Psalms Lesson 6

Psalm 22:1-5

Psalm 22, here we face another in the series of individual lament Psalms and therefore we face the five parts to the individual lament Psalm. Again, the address, the lament, the petition, the praise and at various points the trust section. These are the five parts to look for. Again I can’t emphasize enough that we are dealing with creative literature, therefore don’t expect this to be mechanical. This is not mechanical; so this explains the flexibility we’re getting here at times in the Psalms. But in Psalm 22, where I asked you last time if you’re read it, and do two things; see if you could identify where these five parts are, and secondly if you could identify what kind of a Messianic Psalm it is. I gave you Delitzsch’s five categories. A typically Messianic, a typical prophetic Messianic, indirectly Messianic, purely prophetic Messianic and eschatologically Yahwestic Messianic. And those five categories are different labels for different kinds of Psalms that look forward to the person of Christ.

So since we want to start with a form analysis, let’s look at these five categories and look at Psalm 22 and see if we can find them. These categories, the purpose of them is to help us in the interpretation of the Psalm. Tonight we’re going to get a very obvious clear-cut illustration of why this form analysis is going to help. A lot of people have a wrong interpretation of the first part of Psalm 22, and once you see it from the standpoint of form analysis you won’t make this mistake that so many Christians do.

Can someone pick out the address in Psalm 22? [someone answers] Okay, verses 1-2. [someone else answers] 1-5, okay. [someone else] You felt the last half of verse 1 and verse 2 was a more like a lament. Yes, but remember what we always said about the address, that an address has some lament in it, and sometimes a petition in it, it’s kind of an intro to the thing. [someone else] 1-5 would be the lament, and 19 and following part of the address. All right, good, we’ve got some competing views here. We’ve got 1-2, 1-5 and 19 and following. [someone else] That’s a good point, look at how verse 3 starts and look at how verse 19 starts; also look how verse 6 starts. Remember I told you to watch out in the Psalm and you’ll see “but thou,” “but I,” or “now O Lord” or something like this. The two key words as it comes over in the King James and most modern translation would be “but” or “now,” those two words. Those are tip offs because they’re usually, 9 times out of 10 translations of a strong adversative construction in the Hebrew.

Can someone help, if the address is not in verse 1, if we can’t find the address in verse 1 it’s best that we forget having any kind of an address. In other words, we just have to explain the Psalm that something happened to the address and that would be one of the interpretive problems we’d have to face, is why does this Psalm not have an address in it. So let’s discard looking elsewhere other than verse 1; if it’s not going to be in verse 1 it’s not going to be here because by definition what is the address? The address is the initial turning to God. Remember what we said about the address, is that the Psalmist is in the middle of his problem and he turns by the faith technique back to God, and so you’ve got this introduction, this turning from his problem to God, resting it on God’s shoulders.

So we’ll say it is verse 1; now how are we going to cut the bottom part of the address section. Verse 3 sounds like trust, and in any sense whatever verse 3 is, you’ve got that Thou” in there, so wouldn’t it make sense to cut the address at the end of verse 2? Now verse 5 also ends a section, that’s the end of another section, because you’ve got another “but” in there. So the observation that verse 5 is a termination of a section is also valid, but it’s unwise to extend the section through one of these “but thou’s.” Sometimes you may have to but let’s try not to.

Let’s start with the address, verses 1-2. [someone says something] He suggested the thought that verses 1-2 could be actually the continuation, logically of verse 5. See the logic of verses 3-5, and because of verses 3-5 then you have verses 1-2. I think the best… the rule of interpretation of Scripture is try the simplest ones first; the only time this rule does not apply, incidentally, is in prophetic literature. When you’re dealing with the prophetic portion of the Word of God it’s the most complicated interpretation that’s usually right, and the reason for this is that prophetic literature is always abbreviated and telescoped. So your simple interpretation of prophetic Scriptures are usually wrong. For example, the coming of Messiah, the First and Second Advents were all jammed together in one, so if you looked at a prophetic section, if we were all having a Bible class in Israel about 2500 hundred years ago and we stopped at a prophetic section of the Old Testament that dealt with the Messiah and we saw these kind of intermingling things and we said, well we’ll just flop it together and that’s one, if we were really nitpicking 2500 years ago we would have had to have made at least two different concepts of Messiah, and then been honest, that we can’t figure it out but there are two there. So the most complicated interpretation usually wins in prophecy.

