The forsaken sufferer and the shepherd: Psalms 22 and 23

Both psalms carry the heading 'A Psalm of David' and stand in the first book of the Psalter (Psalms 1-41), which is largely attributed to David. Psalm 22 adds a note to the choirmaster and a tune name, 'The Doe of the Dawn'. No event in David's life known to us matches the whole of Psalm 22, though he was often hunted, mocked and surrounded by enemies (1 Samuel 18-27). The psalm does not name its occasion. Some scholars take it as David's own prayer in a crisis, others as the prayer of a righteous sufferer written for the worshipping community. The New Testament reads it as Davidic and as fulfilled in Christ.

Psalm 23 is the best-known psalm. David had been a shepherd (1 Samuel 16:11; 17:34-35), so the image is natural to him. The psalm's reference to 'the house of the LORD' could mean the tabernacle in his time or the temple later, and some scholars date the psalm in its present form later in the monarchy. In the ancient Near East, kings were called shepherds of their people, and Israel's own prophets drew on this image to say that God is the true shepherd and that human rulers were meant to serve under him.

Psalm 22 is a lament, a prayer of complaint and petition, and Psalm 23 is a psalm of trust. They stand side by side: the cry of the forsaken is followed at once by the song of the sheep who lack nothing. This class treats them as two texts, each with its own movement, and as a pair.

Psalm 22 is an individual lament, and laments have a standard pattern: an address to God, a complaint, a petition, a statement of trust and a vow of praise. Claus Westermann showed that the lament in the Psalms normally moves toward praise. Psalm 22 does this on a large scale. The turn comes at verse 21, where the psalmist says that God has answered him. The pictures in verses 12 to 18, with bulls, lions and dogs, are poetic images of enemies and of bodily collapse, not a literal inventory.

Psalm 23 is a psalm of trust, built on two metaphors, the shepherd and the host, and ending with a promise. A noticeable detail is the change in person. In verses 1 to 3 the psalmist speaks about the LORD in the third person. In verse 4 he turns and speaks to him: 'You are with me.' The shift marks the point of greatest danger as the point of greatest nearness.

Two principles apply to both.

• First, read the psalm in the voice of the first speaker, as an Israelite praying to the covenant God.
• Second, notice how the New Testament reads the psalm. Psalm 22 is one of the most used psalms in the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion, and the evangelists read it as the pattern of the suffering Righteous One. Psalm 23 is read in light of the prophetic promise that God would shepherd his people himself.

22:1-2. 'My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?' This is a complaint, but it is addressed to God, and it calls him 'my God' twice. The psalmist feels God is far from his groaning and his prayers receive no answer, by day or by night. Lament in the Bible is a form of faith. It argues with God because the speaker believes he can be reached.

22:3-11. The psalmist sets his pain against what he knows. God is holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel, and the fathers trusted him and were delivered. But he calls himself 'a worm and not a man', scorned by men. The mockers shake their heads and say that he trusts in the LORD, so let the LORD rescue him (verse 8). Then he returns to trust: God brought him from the womb and has been his God from birth. Verse 11 is the plea: do not be far, for trouble is near.

22:12-18. The suffering is told in a series of images. Bulls of Bashan, a fertile land known for strong cattle, surround him, and lions open their jaws. His body is poured out like water, his bones are out of joint and his heart is like wax. His strength is dried like a potsherd and his tongue sticks to his mouth. Dogs, a pack of evil men, encircle him. The Hebrew of verse 16 is disputed. The Masoretic text reads 'like a lion' my hands and feet, which makes little sense in the sentence. The Greek Septuagint reads 'they dug' my hands and feet, and a Dead Sea Scrolls fragment from Nahal Hever is often cited as supporting a verb. The BSB follows this and reads 'pierced'. Jewish translators have usually followed the Masoretic reading. In either reading the sense is the same: the sufferer is helpless in the hands of his enemies. Verse 18, in which they divide his clothes and cast lots for his garment, describes a man already treated as dead.

22:19-21. The prayer: be not far, come quickly, deliver my soul from the sword, from the dogs, from the lion and from the horns of the wild oxen. The last line, 'You have answered me', is the turn. The verb is in the past tense, which suggests the psalmist already knows that the rescue is granted.

