Messiah suffer
death (v.14; cf. Isa. 53:8), He does not abandon His body to the grave, but
raises Him from the dead in answer to His prayers.
"The meek shall eat and be
satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for
ever. All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all
the families of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the
Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations. All they that are fat upon
earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before
him: and none can keep alive his own soul. A seed shall serve him; it shall be
accounted to the Lord for a generation. They shall come, and shall declare his
righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done it"
(26-31).
Scofield makes the following
observation:
Verses 26-31 relate the results
of the suffering and deliverance described in the Psalm and prove its Messianic
reference beyond all question. It could not possibly be said of the suffering
and subsequent deliverance of any mere human being that it would result in both
the meek and the prosperous being fed (vv. 26,29), in all the ends of the earth
turning to the LORD (v.27), in all the dead eventually bowing before Him (v.29),
and in a new people being born (v.31).2
Isaiah prophesied that after His
resurrection the Messiah shall "see his seed" (Isa. 53:10) that is,
the spiritual offspring of the righteous One. David termed it, "a seed
shall serve him." As previously noted, Jesus' message of salvation has gone
to the ends of the earth and is even now in the process of encompassing the
globe again. All those who accept the suffering Messiah are born again into the
family of God.