Post 4: Why Jesus Quoted Psalm 22: To Engage Those Who Quoted It Before Him

Why Jesus Quoted Psalm 22:  His Social and Political Context

Why did Jesus quote from Psalm 22?  What did Matthew see in that event?

Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem for the last time is filled with reminders of his lineage from King David.  When Jesus entered Jerusalem (Mt.21ff.), Davidic titles were showered upon him, and he invoked Davidic actions, Psalms, and language himself.  Perhaps Jesus was also aware that from the opposite side of the city, Pontius Pilate would have been riding in at some point on a war horse.  The donkey was a more humble animal.  Also, Jesus knew David fled Jerusalem on a donkey in tragic humiliation when he lost his throne to his son Absalom (2 Sam.16:1 – 2).  Donkeys might have served a practical purpose for David in that moment, but it also served to associate David with the failed king Saul, who was associated with donkeys as well (1 Sam.9:3 – 5, 20; 10:2, 14 – 16).  Perhaps this is why the prophet Zechariah foresaw that the messianic Son of David would return to Jerusalem on a donkey or donkeys (Zech.9:9), to reverse that particular ignominy suffered by David.  Jesus, aware of the prophecy, acted deliberately to fulfill it at his triumphal entry into Jerusalem as ‘Son of David’ (Mt.20:30 – 31).  Riding back into Jerusalem on a donkey suggested Jesus was reversing the failures of the kings of the past.

Although Mark, Luke, and John simplify the matter down to the young colt (Mk.11:1 – 7; Lk.19:30 – 34; Jn.12:14), Matthew includes more historical detail of Jesus making use of both a mother donkey and her colt (Mt.21:1 – 5).  This detail of two donkeys, not just one, gives us the impression that Jesus went so far as to make sure anyone unfamiliar with Hebrew poetry would recognize that he was fulfilling Zechariah’s prophecy.  The Hebrew poetic device of representing one idea with two parallel descriptors with increasing specificity[1] (‘riding on a donkey, on a colt the foal of a donkey’) can be mistaken for two separate ideas put together (two donkeys).  Jesus wanted no one to miss his claim to the throne of David.  He was the Son of David who reversed the sin of David and brought honor back to the house of David.

As Jesus entered Jerusalem, the crowd – who were for the moment enthusiastic cheerleaders – shouted, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; Hosanna in the highest!’  This quote comes from Psalm 118:26, significant because it is located in the prophetic section of the Book of Psalms, predicting the rise of David’s house through the messiah, significant also because the Psalm envisions a new temple with a new cornerstone just a few verses before (Ps.118:22).  Jesus, mentally engaged in the same texts, quotes that very vision after he cleansed the temple and challenged the chief priest and elders (Mt.21:42).  Just as David became king and provided for a new temple, linking king and temple in a theological nexus that would become the model for Judas Maccabeus in 163 BC, Jesus was declaring his kingship and provision for a new temple-people.

After a vigorous, high-stakes debate with the Jewish leaders about politics, Israel’s prophetic destiny, and sacred Scripture (Mt.22:1 – 40), Jesus quoted another prophetic Psalm envisioning God’s future promises for the heir of David:  the majestic Psalm 110 (Mt.22:41 – 46).  Into his crowning riddle, Jesus weaves Psalm 110 – perhaps the clearest vision in the Psalms of the enthroned messiah involving David’s conversation with his own messianic heir.  After questioning Jesus repeatedly and not being able to defeat his answers, the Pharisees could not ‘answer him a word, nor did anyone dare from that day to ask him another question’ (Mt.22:46).

Jesus’ Polemics and His Use of the David Story in Daniel:  You Are the Beasts

Jesus sets a precedent for how he will deploy Psalm 22 in a polemical sense.  Surrounded by the high priest and the whole Council (Mt.26:59), pressured to give a statement that would incriminate himself, Jesus uttered the words of Daniel:

‘Hereafter you will see ‘the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of power,’ and ‘coming on the clouds of heaven.’’ (Mt.26:42; Dan.7:13 – 14)

Jesus was not simply making a bid on a prophecy.  He was, rather, demanding a bold and radical re-interpretation of the entire situation.  Jesus said that the Jewish leaders stood in the place of the distorted, grotesque beasts of Daniel’s vision (Dan.7:1 – 8).  Those warped beasts indicated that God’s original creation had gone mad, since their grotesque mixtures of animal body parts violated the creational boundaries of species reproducing ‘after its own kind.’  They were beasts against which, and through which, the Son of Man emerged victorious and ascended the throne given to him by God.

