Psalms 22

Wesley: My God—who art my friend and father, though now thou frownest upon me. The repetition denotes the depth of his distress. Forsaken—withdrawn the light of thy countenance, the supports and comforts of thy spirit, and filled me with the terrors of thy wrath: this was in part verified in David, but much more fully in Christ. Roaring—out-cries forced by miseries.

Shared messianic confession: Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 put this cry on Christ’s lips. The forsaking is true—wrath’s terrors, not play-acting—yet “My God” still claims the Father. Grace enables the sufferer to keep crying; the hearer must not let the frown cancel the name.

Calvin: two contrary sentences enter the godly mind together—forsakenness that sounds like despair, and “My God! my God!” that confesses faith. Faith is given the first place before the complaint; the reprobate, cherishing distrust, are overwhelmed and cannot aspire after grace by faith. Christ used these words on the cross as our representative under the curse, yet without sin; the psalm is prophecy concerning David’s King and Lord.

Christ truly cried this. The conflict trains the elect: flesh feels cast off; faith beholds hidden grace in the promises until the Father’s countenance returns.

Wesley’s notes leave the verse to stand with the cry of v. 1: day and night without answer deepen the distress that drives the roaring.

Unanswered crying is a trial. Grace keeps the pray-er at the throne when silence stretches; the hearer must not treat no-answer as permission to quit. Night without rest still belongs under “My God.”

Calvin: long continuance increases weariness; the temptation is worse when crying seems lost labor. Yet constancy of faith appears—duration of calamities neither overthrows faith nor interrupts its exercise. The true rule: he who seems to have beaten the air should not desist. God in fatherly kindness lets his people unburden perplexities into his bosom.

Day-and-night silence tries the saints. Prayer continues because faith is kept; disappointment becomes matter for further trust, not shipwreck.

Wesley: But thou art—just and true in all thy ways; this he adds to strengthen his faith, and to enforce his prayers, and prevail with God for the honour of his holy name. Inhabitest—whom thy people are perpetually praising.

Shared piety: holiness is the shield against despair. The sufferer appeals to God’s character so that faith and petition rise together; praise’s throne is not cancelled by the frown of v. 1.

Calvin: “Yet thou art holy”—adversative: God has always shown himself gracious to his chosen people. David turns from the temptation of forsaking to the constant evidences of grace, taking a shield against Satan’s darts. Holy means God continues always like himself; he inhabits Israel’s praises because he continually furnishes matter for thanksgiving.

Holiness and praise steady the forsaken. Contemplating covenant faithfulness is how faith resists the dark night of felt abandonment.

Wesley’s frame: the fathers’ trust and deliverance strengthen the present cry—what God did for them he can do again.

Ancestral trust is a live pattern, not museum piety. Grace invites the hearer into the same trust; deliverance answered their faith, and the covenant line still calls for trust today.

Calvin: David gathers past ages to persuade himself that God, who never cast off his chosen, will deliver him as one of their number—an heir of the same grace. He has an eye to the covenant by which God adopted Abraham’s posterity. Trust repeated shows hope that draws the fulfillment of the promises.

Fathers trusted and were delivered. The example strengthens only those who reckon themselves inside the covenant people God keeps.

Wesley’s silence on the verse leaves the plain sense: cry, rescue, trust, no shame.

True faith cries and is not finally ashamed. Grace opens the mouth; the hearer must still cry. Rescue answers trust; shame does not have the last word over those who call.

Calvin: he who pretends trust yet is listless under calamity and does not implore aid lies shamefully. By prayer true faith is known, as a tree by its fruit. God regards as right only prayers that proceed from faith. “Cried” stands between the repeated “trusted,” joining petition to confidence.

Cry and trust belong together. Faith without crying is counterfeit; crying without trust is not the prayer God owns.

Wesley: A worm—neglected and despised. People—not only of the great men, but also of the common people. Which doth not so truly agree to David as to Christ.

Shared messianic lowliness: Isaiah 53’s despised Servant stands behind the worm. The scorn is true and public; grace does not deny the abasement. Hearers who follow the crucified share his reproach without pretending dignity the world still grants.

