Day 49: From Forsaken to Answered
Read: Psalm 22:19–24
Save me from the mouth of the lion! You have rescued me from the horns of the wild oxen!
— Psalm 22:21 (ESV)
Reflect
Psalm 22 turns on one word.
For twenty verses the sufferer has been surrounded — by bulls, by dogs, by lions. In verse 21 he is still crying out, "Save me from the mouth of the lion!" And then, in the same breath, everything changes.
Our Bibles say, "You have rescued me." The Hebrew word is 'anitani, "you have answered me."
Now go back to verse 1: "Why have you forsaken me?" In Hebrew those two words are built exactly alike. The verb, then "you," then "me." The same you. The same me. The same sense of something done and settled. Only the verb has changed — from forsaken to answered.
Look at the shape and you have read the psalm's whole movement.
Notice where the answer comes. Not after the lion is gone, but while he is still facing it. The turn comes before anything around him has changed. From here on the psalm is praise: "I will tell of your name to my brothers" (v. 22).
The cry of verse 1 was real. So is the answer of verse 21. You do not have to skip the first to reach the second.
Across Scripture
Verse 24 explains the turn: God "has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted, and he has not hidden his face from him, but has heard, when he cried to him." The letter to the Hebrews puts verse 22 in the mouth of Jesus himself: "I will tell of your name to my brothers" (Hebrews 2:12). The One who prayed the first line of this psalm from the cross was raised on the third day to sing its praise.
Sit With It
Which way is your sentence facing today: "you have forsaken me," or "you have answered me"? You may need to say the first before you can say the second. The psalm does.
Pray
You have answered me.
Scripture quotations are from the ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.