(To the chief Musician. Upon Aijeleth-Shahar. A Psalm of David.) My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? [why art thou] far from my salvation, from the words of my groaning?
The psalm opens with the cry Jesus spoke from the cross. Two questions follow: who could say these words, and why did God forsake Him?
Commentators treat this cry as unlike anything else in Scripture.
There is a saying in Psalm 22 of deep and marvellous meaning — a sentence with no parallel in the whole book of God. It stands alone in the annals of eternity.
What makes it unique is the identity of the Speaker. He had done nothing to deserve the distance He describes.
And is it really true that that One was forsaken by God? Did He hide His face from the only sinless, spotless, perfect Man who ever lived in this sinful world? Did He close His ear to the cry of One who lived only to do His will? Yes; astonishing as it is to say, God did this.
The same words appear twice in Scripture, and the Sufferer knew that as He spoke them.
Here the moving words occur as prophecy. In the Gospels they are found as history. Matthew and Mark record that the Lord spoke them on the cross. In the depths of His anguish, the Lord used the words with the fullest sense of their profound meaning. He also knew that the prophecies of Psalm 22 were being fulfilled in Himself. In this work of putting away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, the Blessed One stood alone — the God-forsaken One.
In the garden He prayed to His Father. On the cross the name changes, and the change marks what was happening.
But here the Lord is speaking from the cross. It is now not "My Father" as in the garden, but "My God." The question of sin has arisen. God, who is Judge of all, is now the fitting name to address. God is the righteous governor of the world. His nature is opposed to sin, and His being demands the punishment of sin. There can be no communion between holiness and unholiness, between light and darkness.
Yet the word is still My. Even while forsaken, He does not let go of the relationship.
The word "Eloi" in the quotation expresses nearness — "My God." It is not Hebrew, but Syriac. Coming from Him who was always so near, this expression carries deep force. There was only one moment when He could be forsaken by God: this one, when He was taking our sins upon Him. He was always in the full sunshine of God's favour, for He was holy. There was indeed a deep agony of soul when He said, "Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?"
Writers point to verse 3 as the Sufferer's own reply to His own question.
That God should forsake a perfectly righteous man in his distress is entirely contrary to God's ways with men. Yet we are assured there can be no unrighteousness with God. So from the lips of Christ Himself we learn what happened on this solemn and unique occasion. God was perfectly righteous in forsaking the absolutely righteous One, for the Lord can say, "But you are holy." So the One whom God forsakes is the One who fully vindicates God. These words also tell us how deeply Christ needed to be forsaken while bearing sins, if God's holiness was to be met and man was to be blessed.
There is a second answer to the "why."
It is this: the amazing love of God toward us poor sinners, a love which led Him not only to give His Son from His bosom, but to bruise and forsake Him on the cross. Why did He do this? Because there was no other possible way for us to escape. It was either eternal hell for us, or infinite wrath for the Sin-bearer. He chose the second, and so the place Christ now holds is the place of everyone who simply believes in Him.
Believers sometimes take these words as their own. One writer warns against that.
He was forsaken then so that we might never be. It is not true, then, that the believer is forsaken by God under any circumstance. Jesus alone could say, in the fullness of the truth, both "My God" and "Why have You forsaken Me?"
The psalm's heading, Aijeleth Shahar, points past the cry to what came out of it.
So the Psalm carries its beautiful title — Aijeleth Shahar. In a strong figure of the language it means "the dawn of the morning." For that darkest night that ever was became the dawn of an endless, cloudless day for us. He was alone, how infinitely alone, in the darkness for us. Now He can join us to Himself, no longer alone, in the light He has entered.
- Alone — the cry has no parallel in Scripture; God really did hide His face from His sinless Son.
- Alone in name — "Father" gives way to "My God" because sin is now the issue. Yet "My" remains: He still holds on to God.
- Alone by holiness — verse 3 answers the "why": God was righteous in forsaking the righteous One. The Forsaken One clears God's name.
- Alone by love — He was forsaken because there was no other way for us to escape.
- Alone so we never are — He bore that forsaking so no believer would. The psalm's title, "the dawn of the morning," makes that darkest night the daybreak He now shares with us.
My God, I cry by day, and thou answerest not; and by night, and there is no rest for me
Verse 2 carries on the cry that opened the psalm and fills in what being forsaken felt like: a voice raised by day and by night, with no reply from God. Why was this one prayer refused, what does the night stand for, and did the silence ever break?
The sorrow here is not what men did to Him. It is what God withheld. Yet the One who is forsaken keeps His hold on God, who gives nothing back.
Here is One who is absolutely forsaken by God. In His distress there is no help for Him in God. The words of His groaning call forth no response from God. His cry receives no answer from God. The night season brings Him no rest from God. And yet, the One who is forsaken like this is the only absolutely righteous One on earth. Furthermore, this righteous One, though forsaken, keeps unshaken confidence in God. He can still say, "My God."
The reason was not that God had changed. It was that Christ had taken a new place.
His cry now is, "Why have You forsaken Me?" He repeats it. In all His sufferings from the hands of man the face of God was upon Him, but now His face is turned away. Why did God forsake Him? Was it for His righteousness, His holiness, His love? No. "He was made sin." When He suffered for righteousness' sake, He was representing God before man. But when He suffered for sin, He was representing man before God. He was forsaken by all; man fled; God hid His face. He was alone when He drank the cup of wrath, and those sufferings brought nothing but blessing.
Commentators differ over which hours the night stands for. One reading points to the darkness at the crucifixion, when day turned to night.
But then the noonday sun was supernaturally eclipsed. There was darkness over the whole land from the sixth to the ninth hour. The Holy Sufferer was hidden from the eyes of men. He was closeted with God; and in the "night season" He was not silent. But out of the prevailing darkness came the cry, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
The older wording behind these quotes reads "in the night season, and am not silent." The ESV has "by night, but I find no rest."
Another reading points back to Gethsemane, the garden where He prayed the night before the cross, and finds that prayer here.
Resurrection was the divine answer, then, to a prayer that was heard. But in the twenty-second psalm, which also stresses a prayer that was heard, we have a prayer of the same blessed Person. About it He says, "I cry by day and You do not hear; and by night, and I am not silent." Do we not have here the true Gethsemane prayer we are looking for? Here then is the awful "cup" He is looking forward to in Gethsemane. It is the subject of the one and only prayer about which it could be said, of Him who was heard always, "You do not hear."
The unanswered cry is not the psalm's last word on prayer. Later in the same psalm, the same Sufferer says that God heard Him.
"I cry … and You do not answer," are the words of the psalm of atonement. But then again, "when He cried to Him, He heard" (Psalm 22:2, 24). Both things are, of course, true: each suited to its place.
How can both be true? The answer turns on one small word.
In the correct translation we see the answer. He could not be saved "from" death but He was saved "out of" death. At the beginning of that Psalm He was not heard, but after the work was accomplished He was heard (verses 2 and 21).
Heaven gave Him nothing that day. It stands open now, and what He did there is the reason.
Those heavens were once like copper to Him as He cried, "O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer, and by night, but I find no rest." Now they drop down refreshing showers. They are opened wide for faith to see the Son of Man upon the throne, for He has magnified God's character in our salvation.
- Silence, not cruelty. The verse describes what God withheld, not what men inflicted — no help, no response, no rest.
- Silence explained. He was made sin. The face that had always rested on Him turned away, and He drank that cup alone.
- Silence timed. Some place the "night" in the three hours of darkness at the cross, others in the garden the night before.
- Silence broken. The same psalm that says "you do not answer" also says that when He cried, God heard — both true, each in its place.
- Silence repaid. Because heaven was shut over Him, it stands open over us.