Chapter 12 · Deep dive
The Suffering Righteous One: Psalm 22
From 'My God, why?' to praise among the nations.
On the cross, Jesus cried the opening line of Psalm 22: 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' The psalm's details — mockery, wagging heads, divided garments, pierced hands and feet — appear in all four crucifixion accounts. But Psalm 22 is not a prediction list. It is a complete movement: lament, suffering, trust, deliverance, and praise that spreads to the ends of the earth.
This chapter studies the psalm's whole structure, weighs the manuscript evidence for the famous textual question at verse 16, and follows the psalm into the passion narratives.
The psalm's movement
Psalm 22 is a lament of David with a clear architecture. It opens in abandonment (verses 1–2): the cry Jesus quotes. It alternates complaint with remembrance of God's faithfulness (3–5, 9–11). The suffering reaches its physical and social depths (6–8, 12–18): scorned, surrounded by 'bulls' and 'dogs,' strength dried up, garments divided. Then the prayer turns urgent (19–21) — and at verse 22, without explanation of how, the psalm breaks into praise: 'I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will praise you.'
The ending is as important as the opening. The sufferer, delivered, praises God in the assembly; the afflicted eat and are satisfied; 'all the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD'; 'posterity shall serve him; it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation; they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn, that he has done it.' The psalm's horizon was always worldwide. A reading that stops at the suffering misses the psalm's own destination: vindication that becomes global worship.
The details the Gospels echo
The correspondences with the crucifixion are striking. Verse 1: the cry of abandonment, spoken by Jesus in Aramaic. Verses 7–8: 'All who see me mock me... "He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him"' — nearly verbatim in the mouths of the passersby and chief priests (Matthew 27:39–43). Verse 15: 'my tongue sticks to my jaws' — compare 'I thirst' (John 19:28). Verse 18: 'they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots' — quoted directly by John 19:23–24 as the soldiers divide Jesus' clothes.
The Gospel writers clearly present the crucifixion as this psalm enacted. Yet none of them says 'this proves Jesus is the Messiah because of a prediction checklist.' Matthew and Mark record Jesus praying the psalm's first line — inviting hearers to read the whole psalm, including its vindication ending, as the interpretive frame for the cross. The early Christian claim is richer than prediction-fulfillment: the righteous sufferer's pattern, sung in Israel's worship for a thousand years, came to its fullness in the righteous sufferer.
The textual crux: 'like a lion' or 'they pierced'?
Hebrew: ka'ari yaday veraglay
כָּאֲרִי יָדַי וְרַגְלָי ka'ari yaday veraglay — like a lion, my hands and my feet
The Masoretic text reads ka'ari — 'like a lion' — with no verb: literally 'like a lion, my hands and my feet.' Translations supply an action ('like a lion they maul my hands and feet'). The Septuagint reads ōryxan — 'they dug' — which in context is rendered 'they pierced'; the Syriac Peshitta supports a verbal reading too. The difference comes down to one letter's tail: the scroll form ka'aru ('they dug,' written with an added aleph) and ka'ari ('like a lion') differ only in the final letter's length (waw vs yod); the standard spelling karu drops the aleph as well.
What do the Dead Sea Scrolls show? A fragment from Nahal Hever (5/6HevPs) is commonly transcribed ka'aru — with an extra letter (aleph) that is itself unexplained. This is important evidence that a verbal reading is ancient, but it is not simply the expected spelling karu, and letter identification on the fragment is debated. Another Qumran Psalms manuscript (4QPs-f / 4Q88) preserves material from this part of the psalm, but the crucial line is fragmentary and its reconstruction disputed. The fairest conclusion: the Judean Desert evidence strengthens the case that a verbal reading predates the medieval Masoretic manuscripts, but it does not conclusively settle the original wording. Neither 'the scrolls prove pierced' nor 'Christians invented pierced' is defensible.
Theologically, remarkably little hangs on the crux. The Gospels never quote Psalm 22:16 as a proof text — John quotes verse 18, not verse 16. The crucifixion's reality rests on the eyewitness proclamation of the Gospels, and the psalm's fulfillment pattern stands on the whole psalm: the abandonment, the mockery, the lots, the deliverance, the worldwide praise. 'Pierced' fits the cross with uncanny precision; 'like a lion' fits the surrounding animal imagery. The Christian reading of the psalm does not depend on settling the textual question.
Sources and further reading
- Psalm 22:17 (Hebrew numbering) — text and versions ↗
- Hopkin on the Nahal Hever evidence (BYU Studies) ↗
Argues for the verbal reading.
- Postell & Justiss, 'The Crux of Psalm 22:17' ↗
A substantially different recent assessment — included so you can weigh both sides.
From suffering to worldwide praise
Hebrews 2:12 quotes the psalm's turning point as the words of the risen Christ: 'I will tell of your name to my brothers; in the midst of the congregation I will sing your praise.' The writer's point is the solidarity of the sanctifier and the sanctified — but notice what the quotation assumes: the psalm's sufferer is the same speaker as the psalm's praising, delivered worshiper. Suffering and vindication belong to one person.
On resurrection morning, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, 'Go to my brothers and say to them...' — the psalm's own word. The one who prayed verse 1 in the darkness now speaks verse 22 in the garden. And the psalm's final vision — the ends of the earth turning to the LORD, a people yet unborn hearing 'that he has done it' — is the church's mission in embryo. Some readers hear in the last line, ki 'asah — 'that he has done it' — an echo of Jesus' final cry, 'It is finished' (John 19:30), though John's Greek word does not quote the psalm. Whether or not John intends the echo, the movement is the same: suffering completed, deliverance announced, the world invited.
Key takeaways
- Psalm 22 is a complete movement — abandonment to worldwide praise — not a prediction checklist.
- The Gospels echo its details: the cry, the mockery, the thirst, the divided garments.
- Verse 16 is a genuine textual crux: 'like a lion' (MT) vs 'they dug/pierced' (LXX, Syriac); the scroll evidence is real but disputed, and the Christian case does not depend on it.
- Hebrews puts the psalm's vindication verse in the risen Christ's mouth — suffering and deliverance belong to one person.