Verse explainer

What does Psalm 22:1 really mean?

A real cry of desolation — not a statement of abandonment, but a prayer that holds onto God even while questioning him.

KJV

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

BSB

My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? Why are You so far from saving me, so far from my words of groaning?

The plain meaning

Psalm 22 opens with one of the most raw lines in all of Scripture. The speaker is in extremity — surrounded by enemies, physically wrecked, feeling the silence of heaven. But notice what he does with that feeling: he addresses it directly to God. 'My God, my God' — twice, insistently. He is not walking away; he is crying out. The Hebrew word for 'roaring' (sh'agah) is the sound a lion makes — this is not a whimper but a full-throated anguish. And crucially, the psalm does not end in despair: by verse 24, the same poet says God 'has not despised nor scorned the suffering of the afflicted one; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help.' The darkness of verse 1 is real, but it is the beginning of a prayer, not a conclusion about God. When Jesus quotes this opening line from the cross (Matthew 27:46), he is not announcing that God has abandoned him — he is entering into the full depth of human desolation, praying a psalm his hearers would recognize, whose own arc ends in vindication and praise.

The common misreading

Jesus's cry from the cross proves God actually abandoned him — the Father turned his back on the Son. This is one of the most widespread readings in popular preaching: that at the moment of crucifixion the Father literally turned away, severed relationship with the Son, and left him utterly alone — sometimes illustrated with the image of God 'averting his eyes.' The reading feels dramatic and theologically serious, but it runs into problems from both directions. First, the psalm itself does not end in abandonment: by verse 24, the author declares that God did not hide his face but heard the cry. Jesus, quoting the opening line, was praying a psalm whose arc his hearers knew — a psalm that moves through desolation to deliverance. Second, as John Gill carefully notes, the cry is not the dissolution of the union between Father and Son, nor the end of the Father's love for the Son; it is the expression of a real deprivation of sensible comfort and the weight of bearing sin's full consequences. Matthew Henry puts it plainly: Christ 'kept fast hold of his relation to his Father as his God' even in that moment. The desolation was genuine and should not be minimized — but 'forsaken' here is the language of felt absence in extremity, the same language David and other psalmists use, not a metaphysical statement that the Trinity was fractured. Reading the whole psalm, not just the first line, is the corrective.

What the commentators say

Matthew Henryearly 18th c. · PD

Henry reads this as the language of felt spiritual desertion — real and agonizing — but insists that even in that state the sufferer clings to God by calling him 'my God' twice. He notes the same pattern applies to Christ on the cross: the Father did not withdraw his love, but Christ bore the full impressions of divine wrath against sin on behalf of his people, and even then kept fast hold of the relation, 'my God, by whom I am now employed and with whom I shall shortly be glorified.'

John Gill18th c. · PD

Gill stresses that the cry is not ignorance, impatience, or despair — Christ knew why he was forsaken (the imputed sins of his people), and the doubled 'my God' is itself a strong expression of continuing faith. The desolation was real: a deprivation of sensible divine presence and a felt weight of wrath, both necessary to make full satisfaction for sin. Yet Gill is careful to note the hypostatic union was never dissolved and the Father's love for the Son never ceased.

Charles Spurgeon19th c. · PD

Spurgeon observes that the psalm moves from the deepest night to the brightest dawn without contradiction. The opening cry is the honest voice of a soul in extremis — the Psalms do not paper over suffering — but the sufferer prays rather than curses, holds on rather than lets go. For Spurgeon, this is precisely what makes the psalm a comfort: it does not pretend that faith eliminates anguish, but shows that anguish does not have to eliminate faith.

The word behind it

שְׁאָגָה sh'agah

'Roaring' — the same word used for a lion's roar (Psalm 32:3, Proverbs 19:12). It is not a polite complaint or a quiet lament; it is raw, loud, convulsive grief. The BSB renders it 'groaning,' which captures the physical dimension. The word matters because it rules out the idea that the psalmist is simply expressing mild frustration — the distress is visceral and overwhelming — yet it is still speech directed at God, still prayer.

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