The Scripture behind the Scripture
My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me
Psalm 22:1 opens with the cry My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me. Jesus speaks these very words from the cross in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?”Psalm 22:1
“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”Matthew 27:46
“And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”Mark 15:34
In its own place
In its own place. Psalm 22 is a psalm of David, a lament of a righteous sufferer who feels abandoned by God yet will not let go of him. It begins with the raw question of why God seems absent while the sufferer cries day and night without answer. The poem describes enemies encircling like bulls and lions, bones out of joint, a heart melted like wax, hands and feet afflicted, and mockers who part his garments and cast lots. Yet the psalm is not despair. It repeatedly recalls God's past faithfulness and the trust of the fathers, and it turns near its midpoint from lament to confidence. By its end it bursts into praise, promising to declare God's name to the congregation and envisioning all the ends of the earth turning to the Lord, even generations yet unborn. In its original setting it gives voice to any faithful Israelite crushed by suffering while still clinging to God. The opening cry is not a denial of faith but an anguished prayer addressed to my God, the paradox of feeling forsaken while still holding fast to the one who seems to have left.
Where the New Testament takes it up
This is a direct quotation, placed on the lips of Jesus in his dying hour. Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 record him crying out with a loud voice My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me, and both preserve the words in Aramaic before translating them. By quoting the first line of Psalm 22, Jesus invokes the whole psalm, a common way of summoning an entire passage by its opening. The Gospel writers clearly saw the psalm as describing his passion, for they narrate details that echo it, the mocking bystanders, the parting of garments and casting of lots, the taunt that God should deliver him if he delights in him. The wording follows the sense of the Hebrew rather than smoothing it, keeping the shocking cry intact. The apostles do not treat the psalm as mere prediction fulfilled mechanically. They present Jesus as the ultimate righteous sufferer who enters fully into the psalm's agony, and whose cry, like the psalm itself, moves from forsakenness toward vindication. The honesty of the Gospels is notable, for they do not soften the cry or hide the anguish. They let Jesus speak the darkest line of the psalm and trust the reader to hear where the psalm finally goes.
How it points to Christ
How it points to Christ. Jesus takes the words of the suffering psalmist and makes them his own more deeply than any before him. On the cross he bears not only physical torment but the weight of sin that was not his, and in that hour he speaks the psalm's cry of God forsakenness. Yet by quoting the opening line he points to the whole psalm, which ends not in abandonment but in triumph and in the nations turning to God. His forsakenness is real, undergone so that those who trust him would never be finally forsaken. And the psalm's closing vision, that all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, is fulfilled through his death and resurrection, as the gospel goes to every nation. The cry of dereliction and the promise of a worldwide congregation belong to the same psalm and the same Christ.
Questions people ask
Was Jesus in despair when he cried these words?
He spoke a real cry of anguish while bearing sin, yet he addressed it to my God, still holding fast in faith. By quoting the opening of Psalm 22 he invoked the entire psalm, which moves from forsakenness to vindication and worldwide praise.
Why do the Gospels keep the Aramaic?
Matthew and Mark preserve the actual sound of Jesus' cry before translating it, underscoring that these were his real words. It also let readers recognize the direct link to Psalm 22, whose opening line he was quoting.