All they that see me laugh me to scorn; they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, [saying]
The Sufferer of this psalm looks around at the faces watching Him die. He sees open laughter, a curled lip, heads shaking. These words were written long before the cross, yet they came true there. Why did such contempt fall on Him? And what did He do with it?
The mockery here was no accident of history. Scripture had foretold it, and it built toward one moment.
Sadly, such ridicule from man fell within the sufferings appointed for the Messiah. But it was written of Him, "All who see me mock me" (Ps. 22:7), and this Scripture reached the high point of its fulfilment at the cross. He was the Servant whom man despised and the nation hated (Isa. 49:7).
The mockers never saw what they were doing. One writer traces their blindness to its root:
The Gospels note this wagging of the head by those passing by. They also note the very words of the psalm, used by the chief priests with the scribes and elders as they mocked Him. On the surface it would look as if the government of God gave them this reproach. In fact something else kept them from seeing the meaning of the Scriptures they were fulfilling so openly: their hardness, and their blindness to what they themselves deserved and to the holiness and mercy of God.
The verse names three acts: laughter, the lip, the head. One commentator places them at the top of a rising scale of scorn that starts in the verse before. (Older translations render the line "they shoot out the lip, they shake the head.")
Here is One who is treated as being less than a man. He is left to endure the fullness of man's contempt expressed in a sevenfold form. (1) He is esteemed as less than a man — "a worm". (2) He is of no value — "no man". (3) He is held in contempt — "a reproach of men". (4) He is despised by the Jew — the "despised of the people". (5) He is an object of man's sneering ridicule — they laugh Him "to scorn". (6) He is an object of insult — "they shoot out the lip" at Him. (7) He is the object of mockery — "they shake the head."
The next line of the psalm gives what the shaking heads said. At the cross, the men who repeated it were not only the crowd.
It was not only the rabble of the street, the lowest sort, the uneducated mob that mocked Him. The chief priests and the elders had gone out to help in reproaching Him... It is astonishing that these cultured religious men quoted Scripture in their terrible blindness as they gazed at Him... In earlier times the Jewish synagogue itself had read this Psalm as speaking of the Messiah... The psalm gives the very words they would speak in front of the forsaken Sufferer, the words they would use to insult Him.
Human cruelty caused real pain here. Yet that pain is not what sets Psalm 22 apart.
In Psalm 22 we have a totally different thing. It is Christ forsaken of God. That is not to say the people do not despise Him here. Strong bulls of Bashan surround Him. Dogs close in on Him. The assembly of the wicked shuts Him in. He felt all of it as no one but Christ could feel it. Yet what was all that next to the awful reality of Christ suffering from the hand of God — of Christ suffering for sin?
He heard every word the watchers said. None of it broke His confidence in God.
On the cross, the Lord is not unaware of the thoughts and words of the bystanders. They add to His sorrows and sufferings. He is reproached and despised by the people. They taunt Him because no deliverance comes to Him from God, though everyone knew He trusted God. The onlookers cannot see it, but in the middle of His crucifixion Christ keeps unbroken confidence in His God... Man mocked, Christ suffered, God was glorified.
Behind the human faces there was a purpose aimed at that trust:
He had neither reply nor reproach for the men who mocked Him... He was laughed to scorn because God did not help Him in His hour of great need. The enemy's cruel purpose was to make Him cast off His faith. Yet no complaint and no rebuke were heard in His cries as He poured out His sorrow before God.
- Written — the mockery was foretold, not improvised. It belonged to the sufferings appointed for the Messiah, and it peaked at the cross.
- Wagged — the verse names ridicule, insult and mockery. They are the top of a sevenfold ladder of contempt aimed at One treated as less than a man.
- Worded — the psalm gave the taunts in advance. The religious leaders said them out loud, blind to the Scripture they were fulfilling.
- Weighed — man's scorn was cruel, but it was not the depth of this psalm. Being forsaken by God was, and that is what makes Psalm 22 stand alone.
