The King Rejoices in the Lord's Strength

Psa 21:5-6 (Hebrew_Bible_21:6-7) The help of God turns to his honour, and paves the way for him to honour, it enables him-this is the meaning of. Psa 21:6 - to maintain and strengthen his kingship with fame and glory. שׁוּה על used, as in Psa 89:20, of divine investiture and endowment. To make blessings, or a fulness of blessing, is a stronger form of expressing God’s words to Abram, Gen 12:2 : thou shalt be a blessing i.

e. , a possessor of blessing thyself, and a medium of blessing to others. Joy in connection with (את as in Psa 16:11) the countenance of God, is joy in delightful and most intimate fellowship with Him. חדּה, from חדה, which occurs once in Exo 18:9, has in Arabic, with reference to nomad life, the meaning “to cheer the beasts of burden with a song and urge them on to a quicker pace,” and in Hebrew, as in Aramaic, the general signification “to cheer, enliven.

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Psa 21:7-8 (Hebrew_Bible_21:8-9) With this strophe the second half of the Psalm commences. The address to God is now changed into an address to the king; not, however, expressive of the wishes, but of the confident expectation, of the speakers. Hengstenberg rightly regards Psa 21:8 as the transition to the second half; for by its objective utterance concerning the king and God, it separates the language hitherto addressed to God, from the address to the king, which follows.

We do not render Psa 21:8 : and trusting in the favour of the Most High - he shall not be moved; the mercy is the response of the trust, which (trust) does not suffer him to be moved; on the expression, cf. Pro 10:30. This inference is now expanded in respect to the enemies who desire to cause him to totter and fall. So far from any tottering, he, on the contrary, makes a victorious assault upon his foes.

If the words had been addressed to Jahve, it ought, in order to keep up the connection between Psa 21:9 and Psa 21:8, at least to have been איביו and שׁנאיו (his, i. e. , the king’s, enemies). What the people now hope on behalf of their king, they here express beforehand in the form of a prophecy. מצא ל (as in Isa 10:10) and מצא seq. acc . (as in 1Sa 23:17) are distinguished as: to reach towards, or up to anything, and to reach anything, attain it.

Supposing ל to represent the accusative, as e. g. , in Psa 69:6, Psa 21:9 would be a useless repetition.

Psa 21:7-8 (Hebrew_Bible_21:8-9) With this strophe the second half of the Psalm commences. The address to God is now changed into an address to the king; not, however, expressive of the wishes, but of the confident expectation, of the speakers. Hengstenberg rightly regards Psa 21:8 as the transition to the second half; for by its objective utterance concerning the king and God, it separates the language hitherto addressed to God, from the address to the king, which follows.

We do not render Psa 21:8 : and trusting in the favour of the Most High - he shall not be moved; the mercy is the response of the trust, which (trust) does not suffer him to be moved; on the expression, cf. Pro 10:30. This inference is now expanded in respect to the enemies who desire to cause him to totter and fall. So far from any tottering, he, on the contrary, makes a victorious assault upon his foes.

If the words had been addressed to Jahve, it ought, in order to keep up the connection between Psa 21:9 and Psa 21:8, at least to have been איביו and שׁנאיו (his, i. e. , the king’s, enemies). What the people now hope on behalf of their king, they here express beforehand in the form of a prophecy. מצא ל (as in Isa 10:10) and מצא seq. acc . (as in 1Sa 23:17) are distinguished as: to reach towards, or up to anything, and to reach anything, attain it.

Supposing ל to represent the accusative, as e. g. , in Psa 69:6, Psa 21:9 would be a useless repetition.

Psa 21:9-10 (Hebrew_Bible_21:10-11) Hitherto the Psalm has moved uniformly in synonymous dipodia, now it becomes agitated; and one feels from its excitement that the foes of the king are also the people’s foes. True as it is, as Hupfeld takes it, that לעת פּניך sounds like a direct address to Jahve, Psa 21:10 nevertheless as truly teaches us quite another rendering.

The destructive effect, which in other passages is said to proceed from the face of Jahve, Psa 34:17; Lev 20:6; Lam 4:16 (cf. ἔχει θεὸς ἔκδικον ὄμμα), is here ascribed to the face, i. e. , the personal appearing (2Sa 17:11) of the king. David’s arrival did actually decide the fall of Rabbath Ammon, of whose inhabitants some died under instruments of torture and others were cast into brick-kilns, 2Sa 12:26.

