Many bulls have encompassed me; Bashan's strong ones have beset me round.
The verse pictures a ring of animals closing in on the Sufferer. He names His enemies as bulls, and commentators agree that this belongs to what Christ suffered at the hands of men — not yet to the darkness of being forsaken by God.
This verse opens a section on what men did to Christ. One writer counts the verses, then warns that even this is not the psalm's deepest agony.
We now have, in seven verses, the full extent of His suffering at the hands of man. We may go over it and list the items one by one. But who can measure what it was for Him? No one ever matched Him in capacity for sorrow, or in understanding all that can be in the human heart. Yet even this was not part of the special agony that marks this psalm of atonement.
The psalm's animal images work as a set. Each names a different enemy, and the bull stands for a will that does as it pleases.
In Psalms 20, 21, we see human enemies, and judgment, but in Psalm 22 divine wrath and perfect grace. In verse 12, bulls, that is, violent men, who do their own will; in verse 16, dogs, that is shameless ones. In verse 21, the lion's mouth, that is, Satan's power over death.
The Hebrew word behind "strong bulls" points the same way:
In Psalm 22:12 the word behind "strong [bulls]" is abbir, meaning "mighty one." It is translated "bulls" in Psalm 50:13; Psalm 68:30; Isaiah 34:7; Jeremiah 50:11.
Bashan had rich grazing land. Cattle fattened there picture men swollen with self-importance.
First we must realize the strength of these enemies. They are bulls, with lowered horns and a reckless charge — strong beasts fattened on the rich pastures of Bashan, men whom "fullness of bread" had filled with pride and insolence. Caiaphas the Sadducee was one of them. He prophesied without knowing it, moved only by the instinct of self-preservation, with eyes as blind to eternity as they were sharp about present things. He was a picture of many more like him.
The same figure appears elsewhere in Scripture for the same kind of men, and God has an answer for them:
BULLS OF BASHAN are figurative of strong ruthless enemies, Amos 4:1, whom God in the coming judgement on Gog will crush, and will call for the fowls and the beasts to come and feed upon their flesh and their blood, Ezek. 39:18.
Commentators name these enemies as the nation's religious leaders. They also trace the shift to a lion in the next verse back to Satan.
Then in verses 12 and 13 we have the persecution of the Jews. The leaders of that people attacked Him with the strength and ferocity of bulls. The militant Pharisees were like strong bulls of Bashan, and because they were Satan's special agents in this, they shared his character. He bears the character of "a roaring lion."
He was surrounded on every side, and He did not answer that pressure with force of His own.
Violence, with no restraint and full of rage, surrounded Him — bulls of Bashan, savage and roaring lions. No proud human strength met this. He had to meet it and feel it in the meekness of His nature, and to know the weakness of human nature, though never its sin, except in bearing it… But here He does not stop, and He could not stop, at second causes… The point here is His state, the dust of death. Yet He looks at the real source of it all: the thoughts and purposes of Jehovah. This is perfection in this respect. He feels fully what these enemies are and sees their character clearly, and they are only the instruments of our suffering; yet through it all He looks to the ways and wisdom and will of God.
after
The cruelty of men was real. One writer sets it beside something heavier still.
Here is Christ forsaken by God. He is despised by the people too: strong bulls of Bashan surrounded Him, dogs closed in on Him, the assembly of the wicked shut Him in. He felt all this as no one but Christ could feel it. Yet what was it beside the awful reality of Christ suffering from the hand of God — of Christ suffering for sin? It is a sad but useful picture, this side of man. It is all the same nature; we were like that. But turn it round: what is the other side? Christ has shown what God is, and He is love, even when it is a question of our sins.
- Man's side — Seven verses now describe all that Christ suffered from men. This is not yet the psalm's deepest agony.
- Bulls — Violent men doing their own will. The Hebrew word for "strong" means "mighty one."