- Withstood — the enemy aimed to break His trust. He met the mockery with silence and kept unbroken confidence in God. Man mocked, Christ suffered, God was glorified.
Commit it to Jehovah -- let him rescue him; let him deliver him, because he delighteth in him!
At the cross, His enemies turn His own faith into a weapon against Him. They use His trust in God as proof that God has left Him — in words the psalm had recorded long before, and with a demand that went unanswered.
Those who mocked at the cross were quoting Scripture without knowing it.
It is astonishing that these cultured religious leaders quoted Scripture in their fearful blindness, even as they stared at Him... The wicked enemies of the great sufferer speak in that Psalm. The psalm gives the very words they would speak in front of the forsaken Sufferer, the words they would use to insult Him. The sneering chief priests, elders and scribes spoke them at the cross.
The irony was total. As one writer notes, what marks their blindness is that they quoted lines which, in the psalm, belong to the mouths of the ungodly.
That which marks the frightful blindness of these poor priests is, that they cite the words which, in the Psalm where His death is described just as it is described here, come out of the mouth of the godless and the wicked (Ps. 22:7-8).
Verse 8 does not stand alone. It completes a descent that begins earlier in the psalm, where contempt is heaped on Him step by step.
He is left to endure the full weight of man's contempt. It comes in a sevenfold form. (1) He is esteemed as less than a man — "a worm"; (2) as of no value — "no man"; (3) He is held in contempt — "a reproach of men"; (4) He is despised by the Jew — the "despised of the people"; (5) He is an object of man's sneering ridicule — they laugh Him "to scorn"; (6) He is an object of insult — "they shoot out the lip" at Him; (7) He is the object of mockery — "they shake the head."
The Hebrew behind the opening phrase is stronger than the English suggests. It is the picture of a weight being transferred.
There is no help for Him in His God. Others had cried in their need and been heard and answered (Ps. 22:4-5), but now righteousness is alone and unheard. His enemies read this, and in one solemn sense they read it rightly, as if God were against Him. They say, "He trusted in God" — literally, "rolled Himself on Jehovah," compare Ps. 22:8, margin with Matt. 27:43 — "let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him." They daringly claim God as on their side against His blessed Son.
Every fact in the taunt was accurate. The conclusion they drew from those facts was false.
Yet the scoffers around the cross meant a lie even while they spoke the truth. Their taunt charged Him with being a real impostor. God's word and human experience alike said that God had never failed to deliver anyone who truly trusted Him.
They also chose their moment. The demand was not for deliverance someday, but for deliverance on the spot.
"Let Him deliver Him now." Now — with hands and feet pierced, with disciples fled, with the crowd gaping, the rulers sneering, the soldiers making fun of Him, the robbers hurling insults. Now was the moment when perfect trust, if it existed, should be proved. So they reasoned, while He endured in meekness and silence the reproaches heaped on Him.
He stayed on the cross for a reason His mockers never guessed.
In fact, He could not save Himself, because He could not think of Himself. The love which had saved others went further and gave Himself for us. Perfect love for His Father, obedience to His commandments, His perfect love to us, kept Him from saving Himself... If He was to save others, He could not save Himself.
They quoted God's delight in Him as proof of their own case. The reason for that delight was the very thing they were watching.
"Let Him deliver Him, seeing [or, if] He delighted in Him." This was how the murderers of the Just One justified themselves in triumph. But they did not know the way or the reason of Jehovah's delight in His Chosen One. Perhaps they had even heard Him when, in riddles of judgment, He spoke in their hearing the new words of gospel promise: "Therefore my Father loves me, because I lay down my life for the sheep."
The rescue they jeered at did arrive — just not on their timetable.
So men mistake God's patience for indifference, or for letting things pass. But God's time is not man's, and in His own time He will intervene, as He did after Christ had been crucified and buried. What a deliverance then when Christ was raised from among the dead!