But generally speaking in other sections of the Bible it’s not true. So let’s try with the simple straightforward address; we may change this after we get through but let’s do it to get on. Can anybody identify any of these other sections. [someone says something] Okay, lament on verses 6-7 and 11-18. Just curious, why do you break at verses 8-10? [she answers] Okay, good observation. Okay, verses 8-10 sound like trust. All right, but let’s look at verse 8, who’s doing the trusting. In other words, how is verse 8 written? [she answers] In what three verses, 8-10; okay, in other words verse 8 isn’t necessarily the Psalmist right then trusting, it’s what the people are saying he did. [something said] Okay, you would say it would still be lament. Let’s tack this together, 6-18 as the lament. [someone says something] What about 7-18, dropping verse 6. Why would you drop verse 6? [can’t hear answer] I’m encouraged that a lot of you feel free to participate in this because this is really how you learn to work with the text; you’ve got to work with the text and not just take what somebody says, and this is how you do it. And the first time you do it, the second time, all the time you’ll have adjustment problems; don’t feel discouraged about this, just keep with it and get a feel for it. [someone says something] 11a petition; all right, 11a, in the middle of this section there seems to be a petition there.

Anybody else have any comments on the broad category that has been outlined here in this broad section of the lament? [someone says something] Okay, verses 9-10 do look like trust, all right now here, if somebody has a New ASV, would you read how the New ASV handles verse 9. “Yet Thou art He who didst bring me forth from the womb.” What’s the first word? “Yet,” okay, now does anybody have any other translation, besides the King James. [someone says Berkley] How do they handle this verse? “Yet,” all right, anybody else. Verse 9, there’s a problem here, you’ll be thrown off in the King James. Unfortunately this is where the King James will lead you astray. That “But Thou” isn’t a real one, it’s “yet.” And it’s not that strong Hebrew division. I’m sorry but this is the best… I’m trying to give you some rough approximation to handle it in the English and most of the time it works so don’t get discouraged just because you don’t know Hebrew. It’s just that this particular time in verse 9 it’s not that strong construction. “Yet,” so verse 9 is connected somehow with what they’re saying in verse 8. See, there’s a transition there.

Does anybody have any other suggestions on the boundaries of the lament section, the section that deals with the lament? Do I therefore, am I correct in inferring that all of you would start the lament section at verse 6 and terminate it at verse 18? [someone says something] 3-5 might be a lament. Okay, possibility that 3-5 in the lament. [someone else] Yes, but the lament describes his problem. Okay, let’s hold verses 3-5, those are sticky verses in there, and lets start with verses 6-18; we’ll come back to 3-5. The easiest way to interpret is get the easy things first and then you can go back and pick up the hard ones.

The petition, someone has also said 11a seems to be kind of a petition, what else? Is that the only petition in this Psalm? [someone says something] 20-21 and 19; 19-21 seems to have a lot of votes for the petition section. Anybody have anything else to comment. All right, let’s put verses 19-21. Now the praise section, that is a clear break in this praise section; anybody like to venture forth. [someone says something] 22-the end for the praise section. Do you all agree or does someone have a different view; 22-31 praise.

Now, where’s the trust section? [someone says something] Okay, 3-5. Now let’s go back to the Psalm and see if it makes sense. Let’s check ourselves. Start off with verses 1-2, does that sound like an address. Reasonably so, remember an address can contain a petition, etc. a preliminary type of petition. When you look at the petition here or the lament in verses 1-2 it’s a lament and kind of a petition you might say, but then if you look at the expanded petition section in verses 19-21… some of you have had trouble with the address section, if you’ll just look at verses 1-2 and read them, and then read verses 19-21, and get a feel as you read them. Look at verses 19-21 and get a feel for what a real petition section looks like. Do you see the power of the petition in 19-21, it’s a real clear cut petition, petition, petition. And you see it’s much stronger in the petition than the address is.