- Bashan — Rich pasture land, picturing well-fed men, proud and insolent, like Caiaphas.
- Behind them — The nation's leaders acted as Satan's agents, so the picture shifts from bull to roaring lion.
- His answer — He never stopped at the men, who were only instruments. He looked through them to the will of God, and there showed what God is: love, even about our sins.
They gape upon me with their mouth, [as] a ravening and a roaring lion.
On the cross the Sufferer describes His enemies as animals. He sees mouths stretched wide, and behind them He hears the roar of a lion. Psalm 22 places this among the sufferings Christ received from men. So who are these enemies, and who roars through them?
Each animal in this Psalm names a different kind of enemy.
In Psalms 20 and 21 we see human enemies and judgment, but in Psalm 22 divine wrath and perfect grace. In verse 12, bulls — that is, violent men who do their own will; in verse 16, dogs — that is, shameless ones. In verse 21, the lion's mouth — that is, Satan's power over death.
The gaping mouths belonged to real people. They roar like a lion because they served one.
Then in verses 12 and 13 we have the persecution of the Jews. The leaders of that people attacked Him with the strength and ferocity of bulls. The militant Pharisees were like strong bulls of Bashan. They were Satan's special agents in this matter, so they took on his character. Satan bears the character of "a roaring lion."
A lion's open mouth threatens before it bites. That noise had a purpose against Christ, and it has the same purpose against His people.
Satan not only presents himself as a serpent, but also as a roaring lion. It was in this character that the Lord Jesus met him in Gethsemane and at the cross. Nothing is more terrifying than the roar of the lion. Satan wanted to frighten the holy soul of Christ, to make Him abandon the divine path that led down to the sacrifice… At the cross he opened his mouth against Christ "like a ravening and roaring lion" (Ps. 22:13). There the Lord, in "the weakness of God," overcame "the strong man," and through death He nullified his power (Heb. 2:14). Satan comes to the children of God in the same form. "Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8). If he cannot deceive us, he tries to frighten us.
What men did to Him and what God did to Him are not the same. This verse stands on the first side.
Notice the essential difference between the sufferings Christ received from man and from God. The first were for righteousness. The second were for sin. The consequence of the first (Psalm 21) is that He will make His enemies as a fiery oven in the day of His wrath. In the second He was bearing wrath. Its fruit is pure blessing, and nothing else. (See Psalm 22:11-23.)
The same rage broke out again after the cross. Stephen, one of the first Christian preachers, told Israel's leaders the truth. God has an answer for such teeth.
"You have broken the teeth of the ungodly." Of course this is a figure for breaking their power to devour those they considered enemies. Psalm 22:13 shows it… and so does Acts 7:54. There the religious leaders of Israel had arrested Stephen. He had told them the truth about their whole history of refusing the testimony of God, which ended in their rejecting and crucifying the Lord of Glory. They bitterly resented that he had exposed them as actual enemies of God, and "gnashed at him with their teeth."
The Psalm does not leave Him inside the lion's jaws. Later the cry changes, and the answer comes. The commentator below quotes verse 21 from an older translation.
He says, "Save me from the lion's mouth: for You have heard me from the horns of the wild oxen" (Ps. 22:21). In that awful hour the enemy spends his full fury against Him, and He cries, "Save me from the lion's mouth." He had borne the full penalty of our guilt. He had entered into the judgment of God and exhausted it. The concentrated power of the forces of darkness, and all the evil of man, came against Jesus, and He sustained it all. When all has been borne He can say with triumph, "You have heard Me."
- Bulls — the open mouths belong to violent men who do their own will. These leaders attacked Him with a bull's strength and ferocity.
- Lion — behind those men stands Satan, whose character they took on. He opens his mouth against Christ, and his weapon is terror.
- Roar — the noise was meant to frighten Him off the road to the sacrifice. Satan still uses it on believers he cannot deceive.
- Divide — here Christ suffers from man, for righteousness. The wrath He bore for sin is separate, and its fruit is pure blessing.