The prospect here moulds itself according to this fate of the Ammonites. כּתנּוּר אשׁ is a second accusative to תּשׁיתנו, thou wilt make them like a furnace of fire, i. e. , a burning furnace, so that like its contents they shall entirely consume by fire ( synecdoche continentis pro contento ). The figure is only hinted at, and is differently applied to what it is in Lam 5:10, Mal 4:1.

Psa 21:10 and Psa 21:10 are intentionally two long rising and falling wave-like lines, to which succeed, in Psa 21:11, two short lines; the latter describe the peaceful gleaning after the fiery judgment of God that has been executed by the hand of David. פּרימו, as in Lam 2:20; Hos 9:16, is to be understood after the analogy of the expression פּרי הבּטן. It is the fate of the Amalekites (cf.

Psa 9:6.) , which is here predicted of the enemies of the king.

Psa 21:9-10 (Hebrew_Bible_21:10-11) Hitherto the Psalm has moved uniformly in synonymous dipodia, now it becomes agitated; and one feels from its excitement that the foes of the king are also the people’s foes. True as it is, as Hupfeld takes it, that לעת פּניך sounds like a direct address to Jahve, Psa 21:10 nevertheless as truly teaches us quite another rendering.

The destructive effect, which in other passages is said to proceed from the face of Jahve, Psa 34:17; Lev 20:6; Lam 4:16 (cf. ἔχει θεὸς ἔκδικον ὄμμα), is here ascribed to the face, i. e. , the personal appearing (2Sa 17:11) of the king. David’s arrival did actually decide the fall of Rabbath Ammon, of whose inhabitants some died under instruments of torture and others were cast into brick-kilns, 2Sa 12:26.

The prospect here moulds itself according to this fate of the Ammonites. כּתנּוּר אשׁ is a second accusative to תּשׁיתנו, thou wilt make them like a furnace of fire, i. e. , a burning furnace, so that like its contents they shall entirely consume by fire ( synecdoche continentis pro contento ). The figure is only hinted at, and is differently applied to what it is in Lam 5:10, Mal 4:1.

Psa 21:10 and Psa 21:10 are intentionally two long rising and falling wave-like lines, to which succeed, in Psa 21:11, two short lines; the latter describe the peaceful gleaning after the fiery judgment of God that has been executed by the hand of David. פּרימו, as in Lam 2:20; Hos 9:16, is to be understood after the analogy of the expression פּרי הבּטן. It is the fate of the Amalekites (cf.

Psa 9:6.) , which is here predicted of the enemies of the king.

Psa 21:11-12 (Hebrew_Bible_21:12-13) And this fate is the merited frustration of their evil project. The construction of the sentences in Psa 21:12 is like Psa 27:10; Psa 119:83; Ew. §362, b . נטה רעה is not to be understood according to the phrase נטה רשׁת (= פּרשׁ), for this phrase is not actually found; we have rather, with Hitzig, to compare Psa 55:4, 2Sa 15:14 : to incline evil down upon any one is equivalent to: to put it over him, so that it may fall in upon him.

נטה signifies “to extend lengthwise,” to unfold, but also to bend by drawing tight. שׁית שׁכם to make into a back, i. e. , to make them into such as turn the back to you, is a more choice expression than נתן ערף, Psa 18:41, cf. 1Sa 10:9; the half segolate form שׁכם, (= שׁכם) becomes here, in pause, the full segolate form שׁכם. חצּים must be supplied as the object to תּכונן, as it is in other instances after הורה, השׁליך, ידה; כּונן חץ, Psa 11:2, cf.

Psa 7:14, signifies to set the swift arrow upon the bow-string (מיתר = יתר) = to aim. The arrows hit the front of the enemy, as the pursuer overtakes them.

Psa 21:11-12 (Hebrew_Bible_21:12-13) And this fate is the merited frustration of their evil project. The construction of the sentences in Psa 21:12 is like Psa 27:10; Psa 119:83; Ew. §362, b . נטה רעה is not to be understood according to the phrase נטה רשׁת (= פּרשׁ), for this phrase is not actually found; we have rather, with Hitzig, to compare Psa 55:4, 2Sa 15:14 : to incline evil down upon any one is equivalent to: to put it over him, so that it may fall in upon him.

