Theme:
When God feels absent and enemies feel near, faith dares to cry honestly—and still clings to the Lord who hears and will be praised.
Tone:
Broken.
Structure:
From piercing lament to hard-won praise—a descent into felt abandonment, a remembrance of God’s past faithfulness, urgent petitions for deliverance, and a widened horizon where rescue becomes testimony among God’s people and the nations.
The Call
The psalm opens with a shock of intimacy: the covenant name of God on the lips, yet paired with the felt reality of distance. The prayer is not restrained or polite; it is urgent, relentless, and bewildered—“Why?” sits beside “My God.” The first movement teaches that lament is not leaving God, but bringing the ache directly to him.
The Reflection
Pain deepens as the psalmist names both inner collapse and outward hostility. Mockery stings as much as suffering: others interpret affliction as divine rejection, and their taunts try to rewrite God’s character. Yet the psalm refuses that rewrite. In the midst of humiliation, the singer remembers: God has acted for the fathers; God has been faithful from the womb; God’s holiness has not changed even when his nearness cannot be felt.
The images are raw—weakness like poured-out water, bones out of joint, strength dried up, surrounded by predatory enemies. This is lament at full volume: honest about what terror does to the body and what shame does to the soul. Still, a thin but real thread holds: the psalmist keeps praying to the very One who seems silent, insisting that God’s past faithfulness is a reason to plead in the present.
The Resolve
The ending does not deny the darkness; it answers it with worship that has been fought for. Deliverance—whether seen as beginning, promised, or newly received—moves outward into public testimony: “I will tell.” Lament becomes a summons for the afflicted to hope, for the community to praise, and for the ends of the earth to acknowledge the Lord’s reign. The final note is expansive: suffering is not the last word; God’s faithfulness will be proclaimed to generations yet unborn. Even here, the memory of anguish remains—but it is gathered into a larger confidence that God does not abandon the one who calls on him.
Psalm 22 is taken up with particular clarity in the suffering of Jesus. On the cross, Christ voices its opening cry, not as performance but as true human anguish offered to the Father. The psalm’s scenes of scorn, bodily distress, and the dividing of garments echo in the crucifixion narratives, showing that the righteous sufferer’s lament finds its deepest embodiment in the Righteous One.
Yet the psalm also points beyond the cross’s desolation toward its fruit: the turning of suffering into proclamation, the gathering of worshipers, and the announcement that God reigns. In Christ, lament is not minimized; it is carried. And because he has entered abandonment for us and been vindicated, believers can bring their own “why” into prayer without fear—trusting that God can transform honest grief into enduring praise.
The phrase “My God, my God” uses the Hebrew ’ēlî (אֵלִי), a possessive form meaning “my God”—a small word that carries immense weight. Even at the edge of despair, the psalmist speaks not of a distant deity but of a God still claimed in covenant relationship. Lament here is not unbelief; it is wounded belonging.
“For he has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him.” — Psalm 22:24
Answer the questions below. When you choose an option, you will see the result and an explanation.
1. What emotional movement best describes how the psalm progresses?
2. According to the key verse quoted, what has God done when the afflicted cried to him?