Now if you look at the extensive lament section here and compare that, just skim verses 6-18 and compare them with verses 1-2 and see if you can get a feel there for a difference between a pure lament section and an address, just the kind of preliminary lament that you pick up in the address of the Psalm.

Now let’s see if we can do some explaining or questioning the text. If we were to diagram Psalm 22 it’d look something like this: 1-2, the address; 3-5 the trust; 6-18 the lament; 19-21 the petition, 22-31 the praise. What kind of praise? Is it a vow of praise, meaning that God has not yet fully answered the petition, or is it a declarative type of praise, in other words is he seeing himself in the middle of the answered prayer. [someone says something] You think it’s declarative; why would you say that. [someone says something] I will, or shall declare Thy name. Okay, I could think of a more powerful reason than that. Verses 23-24, “Ye that fear the LORD, praise Him; all ye, the seed of Jacob, glorify Him; and fear Him, all ye, the seed of Israel. [24] For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, neither has He hidden His face from Him; but when He cried unto Him, He heard.” [someone says something] Okay, look at verse 25, “I will pay my vows before them that fear him.” As you read through these verses, if you could project yourself psychologically into the head of the psalmist as he writes this, pretend you’re writing this. If you were writing verses 22-31, if you were writing those verses would you be in the answered prayer or would you be looking toward the answer? [someone says something] You’d be looking toward it. Okay, then by the criteria that we established at the beginning this would technically be a vow to praise. [someone says something] Right, and I would do the same thing; that’s when I wrote this petition… but there is, you’ll notice, 11a is a petition, but you notice it’s a short thing, it’s kind of a petition in passing. And it’s glopped together with a whole bunch of lament, lament, lament, lament, lament, more petition, then lament, lament, lament, lament. Now if it were really part of petition you’d expect more there, you wouldn’t just expect a little piece. It’s just a piece of the petition that’s kind of in the lament. Do you see that?

Okay, let’s look at the order we’ve got here, do you notice anything about this order that might tip us off about the prayer, about this Psalm. Again, not that we have great theological insight at this point in our interpretation of the Psalm but if we have conducted our form analysis the way we should have, and we get this thing, we look at it, do you notice anything about the way those sections are arranged that would kind of clue you in to some questions to watch for as you interpret the Psalm. Do you notice anything about that structure that would suggest things to watch for in the Psalm. [someone says something] Okay, he said the trust section, as the second section, is before the lament and remember the previous lament Psalms that we’ve done the guy has been out of fellowship, or in discipline or something, and although he’s in fellowship when he actually makes his petition, the way he structures his lament shows you that in the middle of the problem he has fallen out of fellowship and now he wants to get back in. But in this Psalm it starts out dogmatically and strongly, I trust! And so there’s not a disciplinary kind of thing in this Psalm. That’s the main point I wanted to see. Anybody see anything else.

[someone says something] Good observation, remember the earlier Psalms the petition was urgent, and here the emphasis, notice what’s happening here, we’ve got to explain this, when I interpret a Psalm, when I sit down with the text I’ll write myself a question, try to do this when you study the Bible. Write out your question and as it were, turn the question around on the text. And one of the questions you should be writing to yourself is why is the trust section up here and it seems like the lament… you’re obviously getting from the Psalm the guy’s under fantastic pressure, fantastic suffering, but the thing you notice is that the petition doesn’t seem to carry the urgency that it did in the other Psalms that we were in. This is something we’ve got to handle when we come to the interpretation stage, is to what’s going on in this Psalm; why is this guy under such fantastic pressure, but the petition doesn’t come boom, just like this, like it did in the other Psalms.

[someone says something] This might be a possibility. He has suggested a very vital point but in looking at this you’d suggest the psalmist has probably thought out ahead of time so that the trial, though very severe, is not something that’s knocked him off his feet. It’s a very severe trial but he’s already had it organized in his mind so when he does come to the petition it’s orderly.