נטה signifies “to extend lengthwise,” to unfold, but also to bend by drawing tight. שׁית שׁכם to make into a back, i. e. , to make them into such as turn the back to you, is a more choice expression than נתן ערף, Psa 18:41, cf. 1Sa 10:9; the half segolate form שׁכם, (= שׁכם) becomes here, in pause, the full segolate form שׁכם. חצּים must be supplied as the object to תּכונן, as it is in other instances after הורה, השׁליך, ידה; כּונן חץ, Psa 11:2, cf.

Psa 7:14, signifies to set the swift arrow upon the bow-string (מיתר = יתר) = to aim. The arrows hit the front of the enemy, as the pursuer overtakes them.

Psa 21:13 (Hebrew_Bible_21:14) After the song has spread abroad its wings in twice three tetrastichs, it closes by, as it were, soaring aloft and thus losing itself in a distich. It is a cry to God for victory in battle, on behalf of the king. “Be Thou exalted,” i.e., manifest Thyself in Thy supernal (Psa 57:6, 12) and judicial (Psa 7:7.) sovereignty. What these closing words long to see realised is that Jahve should reveal for world-wide conquest this גּבוּרה, to which everything that opposes Him must yield, and it is for this they promise beforehand a joyous gratitude.

We have here a plaintive Psalm, whose deep complaints, out of the midst of the most humiliating degradation and most fearful peril, stand in striking contrast to the cheerful tone of Psa 21:1-13 - starting with a disconsolate cry of anguish, it passes on to a trustful cry for help, and ends in vows of thanksgiving and a vision of world-wide results, which spring from the deliverance of the sufferer. In no Psalm do we trace such an accumulation of the most excruciating outward and inward suffering pressing upon the complainant, in connection the most perfect innocence.

In this respect Ps 69 is its counterpart; but it differs from it in this particular, that there is not a single sound of imprecation mingled with its complaints. It is David, who here struggles upward out of the gloomiest depth to such a bright height. It is a Davidic Psalm belonging to the time of the persecution by Saul. Ewald brings it down to the time preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, and Bauer to the time of the Exile.

Ewald says it is not now possible to trace the poet more exactly. And Maurer closes by saying: illue unum equidem pro certo habeo, fuisse vatem hominem opibus praeditum atque illustrem, qui magna auctoritate valeret non solum apud suos, verum etiam apud barbaros. Hitzig persists in his view, that Jeremiah composed the first portion when cast into prison as an apostate, and the second portion in the court of the prison, when placed under this milder restraint.

And according to Olshausen, even here again, the whole is appropriate to the time of the Maccabees. But it seems to us to be confirmed at every point, that David, who was so persecuted by Saul, is the author. The cry of prayer אל־תרחק (Psa 22:12, Psa 22:20; Psa 35:22; Psa 38:22, borrowed in Psa 71:12); the name given to the soul, יחידה (Psa 22:21; Psa 35:17); the designation of quiet and resignation by דומיה (Psa 22:3; Psa 39:3; Psa 62:2, cf.

Psa 65:2), are all regarded by us, since we do not limit the genuine Davidic Psalms to Psa 3:1 as Hitzig does, as Davidic idioms. Moreover, there is no lack of points of contact in other respects with genuine old Davidic hymns (cf. Psa 22:30 with Psa 28:1, those that go down to the dust, to the grave; then in later Psalms as in Psa 143:7, in Isaiah and Ezekiel), and more especially those belonging to the time of Saul, as Ps 69 (cf.

Psa 22:27 with Psa 69:33) and Ps 59 (cf. Psa 22:17 with Psa 59:15). To the peculiar characteristics of the Psalms of this period belong the figures taken from animals, which are heaped up in the Psalm before us. The fact that Ps 22 is an ancient Davidic original is also confirmed by the parallel passages in the later literature of the Shı̂r (Psa 71:5. taken from Psa 22:10.

; Psa 102:18. in imitation Psa 22:25, Psa 22:31.) , of the Chokma (Pro 16:3, גּל אל־ה taken from Psa 22:9; Psa 37:5), and of prophecy (Isaiah, Isa 49:1, Isa 53:1; Jeremiah, in Lam 4:4; cf. Psa 22:15, and many other similar instances). In spite of these echoes in the later literature there are still some expressions that remain unique in the Psalm and are not found elsewhere, as the hapaxlegomena אילוּת and ענוּת.