- Silenced — the cry "Save me from the lion's mouth" gets its answer: "You have heard Me." Through death He nullified the strong man's power; teeth that gnash are teeth God breaks.
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint my heart is become like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
In Psalm 22 we hear the crucifixion from the inside, in the words of the Sufferer Himself. Verse 14 turns from the enemies around Him to His own condition: strength gone, bones out of joint, a heart melting away. It also raises a question. Who brought Him to that state?
Elsewhere in Scripture, a repentant people poured water out on the ground as a sign. One writer sets that act beside this verse:
There is a beautiful line of truth through 1 Samuel 1-7… In the course of all this, the people are brought to repentance and confession. The sign of this is the symbolic act of spilling the water on the ground. It shows the good-for-nothingness of flesh, that all it is fit for is to return to the dust it came from. Jesus speaks of being "poured out like water," and laid "in the dust of death." (Psalm 22)
The verse describes a man with nothing left to resist with. One writer traces that helplessness past the men who caused it:
It was no proud strength of man that met this. He had to meet it and feel it in the meekness of His nature. He had to know the weakness of human nature, though never its sin, except in bearing it. He was poured out like water. All His bones are out of joint; His heart melted like wax within Him. His strength is dried up like a piece of broken pottery; His tongue clings to His jaws. But here there is no stopping, nor could He stop, at second causes. He is down in the dust of death; but Jehovah has brought Him there.
Others died this same death and felt the same things in the body. One writer names what set Him apart:
Verses 14 and 15 portray His bodily sufferings. In these, of course, He was not unique. The two thieves crucified on either side must have shared them, and so have all others who have ever died this terrible death. What was unique was His power of feeling. In Him sin had blunted no sensitivity; everything reached the highest pitch of perfection.
Wax does not melt on its own. Something must be burning. One writer names the fire:
And He who meets all this — in what condition is He to endure it? He has come from the agony of the garden; He is facing the worse agony of the cross. Their "hour" is that of the "power of darkness," and of the forsaking of God. What strength can there be to resist, when the Father's hand itself is giving Him the cup? His "heart is melted like wax" in the sacrificial fire of wrath against sin.
We can also read the verse from God's side of the altar. One writer comments on the fat of the sacrifices, the part that speaks of what is most precious to God, and hears this psalm in it:
So we may say the fat speaks of our blessed Lord Himself, in His unreserved and perfectly acceptable devotion to God's holy will. To accomplish that will, He gave up all the strength of His holy and perfect life in the work of the cross. Are not those words of Psalm 22 significant of this? "I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it is melted within My breast."
How does "all my bones are out of joint" fit with the promise that no bone of His would be broken? One reference work weighs the two:
Some Greek manuscripts leave out the word "broken" in 1 Corinthians 11:24, and so do some editors. They perhaps thought it clashed with Psalm 34:20 and John 19:36, "Not one of his bones will be broken." But in Psalm 22:14 the Lord said, "All my bones are out of joint." That would correspond to a broken body.
This verse is not the bottom of the psalm. One writer sets the body's collapse beside a deeper grief:
His soul was already poured out like water, His heart melted like wax within Him. Then came the forsaking of God. Is it not clear that this, in the condition of His soul, crowned the sorrow and completed His holy dread?
- Poured out. Water poured out on the ground was a sign of the worthlessness of flesh, fit only to return to dust. He uses that figure of Himself.
- Poured out by God. He does not stop at the men who nailed Him there; He says it was Jehovah who brought Him to the dust of death.
- Poured out feeling everything. Others endured the same execution; none had His unblunted capacity to feel it.
- Poured out in fire. The melting heart is wax in the sacrificial fire of wrath against sin — the Father handed Him that cup.
- Poured out as offering. Seen from the altar's side, the same collapse is devotion: He gave up all the strength of His life to God's will.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my palate; and thou hast laid me in the dust of death.
This verse is the last stage of a descent: strength gone, mouth too dry to speak, a body laid in dust. The words are David's, but commentators hear the voice of Christ on the cross — and ask whose hand put Him there.
Crucifixion did not exist when David wrote, and the psalm's details never fit his own life.
More than a thousand years before, the Holy Spirit wrote a psalm with His mind full of what was to happen upon the cross. It could not apply to David, who wrote it. It could only apply to one Person, and to that Person in one set of circumstances. It could only apply to the Lord Jesus and His sacrificial death upon the cross. Hear His lament: "My strength is dried up like a potsherd."
A potsherd is not a whole vessel. It is a piece of one that broke.
A fragment of pottery. Scripture compares man to it when he strives with his Maker (Isaiah 45:9). David uses the word in the Psalm that prophesies the Lord's sacrificial sufferings: "My strength is dried up like a potsherd" (Psalm 22:15).
That weakness runs through His whole death.
Death is not evidence of power; it is the completion of weakness. Christ was crucified through weakness, but lives by the power of God. He came to bear the judgment which lay upon man; He tasted death in all its bitterness; He drank the cup of wrath for us and gave up His spirit. In the sorrow of His heart He said that God had weakened His strength in the way (Psalm 102). He said that His strength was dried up like a potsherd, and that He was brought into the dust of death. He felt what the weakness of death was when, forsaken of God, He gave Himself for our sins.
The verse does not stop at the condition. It names the cause.
Here there is no stopping, nor could He stop, at second causes. He is down in the dust of death; but Jehovah has brought Him there. The point here is His state, the dust of death; only He looks at the real source of it all, at the thoughts and counsels of Jehovah. This is perfection in this respect. He felt the full character of the enemies who are the instruments of our suffering, and judged it rightly. Yet He looked through it all to the ways and wisdom and will of God.
Yet He was not a victim.
But then He adds what God has done: "You have brought Me to the dust of death." For men could not take His life from Him (John 10:17-18), though they were guilty of crucifying Him. Laying down His life was a divine work. He laid it down of Himself, and it was just as true that God brought Him to the dust of death.
The source of the blow changes everything that follows from it.
Man is in the scene, both Jew and Gentile, but only as the blind instrument for carrying out the divine will. It is from God's hand that the Lord takes the cup. "You have brought Me," He says, "into the dust of death." Here He suffers from the hand of God, and is forsaken. That is exactly why we have atonement in this psalm. In Psalm 69, for example, He suffers from man's hand, and His death is more that of a martyr. In Psalm 69, where the Lord suffers from man in his wickedness, the result is pure and unmixed judgment. In Psalm 22, where atonement is found, grace and blessing flow out in ever-widening circles, until they reach the ends of the earth.
That dry tongue returns in one short word from the cross.
No doubt these words express the distressing physical effect of all that mind and heart and body had endured until then. But His last request was bound up not only with His need. It also came from His undying zeal for the word, if only one thing was still lacking to make it honourable. Every word that proceeds from God's mouth must be fulfilled. Had He not said of Messiah, "My tongue sticks to my jaws," and "In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink"?
Dust, in the end, became the surface He wrote on.
What He wrote there we are not told, but we do know that He was going "into the dust of death" (Psalm 22:15), where He wrote a full declaration of the love of God.
- Dust named. The psalm describes a death David never died. The dryness and the dust belong to Christ on the cross alone.
- Dust as weakness. A potsherd is a piece of something once whole. Death here is not power but weakness completed, and He entered it by choice.
- Dust from God's hand. He looks past the soldiers and the crowd to the real source: God brought Him there, and He laid His life down Himself.
- Dust as atonement. The blow falls from God, not man. So this psalm yields atonement, and blessing that widens out to the ends of the earth.
- Dust that speaks. The tongue too dry to speak still opened to say "I thirst," so that Scripture would be fulfilled.
