221 My God, my God, why are you turned away from me? why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my crying? 2 O my God, I make my cry in the day, and you give no answer; and in the night, and have no rest. 3 But you are holy, O you who are seated among the praises of Israel. 4 Our fathers had faith in you: they had faith and you were their saviour. 5 They sent up their cry to you and were made free: they put their faith in you and were not put to shame. 6 But I am a worm and not a man; cursed by men, and looked down on by the people. 7 I am laughed at by all those who see me: pushing out their lips and shaking their heads they say, 8 He put his faith in the Lord; let the Lord be his saviour now: let the Lord be his saviour, because he had delight in him. 9 But it was you who took care of me from the day of my birth: you gave me faith even from my mother's breasts. 10 I was in your hands even before my birth; you are my God from the time when I was in my mother's body.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Psalm 22:1-10
Commentary on Psalm 22:1-10
(Read Psalm 22:1-10)
The Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets, testifies in this psalm, clearly and fully, the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. We have a sorrowful complaint of God's withdrawings. This may be applied to any child of God, pressed down, overwhelmed with grief and terror. Spiritual desertions are the saints' sorest afflictions; but even their complaint of these burdens is a sign of spiritual life, and spiritual senses exercised. To cry our, My God, why am I sick? why am I poor? savours of discontent and worldliness. But, "Why hast thou forsaken me?" is the language of a heart binding up its happiness in God's favour. This must be applied to Christ. In the first words of this complaint, he poured out his soul before God when he was upon the cross, Matthew 27:46. Being truly man, Christ felt a natural unwillingness to pass through such great sorrows, yet his zeal and love prevailed. Christ declared the holiness of God, his heavenly Father, in his sharpest sufferings; nay, declared them to be a proof of it, for which he would be continually praised by his Israel, more than for all other deliverances they received. Never any that hoped in thee, were made ashamed of their hope; never any that sought thee, sought thee in vain. Here is a complaint of the contempt and reproach of men. The Saviour here spoke of the abject state to which he was reduced. The history of Christ's sufferings, and of his birth, explains this prophecy.