Passage

Psalms 22

Book: Psalms · NASB95

Core verses (22:1, 14-18)

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. … I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots." (Psalm 22:1, 14-18, NASB95)

Resolution / vindication (22:22, 27)

"I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. … All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You." (Psalm 22:22, 27, NASB95)

Immediate context (±2 verses)

NASB95 (NASB95)

"My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning. O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer; And by night, but I have no rest. Yet You are holy, O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. In You our fathers trusted; They trusted and You delivered them. To You they cried out and were delivered; In You they trusted and were not disappointed. But I am a worm and not a man, A reproach of men and despised by the people. All who see me sneer at me; They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying, 'Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him; Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.' Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb; You made me trust when upon my mother's breasts. Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother's womb. Be not far from me, for trouble is near; For there is none to help. Many bulls have surrounded me; Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me. They open wide their mouth at me, As a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured out like water, And all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; It is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, And my tongue cleaves to my jaws; And You lay me in the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones. They look, they stare at me; They divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots. But You, O LORD, be not far off; O You my help, hasten to my assistance. Deliver my soul from the sword, My only life from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion's mouth; From the horns of the wild oxen You answer me. I will tell of Your name to my brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You. You who fear the LORD, praise Him; All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him, And stand in awe of Him, all you descendants of Israel. For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from him; But when he cried to Him for help, He heard. From You comes my praise in the great assembly; I shall pay my vows before those who fear Him. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied; Those who seek Him will praise the LORD. Let your heart live forever! All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations will worship before You. For the kingdom is the LORD's And He rules over the nations. All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship, All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him, Even he who cannot keep his soul alive. Posterity will serve Him; It will be told of the LORD to the coming generation. They will come and will declare His righteousness To a people who will be born, that He has performed it." (Psalm 22, NASB95)

Setting

Speaker: David, traditionally, and by superscription (L'David Mizmor; some scholars take La-menatzeach al-Ayyeleth Hashachar "to the chief musician on the doe of the dawn" as a tune indication).
Audience: the worshipping community of Israel; used liturgically (Psalter superscription "to the chief musician").
Location: Jerusalem composition (David's psalm-writing context).
Time period: Davidic (c. 1000 BC). The psalm has no clear narrative anchor in David's recorded biography, the suffering described exceeds what David historically endured. The traditional Christian reading: the psalm is prophetic, with David typologically anticipating the Messiah.

Theological reading

The chapter is the most detailed Christological prophecy of the crucifixion in the Hebrew Bible, written ~1000 years before the event it describes. The structure is two-part:

Suffering (vv. 1-21), first-person lament of catastrophic abandonment, physical torment, and public mockery
Vindication (vv. 22-31), sudden shift: the sufferer is delivered; he proclaims God's name to the brethren; the nations worship YHWH

The psalm's prophetic specificity is unusual:

v. 1, Eli, Eli, lama azavtani, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?", Jesus quotes this verse from the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). The quotation is in Aramaic / Hebrew (depending on the gospel), invoking the entire psalm by its opening line, a recognized rabbinic technique for citing a chapter by its first words.
v. 7-8, "all who see me sneer at me… 'Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him'", directly fulfilled in the mockery at the cross (Matthew 27:39-43).
v. 16, "they pierced my hands and my feet", the disputed Hebrew phrase (kaaru in DSS / LXX ōryxan "they pierced"; Masoretic vowel-pointed ka'ari "like a lion"). The Dead Sea Scrolls (especially 5/6Hev-Ps) confirm the piercing reading; LXX ōryxan (gouged, dug into) is unambiguous. This single phrase is one of the most precise pre-Christian crucifixion-references in the OT.
v. 18, "they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots", directly fulfilled (John 19:23-24, which cites this verse explicitly).
vv. 14-17, the catalog of physical agony (poured out like water, bones out of joint, heart like wax, strength dried up, tongue cleaving to jaws, surrounded by hostile crowd, bones countable, public exposure) reads as medical description of crucifixion, even though crucifixion as a Roman execution method postdates the psalm by centuries.