For dogs have encompassed me; an assembly of evil-doers have surrounded me they pierced my hands and my feet.
Psalm 22 describes the cross long before crucifixion was known. Verse 16 is the moment the circle closes around the Sufferer, and it raises two questions: who are these "dogs," and how could David describe a death that no one around him had ever seen?
The verse names two groups. Commentators read them as Gentile and Jew, joined against Christ. One writer points to enemies who became allies at the cross:
Pilate and Herod had been enemies. Yet they could bury their hatred and agree together in rejecting the Son of God. The Jews had nothing but contempt for the Gentiles, whom they called "the uncircumcised." Yet they could join them in heaping insult and shame on Christ. "For dogs (Gentiles) encompass me; a company of evildoers (Jews) encircles me" (Ps. 22:16). Satan is well able to bring about unity for the accomplishment of his dreadful purposes.
The word is not a throwaway insult. In this psalm each animal name stands for something:
In verse 12, bulls, that is, violent men who do their own will; in verse 16, dogs, that is, shameless ones. In verse 21, the lion's mouth, that is, Satan's power over death.
The picture carries the whole nature of a street dog over to the crowd at the cross:
How completely the Cross showed what man is! "Dogs" — heartless, shameless, unclean, feeding on refuse, hunting in packs like "a company of evildoers" here. They gathered around a sight of distress beyond compare. They had no pity for it, and there was no escape from it.
Here the psalm names the exact way Christ would die. David had never seen such a death:
The Psalm foretold the way He would die: "They have pierced my hands and feet" (verse 16). At that time crucifixion was unknown. How David himself must have wondered when he wrote those words. They did not refer to his hands. His hands were not pierced.
The rest of the psalm fills in more marks of that same death:
The bones out of joint — hands, arms, shoulders and pelvis (verse 14). The heavy sweating caused by intense suffering (verse 14). The action of the heart affected (verse 14). Strength gone and extreme thirst (verse 15). The hands and feet pierced (verse 16)… Remember that crucifixion was a Roman form of execution, not a Jewish one. The proof of inspiration is irresistible.
Scholars have long argued over one Hebrew word here. A commentator weighs the evidence and gives his verdict:
It is a question of reading. Cahari means "as a lion." Caharu, most likely, means "they pierced," and the difference in Hebrew is very slight. All the ancient translations give "they pierced." The Masora (the ancient Jewish record of the text) confirms it. One of the most critical Jewish scholars approves it, appealing to his own good Jewish manuscripts… What is most against "pierced," though it proves nothing, is that the New Testament never refers to it, though it refers to other parts of the Psalms. However, my own conviction is that "they pierced" is right.
The same word appears in a law about a slave who would not go free. The link runs through an older wording of Psalm 40:6:
A slave who was due to go free could refuse it because he loved his master; then his master bored his ear through with an awl. This is far from obedience forced by fear of punishment. The slave gladly suffers pain and sheds his blood rather than stop serving. There is no doubt that this pictures the divine Servant binding Himself to endless service of His own will, because of His love for God and for the Bride. In Psalm 40:6 He says, "You have opened my ears" — the word translated "opened," kahhrah, is translated in Psalm 22:16 "pierced" (my hands and feet).
The verse shows the human side of the cross. The psalm does not stop there:
It was they indeed who surrounded Him. They pierced His hands and His feet. But the psalm adds, "YOU have brought me into the dust of death." No human hand, no human will, no power of Satan could have bowed Him like that. Many times men filled their hands with stones to stone Him. Once the men of His own city led Him out as if to certain death. Yet He passed by, unharmed by them all. Until His appointed hour came He kept His place in safety for the Father.
- Surrounded. Two groups close the circle: "dogs" and "a company of evildoers" — Gentile and Jew joined in one crime against Christ.
- Shameless. Each animal name is chosen with care. Bulls are violent men doing their own will. Dogs are the shameless. The lion's mouth is Satan's power over death.
- Pierced. David describes nailed hands and feet before anyone died that way. Crucifixion was Roman, not Jewish. His own hands were never pierced.
- Disputed. One reading gives "like a lion," but the ancient translations and Jewish witnesses back "they pierced." The same word marks the slave who will not leave his master.
- Surrendered. Men did the piercing, yet the psalm turns to God: no hand could have brought Him down until His hour came.
I may count all my bones. They look, they stare upon me;
On the cross the Sufferer looks down at a body so wasted that He can count His own bones, while the crowd gazes at Him as if at a show. Two questions press: how did anyone write this scene down long before Israel had seen a crucifixion, and what did the staring cost Him?
The details listed here match one particular form of execution.
"Psalm 22 is a vivid picture of death by crucifixion. The bones of the hands, arms, shoulders and pelvis out of joint; the heavy sweating that comes with intense suffering; the heart affected; strength gone and extreme thirst; the hands and feet pierced; the body left partly naked, with the shame that brings — all of these belong to that way of dying… Crucifixion was a Roman form of execution, not a Jewish one. Remember that, and the proof of inspiration is overwhelming."
Readers comparing translations will find that some number the line about the pierced hands and feet as verse 17, and there has long been discussion over how the Hebrew there should be read.
I now turn to Psalm 22:17. The most ancient Hebrew reading is said to give "like a lion."… The reason for reading it as it stands in the English translation is that the ancient Jews insist it is so in the old Hebrew… The Septuagint (about a century and a half before our Lord) translates it, "they pierced my hands and my feet"; so does the Vulgate.
The picture is of a body so drained and drawn that its frame shows through.
He was also so emaciated as to speak of His bones being visible (v. 17). And here, centuries before the Lord Jesus was crucified, He speaks of His enemies dividing His garments among themselves.
The second half of the verse turns from His body to their faces. What was done to Him left them entirely unmoved.
Exposed — every bone to be counted — to such eyes as these, that gaze and stare and do not flinch: not ashamed in the presence of their Judge and Maker. Parting among them the garments they have stripped from Him, and casting the lot… to decide the ownership of that seamless priestly robe which marks Him as what He is, "the Mediator between God and men," upon whom all the blessing of man depends.
Being looked at like that was not a small thing next to the physical pain. It registered on Him, and it draws His people into fellowship with Him.
Christ is an example to us in His suffering from men. I am partaker of His sufferings… He suffered also perfectly with the feeling of a man. "Reproach has broken my heart." "They can count all my bones." "They look and stare at me." Hanged up as a criminal before the world, He felt it all; and the more refined the feeling, the more sharply His disciple's unfaithfulness was felt by Him. It was love to Peter that brought him back.
He could count His bones — yet not one of them broke. Commentators link this to what the soldiers did at the cross.
The soldiers broke the legs of the robbers, but found that the Lord was dead already. They disobeyed orders, and one of them pierced the side of the Lord Jesus with a spear instead. This had to happen, for Scripture had foretold this very thing, and also that no bone of His should be broken (Zech. 12:10; Ex. 12:46). The bones, the framework of the body, speak of the basic truth about His person, which stayed unchanged and unbroken all through His dreadful sufferings.
Men are the ones staring here. But the psalm's deeper subject is what He took from God's hand. That is why it ends in blessing.
Man is in the scene, both Jew and Gentile, but only as the blind tool that carries out God's will. It is from God's hand that the Lord takes the cup… And just because He suffers here from the hand of God, and is forsaken, we have atonement in this psalm… where atonement is found, grace and blessing flow out in ever-widening circles, until they reach the ends of the earth.
- Foretold — The wasted body, the pierced hands and feet, the raging thirst: a Roman execution described centuries before Israel ever saw one.
- Counted — He is worn to the frame, every bone visible, stripped bare in front of a crowd whose eyes gaze and do not flinch.
