Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 22:2
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
2. thou hearest not ] R.V., thou answerest not.
and am not silent ] Better as R.V. marg., but find no rest: no answer comes to bring me respite.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
O my God, I cry in the daytime – This, in connection with what is said at the close of the verse, and in the night-season, means that his cry was incessant or constant. See the notes at Psa 1:2. The whole expression denotes that his prayer or cry was continuous, but that it was not heard. As applicable to the Redeemer it refers not merely to the moment when he uttered the cry as stated in Psa 22:1, but to the continuous sufferings which he endured as if forsaken by God and men. His life in general was of that description. The whole series of sorrows and trials through which he passed was as if he were forsaken by God; as if he uttered a long continuous cry, day and night, and was not heard.
But thou hearest not – Thou dost not answer me. It is as if my prayers were not heard. God hears every cry; but the answer to a prayer is sometimes withheld or delayed, as if he did not hear the voice of the suppliant. Compare the notes at Dan 10:12-13. So it was with the Redeemer. He was permitted to suffer without being rescued by divine power, as if his prayers had not been heard. God seemed to disregard his supplications.
And in the night-season – As explained above, this means constantly. It was literally true, however, that the Redeemers most intense and earnest prayer was uttered in the night-season, in the garden of Gethsemane.
And am not silent – Margin, there is no silence to me. Hebrew: There is not silence to me. The idea is, that he prayed or cried incessantly. He was never silent. All this denotes intense and continuous supplication, supplication that came from the deepest anguish of the soul, but which was unheard and unanswered. If Christ experienced this, who may not?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 22:2
O my God, I cry in the daytime, but Thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Why so many prayers art unanswered
Our prayers often fail of success–
I. Because of want of faith. There are a multitude of prayers offered to God with something like this feeling: Well, perhaps God will hear and answer; perhaps not. At any rate, I may as well pray; and if the answer comes, well: if not, I at least have done my duty. Now, such a feeling as this, though it be not positive infidelity, is so near to it as to be most offensive to God, and can only bring forth His severe displeasure. The matter of prayer is one thing, the manner of prayer is another. If the manner of presenting our prayer is right, and the matter wrong, then, of course, will it miscarry. If the matter is right and the manner wrong, the prayer is likewise fruitless of good.
II. Because we evince a practical unbelief in Gods ability to grant us our requests. We act as if probabilities affected God as they do us: we measure His ability by our own. We do not remember that with God nothing is impossible.
III. The indulgence of some one or more known sins. Do we not read, If I regard iniquity in my heart the Lord will not hear me. To pray, and yet to commit wilful sin, or still to pursue a course of secret or open iniquity, is not only mocking God with lip service, but is also acting with hypocrisy, professing one thing but doing another. A praying spirit and a sinning heart cannot dwell together.
IV. Remissness in the performance of our Christian duty. This tendency in the minds of many to divorce prayer from all the instrumentalities which God has connected with its being answered is one fruitful source of evil, and a cause why so many prayers are uttered in vain. To illustrate this: suppose that you are threatened with shipwreck–the storm rages fearfully, the vessel is dashed upon the rocks and is broken up, every hope of escape seems gone, and in the extremity of your distress you cry unto God to save you from this threatened death! But how do you expect He will save you?–by a miracle?–by bearing you through the air and landing you safely on the shore? Or do you not rather look for an answer to your prayer by means of human agency, and by physical and natural instrumentality?–by a lifeboat, by a cable fastened to the rock, by the buoying up of some part of the wreck until it is washed upon the beach. And suppose that, having prayed to God for succour, you yet refuse to use the instrumentality which, in answer to your prayer, He has furnished for your safety. You decline to get into the lifeboat, or object to be drawn ashore by a rope, or will not commit yourself to some means provided for your escape: can you be saved? God answered your prayer, not by giving you instantaneously the end desired, but by giving you means adequate to secure that end; and if you refused the means you could not expect the end. So with spiritual blessings. God answers us through the instrumentality of duties; and we find the end we desire when we use the means He has enjoined. Another reason why our prayers are not answered is–
V. Because we do not persevere in prayer. One other way in which we ask and receive not, because we ask amiss, is–
VI. By asking things which do not accord with Gods purposes of discipline or mercy. We must not forget the great truth, that God uses this world as a school of discipline, to fit us for a holier state above. In this state trials, disappointments, etc., are the necessary instruments whereby our souls are purged and fitted for heaven. Yet we often pray that God would relieve us from this trial, that He would exempt us from this threatened affliction; but in His infinite wisdom He knows that to grant these requests would be productive of evil rather than good, as it is in the furnace of affliction that God often chooses His saints, and through much tribulation that they enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Bishop Stevens.)
