Psalms 22:1

Psalm 22 ¹ 

For the music director; according to the tune “Morning Doe;” ²  a psalm of David.

22:1 My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? ³ 

I groan in prayer, but help seems far away. ⁴ 

Psalms 43:4

43:4 Then I will go ⁵  to the altar of God,

to the God who gives me ecstatic joy, ⁶ 

so that I express my thanks to you, ⁷  O God, my God, with a harp.

Psalms 88:1-3

Psalm 88 ⁸ 

A song, a psalm written by the Korahites; for the music director; according to the machalath-leannoth style; ⁹  a well-written song ¹⁰  by Heman the Ezrachite.

88:1 O Lord God who delivers me! ¹¹ 

By day I cry out

and at night I pray before you. ¹² 

88:2 Listen to my prayer! ¹³ 

Pay attention ¹⁴  to my cry for help!

88:3 For my life ¹⁵  is filled with troubles

and I am ready to enter Sheol. ¹⁶ 

Matthew 26:39

26:39 Going a little farther, he threw himself down with his face to the ground and prayed, ¹⁷  “My Father, if possible, ¹⁸  let this cup ¹⁹  pass from me! Yet not what I will, but what you will.”

Matthew 27:46

27:46 At ²⁰  about three o’clock Jesus shouted with a loud voice, ²¹  “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” ²² 

[22:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 22. The psalmist cries out to the Lord for deliverance from his dangerous enemies, who have surrounded him and threaten his life. Confident that the Lord will intervene, he then vows to thank the Lord publicly for his help and anticipates a time when all people will recognize the Lord’s greatness and worship him.

[22:1]  ² tn Heb “according to the doe of the dawn.” Apparently this refers to a particular musical tune or style.

[22:1]  ³ sn From the psalmist’s perspective it seems that God has abandoned him, for he fails to answer his cry for help (vv. 1b-2).

[22:1]  ⁴ tn Heb “far from my deliverance [are] the words of my groaning.” The Hebrew noun שְׁאָגָה (shÿ’agah) and its related verb שָׁאַג (sha’ag) are sometimes used of a lion’s roar, but they can also describe human groaning (see Job 3:24 and Pss 32:3 and 38:8.

[43:4]  ⁵ tn The cohortative expresses the psalmist’s resolve. Prefixed with the vav (ו) conjunctive it also expresses the result or outcome of the preceding verbs “lead” and “escort.”

[43:4]  ⁶ tn Heb “to God, the joy of my happiness.” The phrase “joy of my happiness” employs an appositional genitive. Synonyms are joined in a construct relationship to emphasize the degree of the psalmist’s joy. For a detailed discussion of the grammatical point with numerous examples, see Y. Avishur, “Pairs of Synonymous Words in the Construct State (and in Appositional Hendiadys) in Biblical Hebrew,” Semitics 2 (1971): 17-81.

[43:4]  ⁷ tn The cohortative with vav (ו) conjunctive probably indicates purpose (“so that”) or intention.

[88:1]  ⁸ sn Psalm 88. The psalmist cries out in pain to the Lord, begging him for relief from his intense and constant suffering. The psalmist regards God as the ultimate cause of his distress, but nevertheless clings to God in hope.

[88:1]  ⁹ tn The Hebrew phrase מָחֲלַת לְעַנּוֹת (makhalat lÿ’annot) may mean “illness to afflict.” Perhaps it refers to a particular style of music, a tune title, or a musical instrument. The term מָחֲלַת also appears in the superscription of Ps 53.

[88:1]  ¹⁰ tn The meaning of the Hebrew term מַשְׂכִּיל (maskil) is uncertain. The word is derived from a verb meaning “to be prudent; to be wise.” Various options are: “a contemplative song,” “a song imparting moral wisdom,” or “a skillful [i.e., well-written] song.” The term occurs in the superscriptions of Pss 32, 42, 44, 45, 52-55, 74, 78, 88, 89, and 142, as well as in Ps 47:7.

[88:1]  ¹¹ tn Heb “O Lord God of my deliverance.” In light of the content of the psalm, this reference to God as the one who delivers seems overly positive. For this reason some emend the text to אַלֹהַי שִׁוַּעְתִּי (’alohay shivva’tiy, “[O Lord] my God, I cry out”). See v. 13.

[88:1]  ¹² tn Heb “[by] day I cry out, in the night before you.”

[88:2]  ¹³ tn Heb “may my prayer come before you.” The prefixed verbal form is understood as a jussive, indicating the psalmist’s desire or prayer.

[88:2]  ¹⁴ tn Heb “turn your ear.”

[88:3]  ¹⁵ tn Or “my soul.”

[88:3]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “and my life approaches Sheol.”

[26:39]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “ground, praying and saying.” Here the participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[26:39]  ¹⁸ tn Grk “if it is possible.”

[26:39]  ¹⁹ sn This cup alludes to the wrath of God that Jesus would experience (in the form of suffering and death) for us. See Ps 11:6; 75:8-9; Isa 51:17, 19, 22 for this figure.

[27:46]  ²⁰ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[27:46]  ²¹ tn Grk “with a loud voice, saying.” The participle λέγων (legwn) is redundant here in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[27:46]  ²² sn A quotation from Ps 22:1.