Calvin: David does not murmur as if God dealt hardly, but bewails his condition to induce mercy—he is not accounted so much as a man. Remember principally the Son of God, in whom Isaiah 53:3 was fulfilled. “Worm” is no curious allegory of generation; it means abased beneath all men. Christ’s descent to such ignominy is a bright mirror of unparalleled grace.

The despised one of this verse points ahead to Christ. Extreme abasement becomes argument for hope of deliverance, not license for despair.

Wesley: Shoot out—they gape with their mouths in mockery. This and the next verse are applied to Christ, Matt. 27:39, 43.

Shared passion reading: the Evangelists hear this scorn at the cross. Mockery is moral guilt, not fate’s scenery. Those who wag the head stand accountable; the sufferer’s shame is publicly fulfilled in Jesus.

Calvin: scorn from the lowest of men—insolence by gesture, thrusting out the lip and shaking the head. The godly must expect the same weapon Satan used against the Son. Yet the complaint itself proves sincerity before God who sees the heart.

Matt. 27’s mockers fulfill the type. Derision aims to dislodge hope; the answer is witness before God, not matching scorn.

Wesley applies the mock with Matt. 27:43: the taunt turns trust and delight into a dare.

Shared christology: the cross repeats this jeer. Enemies treat faith as vain arrogance. Grace holds the trusted LORD when deliverance delays; the hearer must not let the taunt redefine delight as hypocrisy.

Calvin: the most grievous reproach—they allege that God, whom he avowed as Father, is turned away. Satan’s deadly dart is to dislodge hope by turning promises into ridicule, indirectly charging hypocrisy. The verb “commit” (roll upon Jehovah) shows faith reposing on providence. Christ was assailed with the same weapon; believers defend themselves by committing all to God.

The taunt of Matt. 27. Trust rolled on God is not vain confidence; God will vindicate those who lean on his delight.

Wesley’s frame: from the womb God has been the midwife of life and the teacher of trust—personal history against the present scorn.

Lifelong care grounds present faith. Grace began before the sufferer could choose; the hearer still leans on the God who took him from the womb and taught trust at the breast.

Calvin: a new fortress against Satan—benefits from earliest infancy prove God a father. Even before birth God’s fatherly love shone; childbirth and nursing display wonderful providence. God anticipates little infants by grace before they have use of reason, alluring them to himself by care for their life.

God’s care from the womb and the breast grounds present trust. Past liberality argues present hope: the God who never wearies in kindness will not fail extreme old age.

Wesley’s silence leaves the plain claim: from birth cast on God, who has been “my God” from the womb.

Shared covenant intimacy from the start. Grace claims the infant years; the adult sufferer still confesses the same God. “My God” in v. 1 rests on this lifelong belonging.

Calvin: the infant is cast upon God—without his fatherly bosom, babes would perish. God shows himself Father to mankind in a special manner; he is said to give infants confidence by care that allures them. Since he anticipates by grace, he will not disappoint servants who later call upon him.

Lifelong belonging is God’s initiative of care; present prayer leans on that same Father.

Wesley’s notes leave the urgency plain: near trouble, no helper—so “be far.”

Aloneness is petition-fuel. Grace sends the cry when human help is gone; the hearer must still ask God near rather than invent other saviors.

Calvin: another argument—sore distress and no helper. The Scriptures attribute to God the office of succoring the miserable, more ready to help the more we are afflicted. Even despair served as a ladder to elevate devout prayer. The feeling of affliction should drive us under God’s wings.

Desolation becomes reason to plead God’s nearness, not to conclude he has left the field.

Wesley: Bulls—wicked, violent, and potent enemies (Ezek. 39:18; Amos 4:1). Of Bashan—as the cattle there bred were fierce and furious.

Enemies pictured as massive, well-fed violence. The surround is moral hostility, not abstract fate; grace does not deny the herd’s strength while the sufferer cries.

Calvin: cruelty compared to bulls, then lions, then dogs—blood-thirsty beyond manhood. Strong bulls, not merely many; bulls of Bashan are well-fed, large, and strong from rich pastures.

Bashan’s strength names foes. The type presses toward Christ’s encirclement by raging powers.

Wesley’s frame with the bulls: gaping mouths ready to devour.