[someone says something] Okay, he’s pointed out that even 11a is not really a strong petition itself, it’s just kind of be with me while I’m going through the problem, it’s not getting me out of the problem, right. This is good, I’m very encouraged. [someone says something] Okay, you’re going to tie it to the Messiah, and don’t get ahead of me; I’m building you up for this, don’t steal my fire. [someone says something] Yes, there’s more praise but we have to be careful here, the praise still is only one-third of the Psalm. Now if the praise was higher, what would the Psalm turn into? And individual praise Psalm, wouldn’t it. But we’ve classed it as and individual lament Psalm. But this Psalm, you see, this is one of those Psalms that’s kind of hard to declare whether it’s individual praise or individual lament because on the see-saw of weight the lament and the praise are pretty equal, so one could maybe put forth a case that this is an individual praise Psalm too. But why I would classify it and argue with you is that the lament is so bad, and the pain, the emphasis on the pain is so much that I would tend to emphasize it as a lament.

But notice what was suggested here, and this is something else that you want to notice, not just the order of these sections but notice the duration or length of the sections, the relative length of them. Look at how long this lament section is, and look at how long this praise section is. Do you see? And the shortness of the petition, etc. And by the way, of all the individual lament Psalms we’ve studied so far can you think of one that’s had this big a trust section in it? This is the biggest trust section we’ve run into so far. [someone says something] Well, yeah, the only thing is the way that the address has been defined would handle that kind of a problem, it’s just the way the form people approach it.

Okay, the second thing we asked you to do was to consider the tie-in between this Psalm, we’ve got this form here, and by the way, while we’re on the form, can some of you, I think probably in a large section like this, unless you have some great arguments to the contrary, probably the best thing to do when you’re outlining this Psalm is just simply outline it by these sections. I think the sections are so clear and hang together so well that you could probably be best, if you want to outline the Psalm to outline it by these sections that we’ve picked off. Anyone have any different opinions on outlining it, just the meaning of it?

Then let’s turn to the second thing I asked you to do and that is we’ve got to tie it in theologically. Now here’s our divine viewpoint framework, we are in the age of the kingdom, between 1400 BC and 586 BC, during the era of the kingdom the two main themes are discipline and loyalty; loyalty the first and great commandment, discipline the training in how to be moral to God. And since this kingdom era was a fore view of the future ultimate era, then the king of this kingdom is a mirror of the ultimate king, the King of Kings and the God-man. So obviously these Psalms that deal with the king, and deal with David as the king, are Messianic. So now we come to this Psalm and how it contributes to our understanding of the person of our Lord.

Let’s take Delitzsch’s five Psalm types. What would some of your guesses be, which category of Messianic Psalm is this. Would you say it’s an eschatologically Yahwestic Psalm? Can we eliminate that? Why can we eliminate that? Remember what we said about an eschatologically Yahwestic Psalm, it was the coming of the kingdom and it was God reigning in all His glory. The emphasis certainly isn’t on that though obviously at the end it points to it. So I think we can eliminate right off the bat.

The first one typically Messianic, obviously any Psalm would fit that, any Messianic Psalm would fit category one, but the point is we want to see if we can go further. Can any of you then, it seems like the context has to be decided between type 2, 3 and 4. Type two was typical prophetic where you have hyperbole that is stressed so hard that it can’t be literally fulfilled in the writer’s experience but could only be historically fulfilled in the experience of Jesus Christ. The indirectly Messianic would be emphasis on the royalty in the Davidic line, and the purely prophetic would refer only to the Lord Jesus Christ, it’s a total and complete idealization. Now I think obviously it’s between category 2 and category 4, typical prophetic or is it purely prophetic. Now this is a fine detail, and this is one that… [tape turns]

… want to warn you about, it’s not an airtight, watertight thing. But let’s use these categories to help us think about the Psalm and the person of our Lord. As you have read Psalm 22 do you, as you look at Psalm 22, see that this could have been true, in a less perhaps extreme way, in David’s personal experience, or do you see this Psalm as so ideal that even David would not have had this kind of experience? What would some of your thinking be on this? The question basically doesn’t concern… does not concern, whether it refers to Christ, that’s a given in both situations. The question is how much of this Psalm would you see possible in David’s own experience.