Thus, then, we entertain no doubts respecting the truth of the לדוד. David speaks in this Psalm, - he and not any other, and that out of his own inmost being. In accordance with the nature of lyric poetry, the Psalm has grown up on the soil of his individual life and his individual sensibilities. There is also in reality in the history of David, when persecuted by Saul, a situation which may have given occasion to the lifelike picture drawn in this Psalm, viz.

, 1Sa 23:25. The detailed circumstances of the distress at that time are not known to us, but they certainly did not coincide with the rare and terrible sufferings depicted in this Psalm in such a manner that these can be regarded as an historically faithful and literally exact copy of those circumstances; cf. on the other hand Psa 17:1-15 which was composed at the same period.

To just as slight a degree have the prospects, which he connects in this Psalm with his deliverance, been realised in David’s own life. On the other hand, the first portion exactly coincides with the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and the second with the results that have sprung from His resurrection. It is the agonising situation of the Crucified One which is presented before our eyes in Psa 22:15 with such artistic faithfulness: the spreading out of the limbs of the naked body, the torturing pain in hands and feet, and the burning thirst which the Redeemer, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled, announced in the cry διψῶ, Joh 19:28.

Those who blaspheme and those who shake their head at Him passed by His cross, Mat 27:39, just as Psa 22:8 says; scoffers cried out to Him: let the God in whom He trusts help Him, Mat 27:43, just as Psa 22:9 says; His garments were divided and lots were cast for His coat, Joh 19:23. , in order that Psa 22:19 of our Psalm might be fulfilled. The fourth of the seven sayings of the dying One, Ἠελί, Ἠελί κ.

τ. λ. , Mat 27:46; Mar 15:34, is the first word of our Psalm and the appropriation of the whole. And the Epistle to the Hebrews, Heb 2:11. , cites Psa 22:23 as the words of Christ, to show that He is not ashamed to call them brethren, whose sanctifier God has appointed Him to be, just as the risen Redeemer actually has done, Mat 28:10; Joh 20:17. This has by no means exhausted the list of mutual relationships.

The Psalm so vividly sets before us not merely the sufferings of the Crucified One, but also the salvation of the world arising out of His resurrection and its sacramental efficacy, that it seems more like history than prophecy, ut non tam prophetia, quam historia videatur (Cassiodorus). Accordingly the ancient Church regarded Christ, not David, as the speaker in this Psalm; and condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia who expounded it as contemporary history.

Bakius expresses the meaning of the older Lutheran expositors when he says: asserimus, hunc Psalmum ad literam primo, proprie et absque ulla allegoria, tropologia et ἀναγωῇ integrum et per omnia de solo Christo exponendum esse. Even the synagogue, so far as it recognises a suffering Messiah, hears Him speak here; and takes the “hind of the morning” as a name of the Shechı̂na and as a symbol of the dawning redemption.

To ourselves, who regard the whole Psalm as the words of David, it does not thereby lose anything whatever of its prophetic character. It is a typical Psalm. The same God who communicates His thoughts of redemption to the mind of men, and there causes them to develop into the word of prophetic announcement, has also moulded the history itself into a prefiguring representation of the future deliverance; and the evidence for the truth of Christianity which is derived from this factual prophecy ( Thatweissagung ) is as grand as that derived from the verbal prediction ( Wortweissagung ).

That David, the anointed of Samuel, before he ascended the throne, had to traverse a path of suffering which resembles the suffering path of Jesus, the Son of David, baptized of John, and that this typical suffering of David is embodied for us in the Psalms as in the images reflected from a mirror, is an arrangement of divine power, mercy, and wisdom. But Ps 22 is not merely a typical Psalm.

