Jesus knew He came to die for us. So why did He cry out, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Below are the words from the cross, the psalm they come from, and how Bible commentators from three traditions have explained them.
Matthew 27:45–47
What did Jesus cry from the cross?
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, KJV
Matthew gives the words in the language Jesus spoke and then translates them; Mark 15:34 records the same cry. Albert Barnes describes “Eli, Eli” as “not pure Hebrew nor Syriac, but a mixture of both”.
Why did people think he was calling Elijah?
Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.
Matthew 27:47, KJV
“Eli” sounded like the name Elijah (Elias), and many expected Elijah to return before the Messiah, as Malachi had written:
Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD:
Malachi 4:5, KJV
Adam Clarke thinks the speakers were probably Greek-speaking Jews “who did not fully understand the meaning of our Lord’s words”. Barnes thinks it more likely “This was done purposely to deride him”.
Psalm 22
Where do the words come from?
They are the first line of Psalm 22, 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?
Psalm 22:1, KJV
Several lines of the psalm are echoed in the crucifixion accounts. The mockers at the cross said, “He trusted in God; let him deliver him now” (Matthew 27:43), close to Psalm 22:8. John notes that the soldiers divided Jesus’ clothes so that this scripture “might be fulfilled”:
They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
Psalm 22:18, KJV
How does Psalm 22 end?
The psalm does not end in abandonment. It turns to trust and praise:
For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.
Psalm 22:24, KJV
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
Psalm 22:27, KJV
How others have read it
Adam Clarke (1762–1832), a Methodist scholar, rejects the view that Christ’s divinity “had now departed” from him at this moment, and records another view: that Jesus quoted the opening of a psalm the Jews already read as speaking of the Messiah, as an answer to those who mocked him with its eighth verse.
Albert Barnes, an American Presbyterian minister, says the cry “is one denoting intense suffering”, adding: “It is certain that God approved his work. It is certain that he was innocent.”
Matthew Henry (1662–1714), a Presbyterian minister, reads the psalm as a whole as the voice of Christ: “The Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets, testifies in this psalm, clearly and fully, the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.”
Barnes reads verse 24 to mean that God “has not wholly abandoned me, but though he seemed to forsake me, it was for a time only”.
The channel’s reading
Was Jesus expressing the depth of His suffering, pointing people to Psalm 22, or both?
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Sources
- Scripture quotations: King James Version (public domain), checked against the Project Gutenberg KJV.
- Matthew Henry, Concise Commentary on the Whole Bible on Psalms 22 (public domain), via Bible Hub.
- Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible on Matthew 27 (public domain), via Bible Hub.
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible on Matthew 27 (public domain), via Bible Hub.
- Albert Barnes, Notes on the Bible on Psalms 22 (public domain), via Bible Hub.
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