Shared menace: lion-rage around the righteous sufferer. The open mouth is accountable cruelty; the cry of vv. 19–21 answers it without pretending the threat is small.

Calvin: after bulls, the lion’s ravening and roaring—fierce boldness rushing to injure. David’s enemies resembled wild beasts more than men.

The enemies rage like beasts. The Spirit later shows the same surround at the cross; faith names the danger without denying God’s power to save.

Wesley: Water—spirits spent and gone like water that once spilt cannot be recovered; flesh melted, weak as water. Bones—unable to help myself, full of torment as if disjointed. Wax—melted through fear and overwhelming grief.

Inward collapse, not stoic steel. Christ’s humanity bears such melting; grace does not void the wax-heart while trust still prays.

Calvin: not far from death by wild beasts, he also bewails inward distress—fear that poured him out, disjointed bones, heart like wax. David was agitated by sore temptations he could not have sustained without the Spirit’s power. Applicable to Christ: historical man, truly subject to flesh’s infirmities without sin’s taint; perfect nature regulated affections so they did not become sinful through excess.

Poured-out anguish in the Passion’s type. Groan to God for restoration of strength when nearly lifeless.

Wesley: Dried—no more moisture than a dry potsherd. Cleaveth—through excessive thirst and drought. Death—thy providence delivering me into enemies’ power, and by thy terrors in my soul.

Shared passion detail: thirst and dust answer John 19:28’s “I thirst.” Providence and soul-terrors are both named; the hearer sees Christ’s drought without thinning either the Father’s hand or the Son’s agony.

Calvin: strength dried like a potsherd; tongue cleaving to jaws; adjudged to the grave—“thou hast brought me to the dust of death.” Hyperbole leads beyond David to Christ: the Redeemer’s encounter with death, bloody sweat, descent into the sense of wrath, emptying himself. In Christ terror from the curse and patience from faith were conjoined.

Dust of death under God’s hand. Hope quickens the dead when destruction seems the only near thing.

Wesley: Dogs—enemies for insatiable greediness and implacable fierceness. Pierced—these words cannot with any probability be applied to David, but were properly and literally verified in Christ.

Shared messianic confession: hands and feet pierced point to the cross (John 20:25; Zech. 12:10). Literal fulfillment in Jesus, not a stretch. Both camps refuse to leave this verse as mere Davidic metaphor alone.

Calvin: dogs and the assembly of the wicked; “they have pierced my hands and my feet”—despite Hebrew “like a lion” readings, the scope and the versions compel “pierced,” and Evangelists apply it to the crucifixion. The Father intended that in the Son those things shadowed in David should be visibly accomplished so dull hearts might awaken.

Prophecy made palpable at Calvary; the church reads the nails without embarrassment.

Wesley: May tell—by my being stretched out upon the cross.

Shared passion reading: exposed, countable bones and gloating stares. The shame is public and intentional; grace does not deny the spectacle while it names the Crucified.

Calvin: body so wasted bones protrude; enemies take pleasure in the pitiable sight—cruelty feeding eyes on a wretched man. The two clauses connect: lean exposure and gloating stare.

The sufferer is exposed to the stares of the crowd, as Christ would be on the cross. The type’s humiliation is not edited away; Christ endured the stare that David voiced.

Wesley: They part—this also cannot be applied to David, but was literally fulfilled in Christ, Matt. 27:35; John 19:24.

Shared messianic confession: lots for clothing are Gospel fact. Another line that “cannot” rest on David alone; both camps confess the Evangelists’ plain fulfillment.

Calvin: garments divided and lots cast—metaphorically David’s goods as spoil, yet the Evangelists quote to the letter. The heavenly Father made the prophecy visible in the Son so that we might be sure the Spirit here describes Christ.

Both sides agree: John 19:24. Spoil at the foot of the cross seals the psalm’s christology; mockery compounds the villany.

Wesley’s frame: after the passion details, the plea turns again—“be far,” “haste to help.”

Nearness and haste are right petitions. Grace keeps asking when enemies cast lots; the hearer must still cry for quick aid rather than silence.

Calvin: having reached utmost misery with no ray of hope from sense, David rises from the abyss to call on God—a wonderful instance of faith’s power. He does not lament as if in vain; calling God his strength proves he promises himself aid not yet perceived.