- Foretold — The taunt was not made up on the spot. The psalm had already put those words in the mouths of His enemies, long before the chief priests, scribes and elders said them.
- Rolled — The word means He rolled Himself on the Lord. His enemies got His faith right, then used it as evidence against Him.
- Reversed — Every part of their sneer was true. Only their conclusion was false. God had never failed anyone who trusted Him, so they judged Him a fraud.
- Refused — He would not come down. If He was to save others, He could not save Himself. Love and obedience held Him there.
- Raised — God's delight in Him was real. The rescue came in God's time, not theirs — resurrection from among the dead.
But thou art he that took me out of the womb; thou didst make me trust, upon my mother's breasts.
On the cross, His enemies threw His own trust in God back at Him as a joke. He answered by looking back to the day He was born, and two questions follow: what does it mean that God "made" Him trust, and why speak of infancy at such a moment?
These words come straight after He tells God what the crowd said and did to Him.
Though the perfect Sufferer saw the power of man and Satan, He took the cup straight from the hand of God... He felt their "scorn," the shaking of the head, and the mockery of saying, "He trusted in Jehovah that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him, since He delighted in Him."... But He told God what men said and did, and added, "You are He who took Me out of the womb: You made Me hope when I was on My mother's breasts."
(Older translations read "made Me hope" where the ESV has "made me trust.")
One writer finds three things here: confidence in God, dependence on God, and subjection to God. Each one goes back to the very start of His life.
The One whom men despised, and God forsook, was the only fully righteous Man. From the moment He came into this world, perfect confidence in God marked Him, for He could say, "You made Me trust, upon My mother's breasts." He was also perfectly dependent, for He could add, "I was cast upon You from the womb." And He was perfect in His subjection, for He says, "You are My God." Yet He is the only One whose confidence in God, dependence on God and subjection to God were perfect from the beginning of His life on earth to the end. And He is the One found in deepest trouble with "none to help."
The Gospels tell us almost nothing about His infancy. This verse looks back to it, and finds trust already there.
The New Testament says very little about the childhood and hidden life of Jesus... Here, as He is about to lay down His holy life, His holy mind looks back over it. He goes back to its beginning, when He was a baby on His mother's breasts. He trusted in God. There was never another baby like that... In the small, helpless state of infancy, He was cast upon God. What pleasure that must have given God. Babies are not very old when they begin to show signs of self-will. A temper will display itself in the tiniest child. Never did it show itself in the Lord Jesus.
Many people have leaned on God at some point in life. The claim made here is of a different order.
He was as absolutely dependent upon God as He was obedient to Him... He never for one moment abandoned the attitude of entire dependence upon the living God... He breathed the very atmosphere of dependence from Bethlehem to Calvary. He was the only Man who ever lived a life of uninterrupted dependence upon God, from first to last. Others have depended partially, He did it perfectly. Others have occasionally or even mainly looked to God; He never looked anywhere else. He drew everything from God, not some things or most things.
That dependence showed itself as a refusal to act on His own will. One writer connects it to the child pictured in Revelation, born to rule yet marked by total reliance:
The Man Child seems to speak of His utter dependence upon God... As the Man Child He never moved from the place of dependence upon God; He did not exercise an independent will. His life was one unbroken obedience.
The verse names two acts of God: He took Him from the womb, and He made Him trust.
The care which watched over Him was unceasing from the womb to the grave. His Spirit had said so long before in the prophets: "I was cast upon You from the womb. You are My God from My mother's belly." "You made Me hope [or, You kept Me in safety] when I was on My mother's breasts." It was tireless throughout... It watched over Him that very night when the angel warned Joseph to flee into Egypt.
Recalling a lifetime of God's care does not end the sorrow. It becomes the ground of a fresh appeal.
Christ speaks of the people's mockery of His trust in God as His unfailing Helper, but He knows that from the womb He had been chosen and preserved by God. And He still calls upon God not to be far from Him in His trouble, but to help Him, for there is none else.