Daniel’s vision reminds us of Adam ruling among the animals (Gen.1:26 – 28; 2:19 – 20) or the young David who was portrayed by the book of Samuel as a new Adam defending his sheep from the wild lion and bear (1 Sam.17:34).  Curiously, Daniel’s first beast was a lion, the second was a bear, demonstrating a probable awareness of the narrative of David and reinforcing again Davidic themes coalescing around ‘the Son of Man.’  All this is part of the intertextuality of the Hebrew Scriptures.  So Jesus’ point was surely not lost upon the Jewish leaders.  They tore their robes and declared Jesus’ utterance to be blasphemy (Mt.26:65 – 66), even though Jesus’ statement was not blasphemy, as it was not a sin to declare one’s self the messiah per se.  But Jesus’ statement was insulting and challenging, and they simply could not bear it.

Jesus deployed pithy, succinct quotations like any brilliant rhetorician, like Sir Thomas More on trial who wielded Jesus’ dire warning, ‘It profits a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world … but for Wales, Richard?’ at the man who betrayed him for power; or Martin Luther King, Jr., who demanded, ‘All men are created equal,’ and turned the American founding fathers’ own words against them and the racist society they founded.  Jesus either quoted Scripture verbally or enacted it physically, like in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when he deliberately looked for a donkey and her colt to fulfill the vision of the Davidic messiah in Zechariah 9:9.  He was the mastermind, actively enacting some details and drawing other elements into his service by verbal allusion, which repositioned entire scenes, characters, and movements into his own narrative.  His was the power to define, and redefine.

Jesus’ Polemics and His Use of David’s Psalm:  David Suffered Rejection, Too

In Matthew, Jesus appears to quote Psalm 22:1 not primarily to express his own emotional state (see below), but rather to respond to his detractors arraigned against him as he hung on the cross.  The criminals crucified on either side of him are particularly worthy of note because in Matthew and Mark, they are united in their unbelief and mockery, whereas in Luke, they are divided.  In John, they do not appear in the narrative.

35 And when they had crucified him, they divided up his garments among themselves by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they began to keep watch over him there. 37 And above his head they put up the charge against him which read, ‘This is Jesus the King of the Jews.’ 38 At that time two robbers were crucified with him, one on the right and one on the left. 39 And those passing by were hurling abuse at him, wagging their heads 40 and saying, ‘You who are going to destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.’ 41 In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him and saying, 42 ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God rescue him now, if He delights in him’; for he said, ‘I am the Son of God.’’ 44 The robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words. 45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’ 47 And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began saying, ‘This man is calling for Elijah.’ 48 Immediately one of them ran, and taking a sponge, he filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and gave him a drink. 49 But the rest of them said, ‘Let us see whether Elijah will come to save him.’ 50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up his spirit. 51 And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth shook and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many. 54 Now the centurion, and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus, when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening, became very frightened and said, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’  (Mt.27:35 – 54)

Crucifixion was a punishment designed to socially humiliate the victim and scare onlookers into obedience.  It was, effectively, the Roman Empire’s social media tool.  In Matthew, the crucifixion narrative takes place as a form of trial or debate over Jesus’ claim to be the messianic king from David’s line.  There are three titles used here, which are presented by Matthew as identical in meaning.  The title ‘King of the Jews’ (Mt.27:37) is straightforward.  The title ‘Son of God’ (Mt.27:40, 43, 54) takes its meaning not from the Nicene-Arian debates about the second person of the Trinity in the fourth century AD, but from Psalm 2:7 in which the anointed Jewish king is said to be the ‘Son of God,’ begotten that day of his anointing, and from the vision of Chronicles in which Solomon and his heirs ‘sat on the throne of the LORD as king’ (1 Chr.29:23), not merely on the throne of David.  Chronicles makes the royal ‘Son of David’ out to be the ‘Son of God’ quite explicitly.  The third title, ‘King of Israel’ (Mt.27:42), is straightforward, and clearly indicated to be synonymous with ‘Son of God’ in the voice of the chief priests, scribes, and elders (Mt.27:42 – 43), whose opinion is accepted by Matthew as sufficient on this issue.

The crucifixion scene is therefore the culmination of a clear debate between Jesus and his contemporaries over the meaning the messiah from David’s line.  Pontius Pilate, needless to say, believed that Jesus’ claim to that role is an object of mockery, through which he could further intimidate and shame his Jewish subjects.  The chief priests, scribes, and elders, along with the Jewish passersby, and even the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus, taunted him.  They believed that the messiah, the greater David, could not possibly be subjected to suffering at the hands of Gentiles like this.  Wasn’t the messiah supposed to be victorious over the Gentiles, liberating Israel?