- Felt — He suffered with the full feeling of a man; hung up as a criminal before the world, He felt all of it.
- Kept — Not one of those bones broke. His person came through the suffering unchanged.
- Reached — His deepest suffering came from God's hand. So the psalm ends in blessing that spreads to the ends of the earth.
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
Soldiers at the cross shared out the clothes of the One they had just crucified. Scripture had recorded that small act a thousand years earlier, which raises a question: why would God write down something so minor, and what does it say about the One being stripped?
The soldiers were not thinking about Scripture at all. God had marked their act in His word long before they did it:
Little did the soldiers who had charge of the execution think beyond their poor extra pay. But God's eye was now, as ever, on His Son, and He had taken care in His word to mark it. One of the most clearly Messianic psalms (Ps. 22:18) holds the exact prediction, written a thousand years beforehand. It says the soldiers would take the Saviour's garments, and it points unmistakably to Him... The very smallness of what is mentioned bears witness to the accurate reality of the prophecy. He is the proven Messiah as well as the rejected one.
That day the same soldiers acted out one written prediction after another:
This is particularly striking if we take the case of the Roman soldiers — men who were unaware that the Scriptures even existed... His appearance was to be "so marred, beyond human semblance," according to Isaiah 52:14, and the crown of thorns and the beatings fulfilled this. The Judge of Israel was to be struck "with a rod on the cheek," according to Micah 5:1; this the soldiers did... Verse 24 records their fulfilment of Psalm 22:18... We think we are right in saying that at least 24 prophecies were fulfilled in the 24-hour day when Jesus died.
Verses 16-20 turn to the soldiers around the cross. Watch how they behaved while He was dying:
In verses 16-20 the Gentile opposition to Christ passes before us. Like dogs, acting without heart or conscience, they hand over to death One whom they admit is innocent. They pierce His hands and His feet. Then, with a brutal callousness that knows neither shame nor feeling, they stare at Him and gamble for His clothes.
In Israel the lot was never a mere game of chance. That is what makes this gambling so dark:
They cast the lot — in Israel sacred to the Lord (Prov. 16:33) — to decide who owns that seamless priestly robe, which marks Him out as what He is, "the Mediator between God and men," the One on whom all man's blessing depends... Was it not, in fact, a sign of the most solemn kind — men stripping Christ of His clothing, holding Him up like that to the scorn of men? And what could suit the deed better? They took, as it were, the lot which belonged to God — the sign of His sovereignty even in what man calls "accident" — and used it to dishonour and degrade the One for whom God had decreed the highest honour.
The psalm mentions two things: garments divided, and one item decided by lot. The soldiers' plunder shows what the Lord owned, and one writer draws a careful suggestion from the garment itself:
All four Gospels tell us about the soldiers' gamble for the Lord's garments. A man's coat was his own. Under the law of Moses, even a coat pledged during the day had to come back to him at night. These clothes the soldiers gambled for were the Lord's only possessions, and even these they took from Him. How poor He became for our sakes! ... We are wary of fanciful interpretations of Scripture. But a man's garment often shows his character in Scripture. If it does so here, we suggest this garment may picture the perfect evenness and consistency of the Lord's life and character — He was everything He ever said.
There is another side to this. Men were taking; He was giving:
Then they crucify Him and divide His garments among them, casting lots. All the while the light of prophecy shines steadily on all this, like the great Eye of God — unnoticed, yet noticing in silence, until the time comes to act... But is He not in fact providing, at His own cost, the clothing to cover men's nakedness — even for His enemies? And by divine appointment too, which the lot in Israel spoke of. Certainly this alone is how any of us can say, "He has covered me with the robe of righteousness" (Isa. 61:10).
- Written — Scripture named the fate of His clothing a thousand years early. The smaller the detail, the stronger the proof.
- Witnessed — soldiers who had never read the Scriptures acted them out. That single day saw at least twenty-four prophecies come true.