22:22-31. The praise opens in the congregation. He will tell God's name to his brothers, and he calls on all who fear the LORD to praise him, for God did not despise or hide his face from the afflicted (verse 24). The poor will eat and be satisfied. The circle widens: the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the LORD, all the families of the nations will bow before him, the rich and even the dying will worship, and posterity will tell a people not yet born what he has done. The final Hebrew word of the psalm is 'asah, 'he has done it'.

23:1-3. The LORD is my shepherd, and so I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures and leads me by quiet waters, literally waters of rest. 'He restores my soul' (nefesh) means he revives the whole person. He guides me on right paths 'for the sake of his name'. His reputation is bound up with the care of his flock.

23:4. 'Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.' The Hebrew tsalmavet can be read as 'deep darkness', and many modern versions render it that way. The traditional rendering is also possible. Either way, the valley is a place of danger, and the answer is not an absence of danger but a presence: 'You are with me.' The shepherd's rod defends the flock from predators, and his staff guides and steadies the sheep.

23:5-6. The picture changes. God is now the host who prepares a table in the presence of enemies, anoints the guest's head with oil and fills his cup until it overflows. In Near Eastern hospitality, a guest was under the protection of the host, so the enemies can only watch. Goodness and mercy (chesed, covenant faithfulness) will 'pursue' him, as the Hebrew verb says, all his days. The final line is a promise to live in the LORD's house for a lifetime, or forever.

Psalm 22 teaches that faith can speak its pain to God. The psalm gives words to those who feel abandoned, and it does so inside the covenant. The sufferer addresses God as 'my God' and recalls his faithfulness. It also teaches that God hears the afflicted and that his rescue reaches beyond the sufferer. The last verses envision the nations turning to the LORD, a theme that runs through the Psalms and Isaiah and ends in the Great Commission. The psalm joins the suffering of the righteous to the salvation of the world.

Psalm 23 teaches the care and presence of God. The LORD supplies what his people need (rest, water, guidance), stays with them in danger and welcomes them as guests. The prophets sharpened the picture. They said Israel's shepherds had failed and that God himself would search for his sheep and set up one shepherd, his servant David (Ezekiel 34:11-16, 23; Isaiah 40:11; Jeremiah 23:1-6).

In the canon these are two of the most used psalms in worship. They show that the Old Testament teaching on suffering does not end in silence and that the shepherd is also the king. The Christian reading holds the forsaken sufferer and the faithful shepherd together in Christ.

For Psalm 22 the connection is fulfillment, with David as a type. Jesus prays verse 1 from the cross (Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34). Those who pass by wag their heads (Matthew 27:39, echoing verse 7), and the chief priests repeat the taunt of verse 8 almost word for word (Matthew 27:43). John says the soldiers' casting of lots for the garment fulfilled verse 18 (John 19:23-24). The thirst of verse 15 may be echoed in John 19:28. Hebrews 2:11-12 puts verse 22 on Jesus' lips, as he calls his people brothers. After the resurrection he calls his disciples his brothers (John 20:17; Matthew 28:10), and Hebrews 5:7 says he was heard for his reverent submission. Some interpreters hear the last word of the psalm, 'he has done it', in the cry 'It is finished' (John 19:30), though John does not say so. That is an echo. The psalm's final turn to the nations is echoed in the sending of the disciples (Matthew 28:19).

The New Testament does not quote Psalm 22:16 directly, so the debated reading 'pierced' is not needed for the argument. Psalm 22 still fits Jesus' death in its main movement: abandonment, mockery, helplessness and then vindication.

Psalm 23 is fulfilled in Jesus as the Good Shepherd. In John 10:11 Jesus says he is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep, taking God's own role from Ezekiel 34. Hebrews 13:20 calls him the great shepherd of the sheep, raised through the blood of the eternal covenant, and 1 Peter 5:4 calls him the chief shepherd. In Revelation 7:17 the Lamb is the shepherd who leads his people to springs of living water, an echo of Psalm 23:2. The psalm and the cross are linked in this way: the shepherd who walks with his sheep through the dark valley also goes into it for them.