By contrast, Jesus was reminding them that king David, in his pre-enthronement period, was exposed to great danger in his early life, too.  Jesus seems to have seized upon the callous and mercenary treatment shown to him by the Roman soldiers, and made it serve his own purpose.  David in Psalm 22:16 – 18 lamented in poetic voice:

16 For dogs have surrounded me;

A band of evildoers has encompassed me;

They pierced [LXX: dug] my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones.

They look, they stare at me;

18 They divide my garments among them,

And for my clothing they cast lots.  (Ps.22:16 – 18)

David probably prayed and/or composed these lines while being hunted or besieged.  He had been driven from his own home into the wilderness, sometimes into the territories of Gentile warlords.  David seems to have said that his enemies ‘dug’ into his hands and feet, using the same word that the Genesis text uses for digging wells in the earth.  Nevertheless, I think the conceptual link to the ear-piercing rite of Exodus 21 is present, even though the direct semantic link is absent.

David had been forced to serve foreign households for longer than six years, unable to win his freedom and peace in the seventh year, in an ironic twist on the ear-piercing ceremony of the Hebrew bondslave (Ex.21:2 – 6).  David placed himself not in the place of a voluntary bondslave who has his ear pierced against the doorframe of a household he had gladly chosen, but in the place of a terrified man whose hands and feet had been pierced against the doorframe of a household which he had not chosen.  By saying he could count all his bones, David meant he had become gaunt with hunger.  And his possessions – the last of which would be his clothes – had already been claimed by his enemies as booty or trophies.  Even though they did not quite have these goods in hand, David’s enemies were nevertheless already dividing them.  These words could plausibly fit several episodes of David’s life, as far as we know from the book of Samuel.

These words fit Jesus on the cross in a new and intensified way.  David’s enemies might have been more distant; Jesus’ were immediate.  To David, being stripped of his last possessions was a menacing threat; for Jesus, the blow was already dealt.  The piercing for David was metaphorical; for Jesus the piercing was literal and physical.

35 And when they had crucified him, they divided up his garments among themselves by casting lots. 36 And sitting down, they began to keep watch over him there. (Mt.27:35 – 36)

Jesus was calling his mockers and enemies to read the entire situation through David’s eyes.  Jesus had already done the same thing in his trial using Daniel’s Son of Man vision, which rests on a Davidic foundation.  Jesus threw a verbal stone that shattered their illusion.  He demanded that they acknowledge that they were already playing the role of David’s enemies in Psalm 22.

In fact, Jesus’ detractors had, unwittingly or not, already quoted Psalm 22.  David lamented that his opponents ridiculed him:

7 All who see me sneer at me;

They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,

8 ‘Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him;

Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.’ (Ps.22:7 – 8; emphasis mine)

With delicious irony, Jesus’ opponents repeat David’s opponents almost verbatim, using those very words from Psalm 22:

41 In the same way the chief priests also, along with the scribes and elders, were mocking him and saying, 42 ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself. He is the King of Israel; let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe in him. 43 He trusts in God; let God rescue him now, if He delights in him’ (Mt.27:41 – 43; emphasis mine)

Jesus perceived the opportunity.  He quoted Psalm 22:1 to break their interpretative grip on these events and tear open the veil of their false narrative so they could see the reality.  Jesus reconfigured the narrative playing field and sought to convict his detractors of being on the wrong side of the story; they were committing a gross mistake.

44 The robbers who had been crucified with him were also insulting him with the same words. 45 Now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. 46 About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?’ (Mt.27:44 – 46)

Jesus heard the sentiment and accusations that others hurled at him.  He allowed the insults to pile up for hours.  He summoned the darkness that represented to the people their own blindness and spiritual state.  This darkness contrasts with Jesus’ baptism and transfiguration, where the ears and eyes of faith could receive the revelation of divine word, Spirit, and light.  Jesus cried out as the only source of God’s voice and God’s light.  Jesus challenged his Jewish audience to re-interpret the situation, placing themselves not in the position of the wise and discerning critics of a failed revolutionary, as they thought they were, but in the position of the very enemies and opponents of the truly anointed king, who would soon be enthroned in power.  He deliberately looked for a way to make these details resonate with David’s suffering experience to shock people into seeing the startling truth.  They were like the ones David wrote about, who mocked him.  But the tables will be turned, and the heir of David will soon be enthroned.