[someone says something] Okay, he has pointed out in verse 16, “they pierced my hands and my feet,” that was not done of David, and he would argue that “a new people shall be born,” in the last pat there, were you thinking of verse 30? 30 and 31, they shall declare unto a people that shall be born. [someone says something] No, crucifixion began when the Romans conquered Palestine in 63 BC. [someone says something] Verse 18, “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” Okay, you’re arguing that would be purely prophetic? [someone says something] number four is the purely prophetic. [someone says something] Okay, she has made another interesting point and that is if you look in verses 9-10 and that is that it certainly sounds like the guy was in fellowship from the time he was born, he never knew a time when he wasn’t. One might be able to argue that similar language is used of John the Baptist in the New Testament, he was filled with the Holy Spirit from his mother’s womb. What it means is that he became a Christian at the point he became God-conscious, there was just an immediate transitioning.

[someone says something] Verse 12, we’ll get to that, I can see… verse 12, the content of it I would like to hold but that would kind of help decide the question, I agree. [someone says something] You would argue that verses 6-7 depict a kind of situation that David really didn’t find himself in historically. [someone says something] Not that we know of, it didn’t happen.

Because of the time, let me just say that I think on this basis that pretty close thing in choosing this because the problem is how hyperbolized can you get with David, because many of these experiences of David, as some of you have asked, did he literally suffer this much. I am inclined to believe that in many cases he did for the reason that the Old Testament says God gave him a special indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And I think because David had this special indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament dispensation he was a highly sensitive man on the inside. And you might say he was so sensitive that when he got out of fellowship it was almost like this; in other words, you might argue that the Holy Spirit was producing in David’s soul an adumbration of the experiences of Christ.

However, I think verses like were pointed out and others, that we have to agree that a lot of this stuff just could not have come in way literally true in David’s life. So therefore, I think this Psalm, I tend to favor the fact that it’s purely prophetic. Now I’m not dogmatic on it because as I say, it’s how much hyperbole you can crank into these Psalms. I just threw those five out not necessarily because we could arrive at a sharp answer, but I wanted to precipitate your thinking about the humanity of Christ. You see, that’s what you’re going to see in these Psalms, that Christ wasn’t… some of you have the idea that because Jesus Christ was God He had it made and all He had to do was kind of walk around and heal people or something. You have got a wrong view of the God-man. Now fundamentalists have so emphasized the deity that we tend to be in danger of de-emphasizing His humanity and I’ll tell you where that shows up in the Christian life. It shows up because we tend, in experience to downplay Christ’s trials. And when the New Testament says we have a high priest who cannot be tempted, but yet He can touch and feel with our infirmities, I don’t think many Christians in the fundamentalist camp today can really appropriate that truth, because so many of us are brainwashed with the idea that Christ’s trials were phony, that Christ didn’t have trials like you have trials. You don’t really believe that Christ faced trials like you and I face. And I hope as we go through this Psalm it’ll correct that view of Christ; He had real humanity as well as true deity, and that real humanity did go through trials like you and I go through. If He didn’t, then we can forget the whole concept that He was man as well as God.

This is very important, it’s not a theoretical thing leftover from a class in theology or something. It carries right over, immediately, into your Christian experience, because do you believe that we have a high priest in heaven, who is not only God Himself, but He is One who has felt, who has touched dust, He knows what bad food is like, He knows what it means to be tired, He knows what it means to be thirsty, He knows what it means to be hungry. And that kind of a high priest will not allow His people to have experiences worse than His own. He is not that kind of a person, so any pressure you have in your life, in the natural realm or any other realm, is never going to be greater than the pressures that Christ faced, in His humanity. And He didn’t get through them with kind of an extra surge of power that is not available to you and to me. Just because He was God did not make the trial easier. And this is a primary lesson that we must get out of this Psalm.

Let’s go to the address now and look at it. By the way, if you counted the verses you notice that there’s a symmetry of sorts in this Psalm; there’s kind of a 2, 3, 16, 3, 16 structure to it, there’s a 3,16, 3, 16 structure to it. You see this oftentimes in the Psalms, parallel. All right, the introduction now.

I hope you all have the first verse, which is the Psalm heading. Verse 1 in the Hebrew, “To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.” That’s verse 1 in the Hebrew and if your translation does not have that, then I’m afraid your translation violates the integrity of the inspired text. What is this saying, this heading in the Psalm? “To the chief musician,” these two words that, if you have a King James, “Aijeleth Shahar, the reason why the translators did not translate this is the same reason they didn’t translate “baptism” or anything else, because the translator was chicken to decide a meaning he just transliterates. And here they transliterated, we don’t know what the meaning is, but there’s a hint, and I think this is very, very critical.

