To the chief musician upon Aijeleth Shahar,
A Psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me,
and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;
and in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy,
O thou that inhabitest 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.
6 But I am a worm, and no man;
a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn;
they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
8 "He trusted in the LORD that he would deliver him;
let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him."
9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb;
thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.
10 I was cast upon thee from the womb;
thou art my God from my mother's belly.
11 Be not far from me;
for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
12 Many bulls have compassed me;
strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13 They gaped upon me with their mouths,
as a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd;
and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws;
and thou hast brought me into the dust of the earth.
16 For dogs have compassed me;
the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me;
they pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I may tell all my bones;
they look and stare upon me.
18 They part my garments among them,
and cast lots upon my vesture.
19 But be not thou far from me, O LORD;
O my strength, haste thee to help me.
20 Deliver my soul from the sword;
my darling from the power of the dog.
21 Save me from the lion's mouth;
for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.
JW: It is composed that David was a type of Christ, and that many passages of the Psalms, though literally understood of David, yet had a further and mystical reference to Christ. But there are some other passages, which were directly, and immediately intended for, and are properly to be understood of the Messiah; though withal there may be some respect and allusion to the state of the penman himself. And this seems to be the state of this Psalm, which is understood of the Messiah, by the Hebrew doctors themselves, and by Christ himself and by his apostles. And there are many passages in it, which were literally accomplished in him, and cannot be understood of any other. In this Psalm David speaks of the humiliation of Christ, ver. 1-21; of the exaltation of Christ, ver. 22-31.
1: 'My God' - Who art my friend and father, though now thou frownest upon me. The repetition denotes the depth of his distress, which made him cry so earnestly. 'Forsaken' - withdrawn the light of thy countenance, the supports and comforts of thy spirit, and filled me with the terrors of thy wrath: this was in part verified by David, but much more fully in Christ. 'Roaring' - my outcries forced from me, by my miseries.
3: 'But thou art' - just and true in all thy ways, this he adds to strengthen his faith, and to enforce his prayers, and prevail with God for the honour of his holy name, to hear and help him. 'Inhabitest' - whom thy people are perpetually praising.
6: 'A worm' - neglected and despised. 'People' - not only of the great men, but also of the common people, which doth not so truly agree to David as to Christ.
7: 'Shoot out' - They gape with their mouths, in mockery. This and the next verse are applied to Christ, Matt. 27.39, 43.
14: 'Water' - My spirits are spent and gone like water which once spilt can never be recovered; my very flesh is melted within me, and I am become as weak as water. 'Bones' - I am as unable to help myself, and as full of torment as if all my bones were disjointed. 'Wax' - melted, through fear and overwhelming grief.
20: 'Darling' - Heb. my only one; his soul, which he so calls because it was left alone and destitute of friends and helpers.
Because of its length I may need to even break this down into more posts than just two, but I wanted to include this whole section for context. It seems that no other Psalm in the Psalter has more darkness and despair yet more hope and thanksgiving than this one. Perhaps my thinking is only this way because it appears more vividly than any other Psalm to apply to Christ and his Passion. This section (v. 1-21) is the darkness and despair.
Now here I have a bit of a bone to pick with Wesley. Maybe not so much with him because he probably only relays here (as in many cases) what the tradition he was accustomed to had handed on to him. But I think there has often been a gross misreading of this Psalm, verse 1 in particular, because of how people read the cry of dereliction (My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) from the cross. What is the picture that is drawn in (most) evangelical renderings of this statement? That the Father (literally) turned his back on the Son because he couldn't look at the sin that was on his Son. But if that's how we take what this means when Jesus roars it from the cross, then we have a divorce between verse 1 of this Psalm from the rest of the Psalm, verses 2-21, in particular. Can you show me where in this Psalm there is reference to the Lord not coming through because of any sinfulness or wrongdoing that the Psalmist has done? And if we have the image of a Father who literally turns his back on his Son in the moment of the Son's greatest despair, then what sort of portrayal of the Trinity are we advocating? I'm not suggesting that Jesus in the cross doesn't deal with God's wrath, but because that takes place, we shouldn't automatically read that into everything that pertains to Jesus' death. Let's let this Psalm and other passages that refer to the cross speak on their own terms. I think there's a better option.
Sure the Psalm was more literally fulfilled in Christ than any person or group in history. But this Psalm is the cry of the righteous innocent calling upon the faithfulness and justice of God and asking why He hasn't come through to the rescue in this case. The garments of the faithful are shredded and divided among the enemies of God all the time. Innocent people are and have been oppressed countless times in history. Many people die alone, being rejected and despised, or worse, ignored by the people. Maybe Jesus, in making such a loud cry in his greatest moment of desperation, is resonating/empathizing with the suffering of the righteous ones through all of time. "Where are you, God?" There's much more about this passage I want to wrestle with, but since this is a blog and not a thesis, I'll save some more for later. With that, watch this video from Jars of Clay's 'Oh My God'...notice that amongst those who say this, the artist says "Saviors always say..."
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