Jesus’ Polemics in a Culture of Public Honor and Shame

Some have wondered whether Jesus was speaking out of his own desperate emotions.  But given Jesus’ cultural context, there are limitations on what we might say about that.  Jerome Neyrey, writing with sensitivity about the honor-shame dynamics of the culture of the time, argues that Jesus’ quotation of Psalm 22:1 should not be taken to reflect Jesus’ emotional state, but rather as the deliberate prayer of a man who expected to be vindicated after his complaint.

‘Culturally sensitive readers must be alert in assessing the cultural meaning of Jesus’ dying words so that they do not impose on the ancient world modern notions of emotions.  While in our therapeutic and individualistic world we are encouraged to treasure personal emotional display, many ancients held that ‘emotions’ were weaknesses of the soul; it would be shameful to be overcome by it.  In fact, ancient understanding of what it meant to be a person encouraged a distinction between what is displayed for public consumption (and likely public criticism) and what is reserved for private sharing (e.g. Matt.26:38).  Even then, we should be aware of the highly conventional expressions of feeling and emotion, that is, emotion which is socially sanctioned and controlled.  Only some emotions may be displayed (e.g. sorrow at death, compassion and pity at misfortune, etc.); others such as ‘fear,’ if displayed, indicate a lack of virtue and so merit blame, not praise.  We mention this because it allows us to sidestep so much of the recent speculation on the emotional importance or personal meaning of Jesus’ words (Brown 1994:1043 – 51), which lacks the discipline of culturally contextualizing Jesus’ words.’[2]

Neyrey then examines the function of the Psalms as complaints-petitions that are appropriate and acceptable prayers which would enhance the virtue and esteem of the one praying them, rather than detract.  He includes in the social dynamics how a powerful ‘patron’ is expected to come to the aid of a person who is dependent on that aid, and calls for it (the ‘client’).  Neyrey continues,

‘Thus ‘My God, my God…’ should not be taken as reflective of a lack of faith on Jesus’ part or a weakening of his faithfulness; rather his dying prayer protests the apparent lack of honor shown to him on the part of his Patron.  Therefore, Jesus in no way lacks piety by his prayer; rather, he proclaims his piety-faithfulness and calls on the Deity to acknowledge it as well.  God, then, is put on the spot to give a response of some sort to Jesus.  God, who is both Patron and Father, must deal with the shame and reproach of Jesus, son and client, and so deliver an ‘answer’ or response to Jesus’ lament and protest… [T]he events in 27:51 – 54 function precisely as the divine response which addresses the reproach suffered by Jesus.  God’s actions, which speak louder than words, confirm the truth of Jesus’ piety and his relationship as a client faithful to his Patron.  Therefore, by posthumous honors God vindicates Jesus and thus fulfills his duty as Patron.  This honoring, moreover, offsets the terrible mockery and shame which formed the context for Jesus’ prayer of lament.  And so we should interpret Jesus’ complaint-protest as honorable and socially sanctioned speech, which conforms to what is both permitted and even valued in Jesus’ cultural world.  It embodies Jesus’ piety and loyalty, even as it laments a seeming lack of it on God’s part.  The very fact that God answered his complaint confirms our sense of Jesus’ piety, even as it restores his honor.’[3]

Neyrey offers an important piece of the corrective to Stott’s penal substitutionary view.  With honor and shame in mind, we can see that Jesus was praying with faith, not despair or loneliness, with which Stott agrees.  We can also see that Jesus was honoring the entirety of Psalm 22, which Stott could not fully understand.  And we can also see that the Father honored the prayer of the Son, because the Father never turned against or away from the Son.

This quotation of Psalm 22:1 is what we would expect from a public figure like Jesus who was thoughtful and strategic about his public statements.

Jesus’ Deeper Enemy and Greater Kingdom

Most importantly, once again the original meaning of David’s prayer is important.  If David was forsaken by God to the Gentiles, and not forsaken by God in some absolute sense where he was bearing divine retributive wrath, then Jesus, as the much greater heir of David, could also be forsaken by God to the Gentiles, and in a much greater way.  If David could come near death, Jesus as the greater David could go into death and out the other side.  Like David, Jesus still lived in the power of the Spirit of God, even while quoting Psalm 22:1.  Despite his abject suffering and apparent humiliation, Jesus was communicating that he would soon be enthroned and vindicated, just as David was.  For like David, Jesus had never lost his anointing to be king.