Do not be far; come quickly. Faith names God “my help” while help is still unseen.

Wesley: Darling—Heb. my only one; his soul, left alone and destitute of friends and helpers.

Soul and only life under lethal threat. Grace values the life enemies treat as prey; the prayer for deliverance is earnest, not theatrical.

Calvin: sword, dog’s hand, lion’s mouth, unicorns’ horns—many forms of present death. “Only soul” means alone and destitute of aid (cf. Ps. 35:17; 25:16). Amid deaths he continued strong in the Lord; life’s spirit remained vigorous in his heart.

Deliver the lonely life. Surrounded by death-forms, faith still asks rescue of the precious soul.

Wesley: Heard—answered and delivered me.

Shared turning-point—cry answered. Grace hears; rescue is true. The hearer learns that petition is not lost labor; answered prayer belongs to the same psalm as the forsaken cry.

Calvin: “Answer me from the horns of the unicorns”—cause for effect; deliverance follows God’s hearing. Applied to Christ: the Father did not prevent death, yet answered more mightily by resurrection than by sparing the cross—greater to rise than to be healed of a grievous malady. Death did not prevent the resurrection from witnessing that he had been heard.

Saved from lion and wild oxen. For Christ the hearing is exaltation through death, not escape from every pain.

Wesley: Declare—when thou hast delivered me. Thy name—power, faithfulness, and goodness manifested on my behalf. Brethren/congregation—fits Christ, who extends this name to all his disciples (Matt. 12:48–49); this text is applied, Heb. 2:11–12.

Shared messianic confession: Hebrews hears Christ praising in the assembly. Deliverance becomes declaration among brothers; grace opens praise in the church’s midst.

Calvin: gratitude after deliverance; under David’s figure Christ is shadowed. The apostle (Heb. 2:12) argues Christ’s true fellowship with us as brethren. The title belongs properly to genuine believers; Christ limits it to disciples (John 20:17). Ungodly unbelief breaks the fleshly relationship and leaves them strangers.

Hebrews 2 hears Christ calling these worshipers his brothers. Praise in the congregation is Christ’s and his people’s; fraternal alliance is confirmed to true believers.

Wesley’s frame: the delivered singer summons the fearing seed to praise, glory, and awe.

Fear and praise belong together. Grace gathers Jacob’s offspring into glad reverence; the hearer who fears is called to glorify, not to mute gratitude.

Calvin: public thanksgiving invites and stirs the church. He addresses those who fear God—hypocrites may sing with open mouth but only pollute the Name. True celebration joins praise with inward fear; even the holiest need continual stirring to awe.

Pure affection, not bare ceremony, makes the harmony God accepts.

Wesley: Abhorred—he did not turn away his face from it, as men do from things they abhor. From him—for ever: though he did so for a time.

God may hide his face for a time, but in the end he hears. The forsaken cry of v. 1 is answered; affliction was not abhorred. Grace comforts the afflicted that the face returns; the hearer keeps crying until heard.

Calvin: the church gives thanks in common for one member’s welfare (cf. 2 Cor. 1:11). The statement encourages every sufferer to hope for the same mercy. God’s people should endure afflictions patiently, however long he keeps them in distress, that he may at length succor them.

Long distress trains patience under a God who does hear his afflicted.

Wesley: Great congregation—in the universal church, of Jews and Gentiles.

Praise sourced from God, vows paid before the fearing. The congregation is already widening; grace turns private rescue into public worship across peoples.

Calvin: praise proceeds from God—deliverance owed entirely to him, not self-trumpet. Vows paid among those who fear him; desire that witnesses be true worshippers. Papist superstitions are not to be equaled to this holy thanksgiving God commanded.

Great assembly, vows before fearers. Gratitude is public edification, God the sole source of the song.

Wesley: Satisfied—spiritual blessings: grace, peace, comfort in God’s love, pardon, and the Spirit’s influences. Seek him—seek his favour. Your heart—same persons; comfort everlasting, not short as worldly comforts.

Shared feast for the afflicted who seek. Grace supplies lasting heart-life; the hearer must still seek and eat—satisfaction is promised to seekers, not to the indifferent.