- Mocked — the crowd threw His trust back at Him as proof it had failed; He answered by tracing that trust to God.
- Took — God took Him from the womb. From the womb He was chosen and kept safe.
- Made — God made Him trust. That trust was there before He was old enough to choose it.
- Unbroken — others have trusted God at times; He looked nowhere else, from Bethlehem to Calvary. God's care over Him never stopped either.
- Alone — the one Man whose confidence, dependence and subjection were perfect is the one left in deepest trouble with none to help.
I was cast upon thee from the womb; thou art my God from my mother's belly.
Psalm 22 is the psalm of the cross, and here the Sufferer looks back past His childhood to the hour of His birth. Two questions follow: who can speak of God like this from infancy, and why does such a life end with no one to help?
The Sufferer looks back and names three things that were true of Him from birth. Older translations render the line as "I was cast upon you from the womb" — the wording these writers quote.
Righteous men may indeed have suffered martyrdom, but never before had a righteous man been forsaken by God… Yet the One whom men despised, and God forsook, was the only completely righteous Man. From the moment He came into this world He showed perfect confidence in God. He could say, "You made me trust, upon my mother's breasts." Further, He was perfectly dependent, for He could add, "I was cast upon you from the womb," and perfect in His subjection, for He says, "You are my God." And yet this is the one Man whose confidence in God, dependence upon God, and subjection to God was perfect from the beginning to the end of His life on earth. He is found in deepest trouble with "none to help."
Being cast on God was a settled attitude, not a single act at birth.
He was as absolutely dependent upon God as He was obedient to Him. He could say, "Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge" (Ps. 16). And again, "I was cast upon you from the womb" (Ps. 22). He never for one moment let go of complete dependence upon the living God… He breathed the very atmosphere of dependence from Bethlehem to Calvary. He was the only Man who ever lived a life of uninterrupted dependence upon God, from first to last. Others have depended partially, He did it perfectly. Others have looked to God now and then, or even most of the time; He never looked anywhere else. He found all His springs, not some of them or most of them, in God.
That same dependence shaped what He was set apart for.
He was subject to His God and went His pathway trusting in Him and in devotion to Him. This was His attitude right from the beginning: "I was cast upon you from the womb; you are my God from my mother's womb" (Ps. 22:10).
Here the Sufferer points back to how He came into the world. That birth carries an argument about how the story must end.
But in verses 9 and 10 the Lord Jesus appeals to the fact of His own birth by the intervention of God — we know, a virgin birth. When God had so intervened in man's affairs to prepare a body for His Son, could this whole matter have ended by death and oblivion? Certainly not! He says, "From my mother's womb You have been my God." Could this change now that He is crucified?
He is forsaken, yet He still says "my God." The claim of verse 10 is that this address was not new on the cross.
So while He suffered for sin, our Lord confessed that His God had forsaken Him. Yet He still called Him "My God." This relationship of Jesus went back to His earliest infancy. In this very Psalm, He declares, "You are my God from my mother's womb" (v. 10). From the manger in Bethlehem right onwards, He, the perfect and blessed Man, recognised God as the One whom He obeyed and on whom He depended. But here it was a time of darkness at noon, and the difference was beyond measure. His God, in whom He trusted, had forsaken Him! And why?
The Sufferer's claim on God rests on His whole life, not on this moment alone. And no hour of need was ever greater.
He had been the dependent One from the very start, and He never turned aside from that attitude. So more than anyone He had the title to divine support, now that all others had forsaken Him. This was the hour of trouble when most He needed the sunshine of the face of God.
- Cast — "On you was I cast from my birth": confidence, dependence and subjection, perfect from the start.
- Constant — He breathed the atmosphere of dependence from Bethlehem to Calvary. Others depended in part; He depended perfectly.
- Claim — God Himself acted to bring about this birth, so this life could not end in death and oblivion.