By that anointing, Jesus was also fighting a deeper enemy:  the flesh.  The irony of Jesus hearing the words, ‘He saved others; he cannot save himself,’ is that he saved other people from death, disease, and the demons precisely because he was saving human nature in himself through union with his Holy Spirit.  And when he saved his own human nature through death and into resurrection glory, he would offer that salvation to others on the deepest possible levels:  from the original exile, the entirety of death, the venom of the serpent, and the corruption of sin (Mt.1:21).

Another ironic reversal in Matthew’s crucifixion narrative is that a Roman centurion who had participated in crucifying Jesus was the first to acknowledge the truth.  None of the Jewish onlookers declared Jesus to be the true king of Israel and the true Son of God, even after the multiple declarations of his innocence, the temple veil tearing, and the troubling natural phenomena.  Instead, that honor fell to one of the enemies of Israel.  The centurion declared, frightened and astonished, ‘Truly this was the Son of God!’ (Mt.27:35 – 54).  We do not know, unfortunately, what the Roman centurion understood or meant by saying this.  Likely, he knew less and meant less than Simon Peter did when he said to Jesus some time ago, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God!’ (Mt.16:16).  But literarily, as Matthew includes this declaration, the stiff wall of resistance put up by Jesus’ mockers and detractors started to crumble.  The first person to witness Jesus’ death and use the title ‘Son of God’ appropriately was not among the Jewish disciples, and was not even Jewish, but was Gentile.  And not just any Gentile.

A soldier who had pledged allegiance to Caesar – the Caesar who claimed to be ‘the son of a god’ himself, who reigned over the mighty Roman Empire – had just uttered a statement remarkably like a confession of faith as Jesus died, and before Jesus was actually enthroned on the seat of David.  This centurion did not conclude that Jesus’ suffering at the hands of the Gentiles – even his own hands – nullified Jesus’ claim to be the messianic heir of David.  Far from it.  Instead, Jesus’ innocence and compassion even during this ordeal affirmed it.  So did historical circumstance interpreted theologically according to their own criteria.  If by Jewish definition, Israel was under Roman occupation and in exile because they had rejected God, how was this event any different?  So Jesus’ suffering and death confirmed, rather than disqualified, his claim to be a king.  The Jewish crowd went home with the Roman centurion’s declaration ringing in their ears.  Whether the Roman centurion knew it or not, the Jewish crowd knew it:  Jesus’ pre-enthronement life looked remarkably like his predecessor, David, in his pre-enthronement life, but with even more holiness, composure, integrity, love, and miraculous power.  And the Psalmists’ call to the nations to worship the God of Israel had been honored (and perhaps more) by the confession of this Roman centurion.  Psalm 22 was the perfect song of David for Jesus to invoke to help his opponents hear and re-interpret what they thought they knew.

Jesus’ Trust in the Father, the Father’s Presence in the Son

In short, Jesus trusted his Father.  He was not despairing or lonely.  And the Father had not turned against or away from the Son.  Rather, the very nature of the Son was to be a ‘temple’ (Mt.12:6) through whom the Father made himself known (Mt.11:25 – 27), in whom the Father was always ‘well-pleased’ (Mt.3:17; 12:15 – 21; 17:5).  The Father had empowered Jesus to endure temptation, to fight the corruption of sin within himself, especially from the Jordan event.  There, the Father anointed Jesus with the Spirit to lead a very public life as the aspiring king who would be enthroned.  The Father never ceased to encourage and affirm Jesus to walk in the way of his predecessor, David, but undo David’s mistakes.  He was present with Jesus during his most challenging moments, as he had been with David.  He even helped Jesus engage others with missional love and truth during those darkest moments on the cross.

Perhaps Jesus was also praying the words of Psalm 23:

1 The LORD is my shepherd,

I shall not want.

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures;

He leads me beside quiet waters.

3 He restores my soul;

He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I fear no evil, for You are with me;

Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;

You have anointed my head with oil;

My cup overflows.

6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,

And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.

[1] Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Poetry (New York, NY: Basic Books, 1985), ch.3

[2] Jerome H. Neyrey, Honor and Shame in the Gospel of Matthew (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998), p.154; Neyrey is critiquing Raymond E. Brown, The Death of the Messiah: From Gethsemane to the Grave; A Commentary on the Passion Narratives in the Four Gospels. 2 volumes. Anchor Bible Reference Library (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1994)

[3] Ibid p.158 – 159 (emphasis his)