For in the very nature of the type is involved the distance between it and the antitype. In Ps 22, however, David descends, with his complaint, into a depth that lies beyond the depth of his affliction, and rises, with his hopes, to a height that lies far beyond the height of the reward of his affliction. In other words: the rhetorical figure hyperbole (Arab.

mubâlgt , i. e. , depiction, with colours thickly laid on), without which, in the eyes of the Semite, poetic diction would be flat and faded, is here made use of by the Spirit of God. By this Spirit the hyperbolic element is changed into the prophetic. This elevation of the typical into the prophetic is also capable of explanation on psychological grounds. Since David has been anointed with the oil of royal consecration, and at the same time with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the kingship of promise, he regards himself also as the messiah of God, towards whom the promises point; and by virtue of this view of himself, in the light of the highest calling in connection with the redemptive history, the historical reality of his own experiences becomes idealised to him, and thereby both what he experiences and what he hopes for acquire a depth and height of background which stretches out into the history of the final and true Christ of God.

We do not by this maintain any overflowing of his own consciousness to that of the future Christ, an opinion which has been shown by Hengstenberg, Tholuck and Kurtz to be psychologically impossible. But what we say is, that looking upon himself as the Christ of God, - to express it in the light of the historical fulfilment, - he looks upon himself in Jesus Christ.

He does not distinguish himself from the Future One, but in himself he sees the Future One, whose image does not free itself from him till afterwards, and whose history will coincide with all that is excessive in his own utterances. For as God the Father moulds the history of Jesus Christ in accordance with His own counsel, so His Spirit moulds even the utterances of David concerning himself the type of the Future One, with a view to that history.

Through this Spirit, who is the Spirit of God and of the future Christ at the same time, David’s typical history, as he describes it in the Psalms and more especially in this Psalm, acquires that ideal depth of tone, brilliancy, and power, by virtue of which it (the history) reaches far beyond its typical facts, penetrates to its very root in the divine counsels, and grows to be the word of prophecy: so that, to a certain extent, it may rightly be said that Christ here speaks through David, insofar as the Spirit of Christ speaks through him, and makes the typical suffering of His ancestor the medium for the representation of His own future sufferings. Without recognising this incontestable relation of the matter Ps 22 cannot be understood nor can we fully enter into its sentiments.

The inscription runs: To the precentor, upon (after) the hind of the morning’s dawn, a Psalm of David . Luther, with reference to the fact that Jesus was taken in the night and brought before the Sanhedrim, renders it “of the hind, that is early chased,” for Patris Sapientia, Veritas divina, Deus homo captus est horâ matutinâ. This interpretation is certainly a well-devised improvement of the ὑπὲρ τῆς ἀντιλήπσεως τῆς ἑωθινῆς of the lxx (Vulg.

pro susceptione matutina ), which is based upon a confounding of אילת with אילות (Psa 22:20), and is thus explained by Theodoret: ἀντίληψις ἑωθινὴ ἡ τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν ἐπιφάνεια. Even the Midrash recalls Sol 2:8, and the Targum the lamb of the morning sacrifice, which was offered as soon as the watchman on the pinnacle of the Temple cried: ברק ברקאי (the first rays of the morning burst forth).

איּלת השּׁחר is in fact, according to traditional definition, the early light preceding the dawn of the morning, whose first rays are likened to the horns of a hind. But natural as it may be to assign to the inscription a symbolical meaning in the case of this Psalm, it certainly forms no exception to the technical meaning, in connection with the music, of the other inscriptions.

And Melissus (1572) has explained it correctly “concerning the melody of a common song, whose commencement was Ajéleth Hasháhar , that is, The hind of the morning’s dawn. ” And it may be that the choice of the melody bearing this name was designed to have reference to the glory which bursts forth in the night of affliction.

According to the course of the thoughts the Psalm falls into three divisions, Psa 22:2, Psa 22:13, Psa 22:23, which are of symmetrical compass, consisting of 21, 24, and 21 lines. Whether the poet has laid out a more complete strophic arrangement within these three groups or not, must remain undecided. But the seven long closing lines are detached from the third group and stand to the column of the whole, in the relation of its base.

Psa 22:1-2 (Hebrew_Bible_22:2-3) In the first division, Psa 22:2, the disconsolate cry of anguish, beginning here in Psa 22:2 with the lamentation over prolonged desertion by God, struggles through to an incipient, trustfully inclined prayer. The question beginning with למּה (instead of למּה before the guttural, and perhaps to make the exclamation more piercing, vid.