Calvin: sacrificial feast picturing God’s goodness to the afflicted; they praise who seek him—genuine godliness’s mark. “Your heart shall live for ever” is not one meal but hope of ready succor; deliverance of one is counted deliverance for the faithful. Hypocrites have bare ceremony; right performance belongs to true seekers. The Lord’s supper renews spiritual life still more for those who seek with the whole heart.

Afflicted eat; seekers praise; hearts live. Seeking marks piety; forever life is God-given hope, not a snack of ritual.

Wesley: The world—all nations from one end to the other: evident prophecy of the calling of the Gentiles, proof the psalm speaks of Christ. Remember—former wickedness with grief, shame, and fear; obligations to God; Christ’s words and works. The Lord—the only true God, and Jesus Christ, to whom Jehovah’s name is often ascribed.

Remember and turn name repentance; families of nations must convert, not merely hear a rumor.

Calvin: beyond doubt David describes the promised Messiah—forced submission of conquered nations is not the same as willing godliness grafting Gentiles into the church. Remember and turn: awakened by signal miracles, Gentiles return from alienation. True worship proceeds from knowledge of God.

The change is conversion into the church’s fellowship under Christ, not bare political subjection.

Wesley: For—reason why Gentiles should be converted: God is not only Lord of the Jews but of the Gentiles and of all nations.

Shared confession: universal kingship grounds universal worship. The nations owe allegiance because the LORD already rules; conversion answers his right, not a tribal limit.

Calvin: the kingdom is Jehovah’s that he may rule among the nations—God’s throne erected for Christ to govern the world. He exercises authority in deed when ignorance’s darkness is dispelled by his word. The world was subdued when the unconquerable were brought to willing obedience by the gospel—under Christ’s management.

Kingship and rule over the nations. Gospel light is how the reign appears; Christ gathers willing subjects from every side.

Wesley: Fat—kings, princes, great men. Shall eat—feed upon the bread of life, Christ and his benefits. Worship—shows what kind of eating. Go down—all mankind; none escape death.

Rich and dying alike bow. Grace sets the same table; the prosperous must worship, not trust fatness, and the dust-bound cannot keep themselves alive.

Calvin: fat ones also invited, lest abundance keep minds on earth; the poor had first comfort, yet the rich need remedy against intoxication with delights. Even those reduced to dust and despaired of are called—partakers of the same grace. Fat must become lean to be fed; the famished must take undaunted confidence.

Prosperous eat and worship; dust-bowers included. One Lord feeds high and low; none quickens his own soul.

Wesley: A seed—Christ shall not want a seed or posterity; though the Jewish nation generally reject him, the Gentiles shall come in their stead. A generation—that believing seed reputed the people of the Lord.

Shared hope: ongoing seed serving the Lord. Gospel posterity continues by believing Gentiles when many reject; service and telling belong to the next generation.

Calvin: posterity will never forget; conversion of the world continues age after age. Perpetuity of the Church: God always raises some sincerely to serve him. This seed is fruit of the incorruptible seed—God begets and multiplies his Church by his word. Registered to the Lord—Christ invested with authority to register those on God’s side; the Father commits the chosen to the Son’s guardianship.

Posterity serves; the Lord is told to the coming generation. The church’s continuance is God’s raising of a seed by the word under Christ’s care.

Wesley: They—the seed. Come—from Judea and Jerusalem to the Gentile world, where the apostles went. His righteousness—God’s wonderful grace and mercy in giving Christ and the gospel. Unto succeeding generations—David’s key that he speaks not of himself but of gospel-spread in New Testament ages. That he—this is the work of God, and not of man.

Shared climax: proclamation to the unborn that God has done it. Mission declares divine righteousness and mercy; hearers in every generation receive a finished work of God, not a human achievement.

Calvin: fathers transmit knowledge hand to hand so God’s name remains; the church is kept from perishing by preaching grace. Care to instruct children is enjoined; burying God’s remembrance is great turpitude. Righteousness here is God’s faithfulness in preserving his people—illustrious in not abandoning them. The Spirit recommends publication of Christ’s resurrection: declare his righteousness because he has done it.

Proclaim to a people that shall be born, for he has done it. Preaching Christ’s finished deliverance perpetuates the church; God’s righteousness in keeping his own is what the generations tell.