Daily Reading from the Psalms
Psalms Devotional Reading
Psalm 22:1–7
To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not;
And in the night season, and am not silent.
3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.
4 Our fathers trusted in thee:
They trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered:
They trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
6 But I am a worm, and no man;
A reproach of men, and despised of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn:
They shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,
Why would God ask a question? Is it because an answer alludes him? No! Of course not. God knows all. God asks questions so we can think about the question and truly know the answer. Do you think for a moment that when he asked Adam where he was hiding in the garden that he didn’t know? He wanted Adam to think about what he had done and what he had lost. His questions are always for our instruction.
Psalm 22 is a prediction of the cross of Christ. Spurgeon said, “this is beyond all others The Psalm of the Cross.” You would be hard pressed to find a more detailed account of the cross in the Gospels themselves. The opening line is a question, the greatest of all questions. It is the one that God the Son asked in the middle of his time on the cross. During the three hours of darkness he asked, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” He of course, knew the answer but wanted us to ponder it’s meaning. Why would God forsake God? Why would Jesus for the first time not reference God as Father? The answer is that Jesus had become our substitute, paying the penalty of our sins so we could escape what we deserved. 2 Corinthians 5:21 says “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.” God the Father turned his back on God the Son so he could turn to us. If you want to know the answer to the question Jesus asked, just look in the mirror. There is your answer.
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