, on Psa 6:5; Psa 10:1) is not an expression of impatience and despair, but of alienation and yearning. The sufferer feels himself rejected of God; the feeling of divine wrath has completely enshrouded him; and still he knows himself to be joined to God in fear and love; his present condition belies the real nature of his relationship to God; and it is just this contradiction that urges him to the plaintive question, which comes up from the lowest depths: Why hast Thou forsaken me?

But in spite of this feeling of desertion by God, the bond of love is not torn asunder; the sufferer calls God אלי ( my God), and urged on by the longing desire that God again would grant him to feel this love, he calls Him, אלי אלי. That complaining question: why hast Thou forsaken me? is not without example even elsewhere in Psa 88:15, cf. Isa 49:14. The forsakenness of the Crucified One, however, is unique; and may not be judged by the standard of David or of any other sufferers who thus complain when passing through trial.

That which is common to all is here, as there, this, viz. , that behind the wrath that is felt, is hidden the love of God, which faith holds fast; and that he who thus complains even on account of it, is, considered in itself, not a subject of wrath, because in the midst of the feeling of wrath he keeps up his communion with God. The Crucified One is to His latest breath the Holy One of God; and the reconciliation for which He now offers himself is God’s own eternal purpose of mercy, which is now being realised in the fulness of times.

But inasmuch as He places himself under the judgment of God with the sin of His people and of the whole human race, He cannot be spared from experiencing God’s wrath against sinful humanity as though He were himself guilty. And out of the infinite depth of this experience of wrath, which in His case rests on no mere appearance, but the sternest reality, comes the cry of His complaint which penetrates the wrath and reaches to God’s love, ἠλὶ ἠλὶ λαμὰ σαβαχθανί, which the evangelists, omitting the additional πρόσχες μοι of the lxx, render: Θεέ μου, θεέ μου, ἵνα τί με ἐγκατέλιπες.

He does not say עזתּני, but שׁבקתּני, which is the Targum word for the former. He says it in Aramaic, not in order that all may understand it-for such a consideration was far from His mind at such a time-but because the Aramaic was His mother tongue, for the same reason that He called God אבּא doG dellac in prayer. His desertion by God, as Psa 22:2 says, consists in God’s help and His cry for help being far asunder.

שׁאגה, prop. of the roar of the lion (Aq. βρύχημα), is the loud cry extorted by the greatest agony, Psa 38:9; in this instance, however, as דּברי shows, it is not an inarticulate cry, but a cry bearing aloft to God the words of prayer. רחוק is not to be taken as an apposition of the subject of עזבתני: far from my help, (from) the words of my crying (Riehm); for דברי שׁאגתי would then also, on its part, in connection with the non-repetition of the מן, be in apposition to מישׁועתי.

But to this it is not adapted on account of its heterogeneousness; hence Hitzig seeks to get over the difficulty by the conjecture משּׁועתי (“from my cry, from the words of my groaning”). Nor can it be explained, with Olshausen and Hupfeld, by adopting Aben-Ezra’s interpretation, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me, far from my help? are the words of my crying.

” This violates the structure of the verse, the rhythm, and the custom of the language, and gives to the Psalm a flat and unlyrical commencement. Thus, therefore, רחוק in the primary form, as in Psa 119:155, according to Ges. §146, 4, will by the predicate to דברי and placed before it: far from my salvation, i. e. , far from my being rescued, are the words of my cry; there is a great gulf between the two, inasmuch as God does not answer him though he cries unceasingly.

In Psa 22:3 the reverential name of God אלחי takes the place of אלי the name that expresses His might; it is likewise vocative and accordingly marked with Rebia magnum . It is not an accusative of the object after Psa 18:4 (Hitzig), in which case the construction would be continued with ולא יענה. That it is, however, God to whom he calls is implied both by the direct address אלהי, and by ולא תענה, since he from whom one expects an answer is most manifestly the person addressed.

His uninterrupted crying remains unanswered, and unappeased. The clause ולא־דמיּה לּי is parallel to ולא תענה, and therefore does not mean: without allowing me any repose (Jer 14:17; Lam 3:49), but: without any rest being granted to me, without my complaint being appeased or stilled. From the sixth to the ninth hour the earth was shrouded in darkness. About the ninth hour Jesus cried, after a long and more silent struggle, ἠλί, ἠλί.

The ἀνεβόησεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Mat 27:46, and also the κραυγὴ ἰσχυρά of Hebr. Psa 5:7, which does not refer exclusively to the scene in Gethsemane, calls to mind the שׁאגתי of Psa 22:2 . When His passion reached its climax, days and nights of the like wrestling had preceded it, and what then becomes audible was only an outburst of the second David’s conflict of prayer, which grows hotter as it draws near to the final issue.

Psa 22:3-5 (Hebrew_Bible_22:4-6) The sufferer reminds Jahve of the contradiction between the long season of helplessness and His readiness to help so frequently and so promptly attested. ואתּה opens an adverbial clause of the counterargument: although Thou art... Jahve is קדושׁ, absolutely pure, lit. , separated (root קד, Arab. qd , to cut, part, just as ṭahur , the synonym of ḳadusa , as the intransitive of ṭahara = ab‛ada , to remove to a distance, and בּר pure, clean, radically distinct from pû-rus , goes back to בּרר to sever), viz.

, from that which is worldly and common, in one word: holy. Jahve is holy, and has shown Himself such as the תּהלּות of Israel solemnly affirm, upon which or among which He sits enthroned. תהלות are the songs of praise offered to God on account of His attributes and deeds, which are worthy of praise (these are even called תהלות in Psa 78:4; Exo 15:11; Isa 63:7), and in fact presented in His sanctuary (Isa 64:10).

The combination יושׁב תּהלּות (with the accusative of the verbs of dwelling and tarrying) is like יושׁב כּרבים, Psa 99:1; Psa 80:2. The songs of praise, which resounded in Israel as the memorials of His deeds of deliverance, are like the wings of the cherubim, upon which His presence hovered in Israel. In Psa 22:5, the praying one brings to remembrance this graciously glorious self-attestation of God, who as the Holy One always, from the earliest times, acknowledged those who fear Him in opposition to their persecutors and justified their confidence in Himself.

In Psa 22:5 trust and rescue are put in the connection of cause and effect; in Psa 22:6 in reciprocal relation. פּלּט and מלּט are only distinguished by the harder and softer sibilants, cf. Psa 17:13 with Psa 116:4. It need not seem strange that such thoughts were at work in the soul of the Crucified One, since His divine-human consciousness was, on its human side, thoroughly Israelitish; and the God of Israel is also the God of salvation; redemption is that which He himself determined, why, then, should He not speedily deliver the Redeemer?

Psa 22:3-5 (Hebrew_Bible_22:4-6) The sufferer reminds Jahve of the contradiction between the long season of helplessness and His readiness to help so frequently and so promptly attested. ואתּה opens an adverbial clause of the counterargument: although Thou art... Jahve is קדושׁ, absolutely pure, lit. , separated (root קד, Arab. qd , to cut, part, just as ṭahur , the synonym of ḳadusa , as the intransitive of ṭahara = ab‛ada , to remove to a distance, and בּר pure, clean, radically distinct from pû-rus , goes back to בּרר to sever), viz.

, from that which is worldly and common, in one word: holy. Jahve is holy, and has shown Himself such as the תּהלּות of Israel solemnly affirm, upon which or among which He sits enthroned. תהלות are the songs of praise offered to God on account of His attributes and deeds, which are worthy of praise (these are even called תהלות in Psa 78:4; Exo 15:11; Isa 63:7), and in fact presented in His sanctuary (Isa 64:10).

The combination יושׁב תּהלּות (with the accusative of the verbs of dwelling and tarrying) is like יושׁב כּרבים, Psa 99:1; Psa 80:2. The songs of praise, which resounded in Israel as the memorials of His deeds of deliverance, are like the wings of the cherubim, upon which His presence hovered in Israel. In Psa 22:5, the praying one brings to remembrance this graciously glorious self-attestation of God, who as the Holy One always, from the earliest times, acknowledged those who fear Him in opposition to their persecutors and justified their confidence in Himself.

In Psa 22:5 trust and rescue are put in the connection of cause and effect; in Psa 22:6 in reciprocal relation. פּלּט and מלּט are only distinguished by the harder and softer sibilants, cf. Psa 17:13 with Psa 116:4. It need not seem strange that such thoughts were at work in the soul of the Crucified One, since His divine-human consciousness was, on its human side, thoroughly Israelitish; and the God of Israel is also the God of salvation; redemption is that which He himself determined, why, then, should He not speedily deliver the Redeemer?