- Watched — men who admitted He was innocent stared and gambled while He suffered. God's eye was on every moment.
- Wagered — in Israel the lot marked God's own decision. Men used it to dishonour the One God had decreed to honour most.
- Woven — the coat they would not tear pictures a life of unbroken consistency. They stripped it from Him, and He covers the naked with the robe of righteousness.
But thou, Jehovah, be not far [from me]; O my strength, haste thee to help me.
Here the Sufferer of Psalm 22 stops describing His tormentors. He turns His face back to God and asks Him not to stay far away, but to come quickly. Two questions follow. Why does One whose strength is dried up call God His strength? And did this prayer ever get an answer?
He has already asked this twice. The third time shows where the real suffering lay.
Twice already in the psalm the holy Sufferer has asked God not to be far off from Him in His sufferings (v. 1 and v. 11). Now, for the third time, He turns from His persecutors and His sufferings and looks beyond men to God... So it becomes plain why the psalm sets the opposition of men before us. It is not mainly to show the terrible evil of men, which in other psalms calls for judgment. It is to show that even in the suffering men caused, the Lord was without help from God.
The psalm has already traced a long agony. Here He names one sorrow worse than all of it.
Then One who felt no numbness describes the whole long agony. He was awake and sensitive to every part of it. Yet from it all He turns to the One on whom He had been cast from the womb, and pleads against the one sorrow far beyond all others: "Be not far from Me!" — "But You, do not be far from Me, O Lord! Oh, my Strength! hurry to help Me!"
The ESV reads "O you my help" here. Older translations read "O my strength." That title is startling: His own strength was already gone.
He was crucified in weakness — for us. Our iniquities dissolved the strength of Jesus. Those iniquities drew to themselves the stroke of righteous judgment, and the weight of that blow fell on Him who bore them in His own pure body on the tree. He has spoken from "the dust of death," with the faint cry of one whose strength was dried up like a piece of broken pottery.
That weakness was chosen, not forced. He refused to use power to save Himself from that place. So the appeal looks past men to the one question that matters.
After all that man has done or can do — and this is no small thing — the question of questions is still: Where is God? To this, therefore, He returns, pleading that God, His strength, shall appear on His behalf. Power He refused for Himself to save Him from this place; "by might can none prevail" when in it. But once the victory is won, power at last comes fully to the Victor's side, as it must.
The psalm opened with a cry that got no reply. This verse begins with one small word that turns everything. Writers tie that turn to the work He completed.
In verse 19, though, the pivotal word "But" comes from His lips: "But You, O Lord, do not be far from Me; O my strength, hasten to help Me!" God could not answer Him in verses 1-6. He was bearing sin then, and He could not be spared that suffering. Verses 19-21 are quite different. Once His work of atonement was complete, God delivered Him "out of death," and so from the sword of the enemy... Weeping has endured through the night, but joy comes in the morning.
Two verses later the same speaker says God has heard Him. The change from asking to receiving has a reason.
The One Who earlier said, "O My God, I cry... but You do not hear" (v. 2) now tells Him, "You have heard Me." With strong crying and tears, with prayers and pleading, He had called on God while He suffered on the cross as the sin-bearer. Then the moment came when He knew His work of propitiation for sins was finished. He knew too that God, who was able to save Him out of death, had heard Him because of His piety (Heb. 5:7).
- Not far — He makes the same appeal three times in one psalm. Men and their attacks are real, but the sorrow He returns to is God's distance.
- Not strong — His own strength was dried up. Our sins dissolved it, and He went to the cross in weakness for us.
- Not forced — He would not call on power to lift Himself out of that place. Only after the victory does power come fully to His side.
- Not silent — the "But" marks the turn. While He bore sin no answer could come; once atonement was complete, God delivered Him out of death.
- Not refused — the same Voice goes on to say, "You have heard Me." God heard Him for His piety and brought Him out of death.