Literally this is what it reads: now obviously we know what the Hebrew words here mean, it means “upon the doe of dawn,” d-o-e, it’s the idea of a dear, and apparently this was an expression used in the ancient world for the rising of the light before the sun came up, so that you had, for example, a passage in the Talmud commenting on this, “from behind of the morning’s dawn until the east is lighted up,” and the picture apparently is that this is to be played, probably musically, a musical rendition, of gradual light coming into darkness. Now we’re pretty sure that the light is involved here. What does this also suggest about the Psalm in its fulfillment. The sun has not come up yet in the morning sky, it’s just the first beams of light in the east, and this is the picture of the Psalm.

Turn to Matthew 27:45 and you’ll be shocked to see how literally true this was in the fulfillment, this is not just spiritual. “Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the earth, until the ninth hour. [46] And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama Sabachthani?’” which is the Aramaic rendition of verse 1 of Psalm 22, “that is to say, ‘My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?’” Now notice the very small detail in verse 46; it says “about the ninth hour,” this is very critical because the sixth hour, the seventh hour, the eighth hour and the ninth hour; the ninth hour was coming up, and about the time of the end of that darkness Jesus began to recite Psalm 22. Does this connect with the Psalm heading of Psalm 22, “the first light,” before the light, it’s been in darkness and the first light of the east shows up and begins to light the sky. And here in the historical fulfillment Christ began, just at the ninth hour, when the darkness was being faded out and the darkness was being phased out that had sat over that area, whether it was one geographical area of Palestine or not we don’t know, but this darkness that accompanied His work on the cross was just about to break; it hadn’t broken yet, it was just about to break. And just as that darkness was about to break, from the cross He recited this Psalm. And how appropriate because what does the Psalm heading tell us in the Hebrew: this Psalm is to be sung to the rising light of dawn.

Now go back and I’ll show you another thing about Psalm 22 that’s very interesting. Look at the next two Psalms. Most scholars that point this out, Psalm 22, 23 and 24 are a trilogy on the plan of salvation. Psalm 22 obviously pictures the work of Christ. What does Psalm 23 picture? Can you see something that moves from Psalm 22 to Psalm 23 to Psalm 24. Do you notice any movement in those three Psalms. Think of the fulfillment of Psalm 22, 23 and 24, you know, it’s total complete fulfillment, do you see a movement here. Psalm 23 looks at the Christian life doesn’t it? Psalm 22 the work of the Savior that makes that Christian life possible; Psalm 22 concludes with the fact that now the Christian life is made possible and “they shall come, and shall declare His righteousness unto a people that shall be born, the he has done.” And now Psalm 23 is the walk of the people that shall be born. What does Psalm 24 speak of? The end times. So you’ve got Psalm 22 which establishes the plan of salvation, phase one; Psalm 23 that continues from the time of salvation to the time of our death, phase 2; and Psalm 24 which is the final end; this is why it says, verse 7, “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lifted up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. [8] Who is this King of glory? The LORD strong and mighty, the LORD might in battle. [9] Lift up your heads, O ye gates; even lift them up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. [10] Who is this king of glory? The LORD of hosts, he is the King of glory.” And then the King comes to consummate His kingdom. So you see these three Psalms, beautiful! Beautiful trilogy right here in the middle of the book of Psalms on the whole plan of salvation.

And if you learn to see these things in the Old Testament it will stabilize you doctrinally so that you won’t get screwed up on some tangent some place, because all the themes of the New Testament, basically, are repeated in the Old Testament with the exception of the details of the church. But the whole major plan of the believer, his salvation, his walk, the finished work of Christ, it’s all there in the Old Testament.