The "they pierced my hands and feet" textual question

The Hebrew text-critical issue at v. 16 is one of the most-discussed in OT studies:

Masoretic Text (vowel-pointed c. AD 700-900): ka'ari yadai v'raglai, "like a lion my hands and my feet", grammatically incomplete (the verb is missing); awkward Hebrew.
Dead Sea Scrolls (pre-Christian): 5/6Hev-Psalms reads ka'aru (with vav), "they have pierced my hands and my feet", grammatically complete.
Septuagint (LXX, c. 250 BC): ōryxan cheiras mou kai podas mou, "they pierced/dug my hands and my feet", the pre-Christian Jewish translation reads piercing.
Syriac Peshitta: same, "they have pierced."
Vulgate (Jerome): foderunt manus meas et pedes meos, "they pierced/dug my hands and my feet."

The text-critical case strongly favors the piercing reading: the LXX, DSS, and ancient versions all converge. The Masoretic "like a lion" reading is a later vowel-pointing choice, with consonantal text that may have shifted over time. The grammatical awkwardness of the Masoretic reading is itself evidence of corruption, "like a lion my hands and my feet" requires the reader to supply a verb, which the alternative reading provides.

Jewish counter-readings (Rashi, post-9th c.) defend the Masoretic ka'ari, typically as "like a lion [they tore] my hands and feet", but the case is widely considered weaker than the piercing reading. Modern apologetic (Michael Brown, Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 3, 2003; Glaser, The Gospel According to Isaiah 53, 2012) develops the case in detail.

NT use

The psalm is the most-NT-cited OT chapter regarding the crucifixion specifically:

Matthew 27:35 / John 19:24, v. 18 (garments)
Matthew 27:39, 43, vv. 7-8 (mockery)
Matthew 27:46 / Mark 15:34, v. 1 ("My God, My God, why…")
John 19:28, v. 15 ("my tongue cleaves to my jaws") echo
Hebrews 2:12, v. 22 (Christ proclaiming God's name to brethren)

The cumulative effect: the gospel writers self-consciously frame the crucifixion as fulfillment of Psalm 22.

The shift in vv. 22-31

After v. 21's deliverance, the psalm pivots dramatically. The sufferer:

Proclaims God's name to His brethren (v. 22), fulfilled in the resurrection-Christ commissioning the disciples (Matthew 28; Hebrews 2:12)
Calls Israel to praise (vv. 23-26)
Sees "all the ends of the earth" turn to YHWH (v. 27), the global mission
"All the families of the nations will worship before You" (v. 27), universal worship
Proclaims to "a generation yet to be born" (vv. 30-31), the perpetual gospel proclamation

The pattern: suffering → resurrection → global mission. This is the Christological pattern fulfilled in Christ's death, resurrection, and the apostolic mission.

Patristic / scholarly note

The psalm is universally read Christologically by the Fathers. Justin Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 97-106, c. AD 160) provides extensive verse-by-verse Christological exposition against Trypho's denials. Tertullian (Against Marcion III.19; Against the Jews 10), Cyprian (Testimonies Against the Jews II.13), Athanasius, and Augustine all cite Psalm 22 as the foundational OT crucifixion-prophecy.

Modern conservative scholarship: Derek Kidner (Psalms 1-72 TOTC, 1973); James Mays (Psalms Interpretation, 1994); Bruce Waltke and Cathi Fredricks (The Psalms as Christian Worship, 2010); Michael Brown (Answering Jewish Objections to Jesus, vol. 3, 2003).

Apologetic significance

The psalm anchors:

Cumulative-prophecy apologetic, Psalm 22 + Isaiah 53 + Zechariah 12:10 + Daniel 9:25-26 + Micah 5:2 form the four-corner-stone OT messianic prophecies fulfilled in Christ. Joint probability of fulfillment by chance is astronomically low.
Pre-Christian dating proof, the DSS (1QPsa, 5/6Hev-Ps) confirm the psalm's text predates Christ by centuries; no possibility of post-hoc Christianization.
Anti-mythicism, the psalm's specific details (pierced hands and feet, garments divided, public mockery) are too historically specific to fit pagan dying-god myth patterns.

Key words

H1856 - daqar (sister verb to kaaru of v. 16), the Zech 12:10 piercing motif; same pattern across OT
H4899 - mashiach, Messianic context
H3068 - YHWH, addressed throughout
G2098 - euangelion, the proclamation of vv. 22, 27 anticipates gospel mission

Connection to other passages

Isaiah 53, sister Messianic-suffering text
Zechariah 12.10, YHWH-pierced parallel
Matthew 27 / Mark 15 / John 19, the crucifixion narratives that fulfill the psalm
Matthew 28.6, resurrection that vindicates the suffering
1 Corinthians 15.3-8, pre-Pauline creed; "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures"