Psalms 22:15

22:15 The roof of my mouth ¹  is as dry as a piece of pottery;

my tongue sticks to my gums. ² 

You ³  set me in the dust of death. ⁴ 

Psalms 22:22-31

22:22 I will declare your name to my countrymen! ⁵ 

In the middle of the assembly I will praise you!

22:23 You loyal followers of the Lord, ⁶  praise him!

All you descendants of Jacob, honor him!

All you descendants of Israel, stand in awe of him! ⁷ 

22:24 For he did not despise or detest the suffering ⁸  of the oppressed; ⁹ 

he did not ignore him; ¹⁰ 

when he cried out to him, he responded. ¹¹ 

22:25 You are the reason I offer praise ¹²  in the great assembly;

I will fulfill my promises before the Lord’s loyal followers. ¹³ 

22:26 Let the oppressed eat and be filled! ¹⁴ 

Let those who seek his help praise the Lord!

May you ¹⁵  live forever!

22:27 Let all the people of the earth acknowledge the Lord and turn to him! ¹⁶ 

Let all the nations ¹⁷  worship you! ¹⁸ 

22:28 For the Lord is king ¹⁹ 

and rules over the nations.

22:29 All of the thriving people ²⁰  of the earth will join the celebration and worship; ²¹ 

all those who are descending into the grave ²²  will bow before him,

including those who cannot preserve their lives. ²³ 

22:30 A whole generation ²⁴  will serve him;

they will tell the next generation about the sovereign Lord. ²⁵ 

22:31 They will come and tell about his saving deeds; ²⁶ 

they will tell a future generation what he has accomplished. ²⁷ 

[22:15]  ¹ tc Heb “my strength” (כֹּחִי, kokhiy), but many prefer to emend the text to חִכִּי (khikiy, “my palate”; cf. NEB, NRSV “my mouth”) assuming that an error of transposition has occurred in the traditional Hebrew text.

[22:15]  ² tn Cf. NEB “my jaw”; NASB, NRSV “my jaws”; NIV “the roof of my mouth.”

[22:15]  ³ sn Here the psalmist addresses God and suggests that God is ultimately responsible for what is happening because of his failure to intervene (see vv. 1-2, 11).

[22:15]  ⁴ sn The imperfect verbal form draws attention to the progressive nature of the action. The psalmist is in the process of dying.

[22:22]  ⁵ tn Or “brothers,” but here the term does not carry a literal familial sense. It refers to the psalmist’s fellow members of the Israelite covenant community (see v. 23).

[22:23]  ⁶ tn Heb “[you] fearers of the Lord.” See Ps 15:4.

[22:23]  ⁷ tn Heb “fear him.”

[22:24]  ⁸ tn Or “affliction”; or “need.”

[22:24]  ⁹ sn In this verse the psalmist refers to himself in the third person and characterizes himself as oppressed.

[22:24]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he did not hide his face from him.” For other uses of the idiom “hide the face” meaning “ignore,” see Pss 10:11; 13:1; 51:9. Sometimes the idiom carries the stronger idea of “reject” (see Pss 27:9; 88:14).

[22:24]  ¹¹ tn Heb “heard.”

[22:25]  ¹² tn Heb “from with you [is] my praise.”

[22:25]  ¹³ tn Heb “my vows I will fulfill before those who fear him.” When asking the Lord for help, the psalmists would typically promise to praise the Lord publicly if he intervened and delivered them.

[22:26]  ¹⁴ sn Eat and be filled. In addition to praising the Lord, the psalmist also offers a thank offering to the Lord and invites others to share in a communal meal.

[22:26]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “may your heart[s].”

[22:27]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “may all the ends of the earth remember and turn to the Lord.” The prefixed verbal forms in v. 27 are understood as jussives (cf. NEB). Another option (cf. NIV, NRSV) is to take the forms as imperfects and translate, “all the people of the earth will acknowledge and turn…and worship.” See vv. 29-32.

[22:27]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “families of the nations.”

[22:27]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “before you.”

[22:28]  ¹⁹ tn Heb “for to the Lord [is] dominion.”

[22:29]  ²⁰ tn Heb “fat [ones].” This apparently refers to those who are healthy and robust, i.e., thriving. In light of the parallelism, some prefer to emend the form to יְשֵׁנֵי (yÿsheney, “those who sleep [in the earth]”; cf. NAB, NRSV), but דִּשְׁנֵי (dishney, “fat [ones]”) seems to form a merism with “all who descend into the grave” in the following line. The psalmist envisions all people, whether healthy or dying, joining in worship of the Lord.

[22:29]  ²¹ tn Heb “eat and worship.” The verb forms (a perfect followed by a prefixed form with vav [ו] consecutive) are normally used in narrative to relate completed actions. Here the psalmist uses the forms rhetorically as he envisions a time when the Lord will receive universal worship. The mood is one of wishful thinking and anticipation; this is not prophecy in the strict sense.

[22:29]  ²² tn Heb “all of the ones going down [into] the dust.” This group stands in contrast to those mentioned in the previous line. Together the two form a merism encompassing all human beings – the healthy, the dying, and everyone in between.

[22:29]  ²³ tn Heb “and his life he does not revive.”

[22:30]  ²⁴ tn Heb “offspring.”

[22:30]  ²⁵ tn Heb “it will be told concerning the Lord to the generation.” The Hebrew term translated “Lord” here is אֲדֹנָי (’adonay).

[22:31]  ²⁶ tn Heb “his righteousness.” Here the noun צִדָקָה (tsidaqah) refers to the Lord’s saving deeds whereby he vindicates the oppressed.

[22:31]  ²⁷ tn Heb “to a people [to be] born that he has acted.” The words “they will tell” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.