Now let’s see if we can finish verses 1-2, the address. When we stop and look at the address, by the way, this shows you something else, let me write what it looks like here in the Hebrew, this is what “My God, My God” looks like. Now to show you how dumb the crowd was that was seated around the cross when Christ said this, turn to Mark 15:35 and you’ll see what they thought He was saying. This is one of those little details of the text that make it come so much alive. Do you see why they thought that? Because in the Greek Elijah sounds like Elias, Elias, and if you drop the “as” off it sounds very much like Eli, and so they heard Him saying “Eli, Eli,” and they thought they heard Him saying Elias, Elias, they thought him calling for Elijah. And so here is where the crowd mistook, and you can see that He’s saying this verbally, because their reaction doesn’t make sense unless He’s saying it. It’s just one of those little fine details that I think are exciting in the Word because it brings you closer to actually being there on the scene.

Back to Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Now many people have made a lot over the fact that there are only two “Eli, Eli’s” and this is something to be made of because in most cases in the Bible when God is addressed it’s “Holy, Holy, Holy,” three times. Can you think where you’ve seen that in the text. [someone says something] Okay, Revelation, the great praise song, “Holy, Holy, Holy art Thou.” [someone says something] Isaiah 6, he looks up and he sees the cherubim singing “Holy, Holy, Holy.” It’s always three; here it’s only two. Now what does that seem to possibly suggest. It looks very much like one of the Godheads talking to the rest of them, doesn’t it. When man and the creature and the angels look, they say “Holy, Holy, Holy,” and whoever is saying Psalm 22 just says, as it were, “Holy, Holy, are You O God.” So again right in the very start of the Psalm you’ve got a penetration into the Trinity; true we’re reading into this perhaps from our Christian New Testament experience, but nevertheless, objectively it is a fact that most praises of God in the Old Testament are trilogies, not duals.

“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me? Why are You so far from helping Me, and from the words of my screaming,” literally. Does it sound like there’s a trial there? Look at those words very hard and ask yourself whether you really have a sense of the humanity of Christ. Or do you still have the idea, and this is very hard to root out, that really Christ didn’t have to scream, Christ didn’t have to do like this because after all, He’s omniscient, He knew what was coming off, so no problem. The point I want you to make is that there’s tremendous tension in verses 1-2 and then we’re going to see something in verses 3-5 but, “O my God,” verse 2, “I cry in the daytime,” or in the light, “but You hear not; and in the night season, and am not silent.” The point is there’s been made a continual petition. When did Christ cry in the night season? True He cried in darkness because this was the ninth hour, the light hadn’t yet dawned on the cross but even before that when had He cried in the night time? Gethsemane, remember the prayer of Gethsemane; that was at night. And so here again this summarizes his petition.

Now verses 3-5 and we want to finish 3-5 tonight and carry on the lament next time. “But Thou art holy, O Thou who inhabits the praises of Israel. [4] Our fathers trusted in Thee; they trusted and Thou didst deliver them. [5] They cried unto Thee, and were delivered; they trusted in Thee, and were not confounded.” How do you think verses 3-5 relate to verses 1-2? It’s a trust section, and in verse 3 he’s saying “But Thou,” the strong contrast, he says Lord, why have You forsaken me. Now oftentimes, it’s stated and there’s a degree of truth to this so I have to tread my way very carefully with you here, but oftentimes the interpretation of verse 3 is exhausted at this point by saying oh, verse 3 just answers the question of verse 1. Verse 1 says O God, why did you forsake me; in verse 3 it’s simply an answer to the question you forsook me because at this time I was made sin for the sins of men, and because you were holy you had to turn your face from me. Now this is true, theologically that is correct. But how does our form analysis help us with understanding what he is getting at in verse 3.

Verse 3 is a trust section; what should be the argument in verse 3. Now we may not understand all the logic of it but there should be some sort of an argument here. [someone says something] Okay, can you explain why he has “But Thou art holy.” [someone says something] Okay, he is linking it to the character of God, You are holy O God. And so maybe, you know that first answer, that verse 3 is an answer to the question of verse 1, while that’s theologically correct, I don’t think that’s the emphasis of the Psalm; it violates the form of the Psalm. The form of the Psalm here is “Thou art holy, O God,” and therefore you’re going to deliver me, because if you don’t it blots your character. And I have confidence O God, that You are holy and You will deliver me. Remember the trust section comes first in this Psalm. This trust section is a very, very critical thing.

