Prayers for help
(laments) “are located at the intersection of the confession that God is
faithful and some experience of the psalmist that either calls into question
God’s fidelity or demands a faithful action from God.” (77:8; 6:5; 89:49;
17:7).[1]
“The Lord invites hard questions and even denunciations form his people.” The
ancient sufferers “both question God’s loving faithfulness and make God’s
loving faithfulness the basis of their hope and their prayers.” Ps 89:49 is the
turning point of Psalm 89, last psalm of Book II of a Psalter, may be the “most
strident complaint verse” in the Psalter.[2]
Other questioning verses: 22:1; 10:1; 44:23; 13:1; 35:17.[3]
Structure:
1-21: Lament, God
being distant.
22-32: Celebration of
God’s sovereignty. God is no longer distant, God has heard.
V1-21 have an
alternating structure, moving from a cry to God to a section of trust. This is
reflective of the emotional turmoil that a person of faith undergoes when he
tries to make sense of the suffering, pain and even attacks from others with
faith in a powerful and loving God.[1]
V22-32: Pure praise.[2]
V2: the psalm begins
by expressing a sense of being forsaken by God, expressed most powerfully in
the divine silence in V3.[3]
V5-6: “Trust”
repeated three times. Crying out in distress and expression trust can happen at
the same time and are not incompatible, as “I know what I feel and I know what
I believe.”[4]
Ps22 is an expression of a mature spirituality where a person who is
experiencing affliction demonstrates the ability to hold on to two
contradictory set of facts.[5]
V7: The psalmist felt
less than human. This is further exacerbated by the taunting words of fellow
human beings in V9. It seems the only reality was the distance of God, and the
nearness of the taunting human beings.[6]
V12 the psalmist
cries out for the removal of the divine distance.[7]
V13-14: Heightens the
sense of being alone as the enemies surround the psalmist.
V15-16: describes the
physical symptoms of fear[8],
“spilled out like water” in the sense of being “washed out”[9],
“tongue sticking to palate” as a sign of sympathetic overactivity.
V19: The psalmist is
not dead and the enemies are already dividing up his clothes as if he was
deceased.
V22: Begins with an
imperative verb, “save me” and ends with a perfect verb “you answered me”.[10]
It is a declaration of trust and confidence[11],
based upon the faith that God would answer his prayers.[12]
V25: The psalmist
testified a total reversal of the experience in V2-3: he perceives that Yahweh
has heard him and an answer was coming. God’s faithfulness, in promising
deliverance, also requires faithfulness from the sufferer.[15]
This can be used for
those who are severely sick and threatened by death.[16]
In suffering, the
psalmist invites us to remind God and ourselves of God’s past acts of
deliverance. Remind God and ourselves of God’s involvement in our individual
lives. And we explicitly urge God to change. We also believe that God will
respond and start talking that way.[17]
“God is not always
available to the psalmist’s beck and call. Most anguished is the opening cry of
abandonment in Psalm 22.”[18]
“Theologically, the complaints acknowledge that God is elusive and not always
available to human request. This God cannot be manipulated.” The absence is met
by more strident cries of complaint and a greater resolve to wait for God’s
intervening presence.[19]
[1] DeClaisse-Walford,
Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner. The Book of
Psalms, 227.
[2] DeClaisse-Walford,
Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner. The Book of
Psalms, 227.
[3]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 199 Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 198..
[4] DeClaisse-Walford,
Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner. The Book of
Psalms, 233.
[5] Goldingay,
Psalms Volume 1: Psalms 1-41, 340.
[6]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 199.
[7]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 199.
[8] DeClaisse-Walford,
Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner. The Book of
Psalms, 234.
[9]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 200.
[10] DeClaisse-Walford,
Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner. The Book of
Psalms, 236.
[11]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 198.
[12]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 200.
[13] DeClaisse-Walford,
Jacobson, and LaNeel Tanner. The Book of
Psalms, 236.
[14]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 198.
[15]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 201.
[16]
Craigie, Psalms 1-50, 198.
[17] Goldingay,
Psalms Volume 1: Psalms 1-41, 341.
[18] Brown,
Psalms, 143.
[19] Brown,
Psalms, 144.
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