Psalm Chapter 22

Psalm 22: From the Pit to the Congregation

No line in Scripture is darker than the one that opens this psalm, and none has traveled further. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" — the cry of a man who has run out of everything but breath, and even breath is beginning to fail. The middle of the psalm reads like a coroner's report: bones out of joint, heart melted like wax, tongue cleaving to the jaws, hands and feet pierced. And then, without warning, the floor of the pit gives way to something deeper — not more despair, but praise. "I will declare thy name unto my brethren." By the end, all the ends of the world are remembering and turning to the Lord. How does a song that begins in total abandonment end in global worship? Only one way: the psalmist has discovered that even at the bottom of the bottom, underneath the underneath, there is still a voice to cry to — and that voice has been there the whole time, listening. Centuries later, a man on a cross would borrow this psalm's first line, and by doing so, teach us that its last line was meant for him too.

00:00 My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me
00:30 Our Fathers Trusted in Thee
01:00 I Am a Worm, and No Man
01:30 Bulls of Bashan Compass Me
02:00 They Pierced My Hands and My Feet
02:30 I Will Declare Thy Name
03:00 All the Ends of the World Shall Turn