Now there’s one little point here, “But thou art holy, O Thou who inhabits the praises of Israel.” Can you sort of explain this, this is an idiom; can any of you use your creative thinking a little bit to maybe explain how do you suppose that idiom came to be and what do you think it’s meaning. God dwells inside of the praise of Israel. God dwells inside of the praises of Israel, do any of you have an idea of what that expression might mean. [someone says something] Tabernacle, okay; we don’t have time to do this but if you’ll take down these two verses and look at them later, Psalm 80:1[“Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou who leadest Joseph like a flock; thou who dwells between the cherubim, shine forth.”] and Psalm 99:1,[“The LORD reigns; let the peoples tremble. He sits between the cherubim; let the earth be moved.”] there you have this expression were God dwells, and it’s between the cherubs in the tabernacle.

But it’s more than that even, because what are praises? A simple definition of the word “praise” that we began with, this whole Psalm series. What did we say praise was in its simplest way? What’s the simplest definition of praise? [someone says something] Okay, in particular when applied to God praise would mean I am declaring the character of God from His works. And so you see what he’s saying here, you inhabit the praises of Israel; the praise of Israel are the attempts of His past deliverance that are now amplified in verses 4-5. The praises of Israel, those are the songs of praise, God you did this, in Exodus 15; God, you did that in 2 Samuel 22; God you did this; God you did that, those are the praises, and the God who inhabited those praises, that is the God who worked into history and because He worked into history was recognized by believers and they turned and praised Him. This God is the one who is holy and this God is the one who will deliver Him too. He has absolute confidence, he says “our fathers trusted in You, they trusted and You delivered them, They cried unto Thee, and were delivered.” Do you see the absolute confidence, that God has a stable character.

But one of the greatest scholars of this Psalm, Delitzsch of the Keil & Delitzsch series said this; isn’t it interesting, he said, that in this Psalm you have the first and only case in the entire human race of a man being abandoned by God while He was trusting God. And I want to end with that thought because that, if you will meditate upon it, speaks tremendously of the seriousness and the depth of the trials of the humanity of Jesus Christ, is that in His humanity He perfectly trusted every moment in God, and yet at the cross God turned His back. Never will any of us ever get that kind of a trial. When we have a trial the tendency is to blame God, oh God, why’d you let this happen to me and all the rest of it, but Jesus Christ was the only member of the human race who might have had cause to say oh God, why did you let this happen to Me, because Jesus Christ was perfect; in His humanity He trusted all the time, and in spite of His perfect faith God abandoned Him at the cross. Now it was because of our salvation, true, but the point you want to remember is that Christ was perfectly trusting. There was no need for discipline in Christ’s life; there was no need for a further trial to develop His faith. While perfectly believing in the Father the Father walked away from Him.

Are there any questions? [someone says something] “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” I don’t believe that Christ… Christ knew theologically… I mean if we know theologically I’m sure Christ did, but the point here is that by putting this in a question form the psalmist conveys to us the reality of what it must have felt subjectively in his soul. You can know something is true and you can know that God has a reason for giving trials in your life but you still, in the middle of that emotional petition will say why God; that’s part of our human experience.

[someone says something] Let me conclude with this question. The question is did or did not Christ recite the whole Psalm on the cross. The New Testament doesn’t really tell us, it quotes the first verse, however, you must understand that in the Bible Psalms are known by their first verse. So where it says Christ said “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” if Matthew had been writing in 20^th century America he might have said Christ said on the cross Psalm 22. In other words, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” was the first line in the Psalm and that line is the title of the Psalm. So therefore, just because Matthew only has verse 1 doesn’t prove a thing. I tend to think that Christ quoted the whole thing because it was all pertinent. I think Christ must have meditated on Psalm 22 all His life; as soon as Christ became conscious that He was Messiah and had read through the Hebrew in His humanity as a boy, He must have recognized that this Psalm was going to apply to Him, and He probably memorized it. And so as He hung there on the cross it was just coming out of His memory. And I would say further that the reason why I believe He did is because at the end of the Psalm, according to John 19 which is a parallel reference He says “I thirst.” And if you’ll notice in the middle of the lament in here it’s “I thirst.” If you have some questions see me at the front but we’re ten minutes over.