“To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”
My Notes
What Does Psalms 22:1 Mean?
David writes the opening words of Psalm 22 — the same words Jesus would cry from the cross centuries later: My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The cry is the deepest expression of spiritual anguish in Scripture.
The address is personal — my God. Not a God. My God. The relationship is real. The abandonment is felt within relationship, which makes it infinitely more painful than being forsaken by a stranger.
The question — why? — is not rhetorical. It is genuine. The suffering person does not understand why the God who was near has become distant. The forsakenness is experienced, not just theoretical.
Jesus quoted this psalm on the cross (Matthew 27:46), making David's anguish his own. The Son of God, bearing the sins of the world, experienced the forsakenness of separation from the Father — the one thing that had never happened in eternity.
Reflection Questions
- 1.What does it mean that Jesus quoted this psalm on the cross — that he experienced genuine forsakenness?
- 2.How is the 'my God' possessive the most painful part of the cry?
- 3.Have you experienced spiritual forsakenness — and how does knowing Jesus experienced it too change that?
- 4.How does Psalm 22 move from forsakenness (v.1) to praise (v.22-31) — and what does that trajectory promise?
Devotional
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? The most agonized question in Scripture. Spoken first by David. Spoken last by Jesus. The cry of someone who belongs to God and cannot find him.
My God. The possessive is the wound. If it were someone else's God — a distant, impersonal force — the forsakenness would be bearable. But my God. The one I know. The one I belong to. The one who was always there. Where are you?
Why hast thou forsaken me? The why is not academic. It is desperate. The person crying out is not questioning God's existence. They are questioning his absence. You are real. You are mine. So why does it feel like you left?
Jesus spoke these words from the cross. The Son of God — who had been in eternal fellowship with the Father from before creation — experienced forsakenness. The separation that sin produces was laid on the sinless one. And the cry that came out was David's psalm.
If you have ever felt forsaken by God — if the silence has been deafening, if the distance has been crushing — you are praying the same prayer Jesus prayed. The forsakenness is real. The cry is honest. And the one who cried it from the cross understands it from the inside.
Commentary
Trusted original commentary from respected historical Bible scholars and theologians.
My God, my God,.... God is the God of Christ as he is man; he prepared a body for him, an human nature; anointed it with…
My God, my God - These are the very words uttered by the Saviour when on the cross Mat 27:46; and he evidently used them…
Some think they find Christ in the title of this psalm, upon Aijeleth Shahar - The hind of the morning. Christ is as the…
The pleading cry of the forsaken and persecuted servant of God.
Cross References
Related passages throughout Scripture