- Contradiction — the one Man with full title to God's support is the one Man left with none to help.
- Continuity — "my God" was His word in the manger and still His word in the darkness. The bond held even when the help did not come.
Be not far from me, for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
Psalm 22 gives the words of Christ in His suffering. At verse 11 He stops describing His attackers and turns to pray. He asks God to stay near, and He gives two reasons: the trouble is already on Him, and no one can help.
The verses just before this one look back to His infancy. One writer sets that lifelong trust beside the words "none to help."
The One whom men despised, and God forsook, was the only fully righteous Man. From the moment He came into this world He showed perfect confidence in God, for He could say, "You made me trust you at my mother's breasts." He was also perfectly dependent, for He could add, "On you was I cast from my birth." And He was perfect in His subjection, for He says, "From my mother's womb you have been my God." Yet this One — whose confidence in God, dependence on God, and subjection to God were perfect from the start of His life on earth to its end — is in deepest trouble with "none to help."
The troubles named in the psalm so far came from men. One writer shows where its real subject begins.
These troubles were deep and real, but they were outward, and they came from man. From these He turns to God. Here we find the true subject of the psalm and His unfathomable suffering. He looks to God in the trials, and there was no comfort in the cup He had to drink. He prays, "Be not far from me, for trouble is near." Then, as sorrows press Him harder, He says again, "O LORD, do not be far off!" Even so, these were still only outward pressure from the hand of man. He was not stopped by them. He was going on through them to the cup which His Father was going to put into His hand.
He asks God not to be far away. One writer points to what actually happened.
In Psalm 22 He speaks of all the external troubles, but then He says, "Be not far from me" — the very thing He was!
No man comforted Him, and God hid His face. One writer says what held Him there.
There was no outlet to His grief, no comfort from man. Here we see the meaning of "Be not far from me, O my God!" Those He came to in love cast Him out with scorn. Those He came to save pressed in and closed Him in. So His soul turned to God. But God had hidden His face from Him. He now found the darkness and wrath to the uttermost. There was no response on any side: deep hatred of man around Him, and darkness from above. Everything fell away but the power of love. Love sustained Him. Love was greater than all, and it was set on us.
"None to help" goes deeper than the loss of friends. No one else could take on the work in front of Him.
Well might He say: "Now is my soul troubled. And what shall I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? But for this purpose I have come to this hour" (John 12:27). So also in Psalm 22:11. He, the One who knew no sin, is to be made sin for us. He enters into all that judgment — God's own full judgment against sin and against our sins. He alone was able to bear it. He alone could measure what God is in His nature against all sin and evil. And He alone could bear the condemnation of that sin and evil in a nature as holy, in itself and forever, as the nature of the God who was judging.
Earlier in the psalm the fathers cried to God and were rescued. One writer marks what makes this cry different.
Here we find the one exception in all God's ways with the righteous. One with no callousness describes the whole long agony, keenly alive and sensitive to it all. Yet through it all He turns to the God on whom He had been cast from birth, and pleads against the one sorrow far beyond all others: "Be not far from me!"
These two kinds of suffering have two different outcomes.
Note also the deep difference between the sufferings of Christ from man and from God. The first were for righteousness, the second for sin. The result of the first (Psalm 21) is that He will make His enemies like a fiery oven in the day of His wrath. In the second He was bearing wrath, and the result is pure blessing, and nothing else, as its fruit. (See Psalm 22:11-23.)
- Trust — He had leaned on God from birth. His confidence, dependence and subjection were perfect. Still He had none to help.
- Turn — Verse 11 moves the psalm off human enemies and onto God, which is where its true subject lies.
- Unanswered — He asks God not to be far away, and far away is exactly what God was. Love, not relief, carried Him through.
- Alone — No one could help Him, because He was being made sin. Only He could bear God's judgment against it.
- Fruit — Suffering from man brings judgment on man. This suffering from God brings nothing but blessing.