Prayers which are not answered
They that have conduit water come into their houses, if no water come they do not conclude the spring to be dry, but the pipes to be stopped or broken. If prayer speed not, we must be sure that the fault is not in God, but in ourselves; were we but ripe for mercy, He is ready to extend it to us, and even waits for the purpose. (John Trapp.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 2. I cry in the day-time, and in the night-season] This seems to be David’s own experience; and the words seem to refer to his own case alone. Though I am not heard, and thou appearest to forget or abandon me; yet I continue to cry both day and night after thy salvation.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
i.e. I continue praying day and night without intermission. Or thus, I have no silence, i.e. no quietness or rest, as this word signifies, Jdg 18:9; in which respect also the sea and waves thereof are said to be silent, i.e. still and quiet, Psa 107:29; Mar 4:39. And so this last clause answers to and expounds the former, thou hearest not, which is most usual in this book.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
2. The long distress is evincedby
am not silentliterally,”not silence to me,” either meaning, I continually cry; or,corresponding with “thou hearest not,” or answerest not, itmay mean, there is no rest or quiet to me.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
O my God, I cry in the daytime,…. In the time of his suffering on the cross, which was in the daytime:
but thou hearest me not; and yet he was always heard, Joh 11:41; though he was not saved from dying, yet he was quickly delivered from the power of death, and so was heard in that he feared, Heb 5:7;
and in the night season: in the night in which he was in the garden, sorrowing and praying, the night in which he was betrayed and was apprehended; and though the natural desires of his human soul were not heard and answered, that the cup might pass from him, yet his prayer in submission to the will of God was: moreover, the daytime and night season may design the incessant and continual prayer of Christ; he prayed always, night and day:
and am not silent; but continue to pray, though as yet seemingly not heard and answered; or there is “no silence to me” w; that is, no rest from sorrow and pain; or “no likeness to me” x, there are none like me, no sorrow like my sorrow, as in La 1:12.
w “non est silentium mihi”, Pagninus, Montanus, Junius Tremellius “intermissio”, Cocceius; “quies”, Gejerus; “cessatio, quies, aut silentium”, Michaelis. x “Non est mihi similitudo”, Gussetius, p. 193.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
2. O my God! I cry in the day-time. In this verse the Psalmist expresses the long continuance of his affliction, which increased his disquietude and weariness. It was a temptation even still more grievous, that his crying seemed only to be lost labor; for, as our only means of relief under our calamities is in calling upon God, if we derive no advantage from our prayers, what other remedy remains for us? David, therefore, complains that God is in a manner deaf to his prayers. When he says in the second clause, And there is no silence to me, the meaning is, that he experienced no comfort or solace, nothing which could impart tranquillity to his troubled mind. As long as affliction pressed upon him, his mind was so disquieted, that he was constrained to cry out. Here there is shown the constancy of faith, in that the long duration of calamities could neither overthrow it, nor interrupt its exercise. The true rule of praying is, therefore, this, that he who seems to have beaten the air to no purpose, or to have lost his labor in praying for a long time, should not, on that account, leave off, or desist from that duty. Meanwhile, there is this advantage which God in his fatherly kindness grants to his people, that if they have been disappointed at any time of their desires and expectations, they may make known to God their perplexities and distresses, and unburden them, as it were, into his bosom.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(2) And am not silent.This misses the parallelism, which evidently requires O my God, I cry in the daytime, and thou answerest not; in the night, and find no repose.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
2. O my God Still he holds to the endearing title “ my God.”
I cry in the daytime and in the night The long delay of hearing and of help intensifies the mystery expressed in the “why,” of Psa 22:1 .
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘Oh My God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer, and in the night season, and am not silent.’
For the first time in His life Jesus had become aware of what to us is commonplace, the sense of separation from the Father. He had become aware of what it meant to pray knowing that there seemed to be no response. Never before had He prayed and faced this stony silence. It is no wonder that He found it unnerving. But there was a sense in which He had to bear the burden alone, for He was dying in His humanness, and the Father had no humanness. So both through the hours of light until midday, and then through the following hours of darkness, His cry continued. Even at this final hour He was not silent, but His Father was. The heavens were seemingly closed to His plea. But let us not overlook the fact that Heaven too was distraught. The angels could not bear the sight. And yet the Father held back His comfort from His Son, in order that His Son might bear our sin to the full. For He could not condone the sin that He was bearing (the sin that was our sin). This was the cup that Jesus had chosen to drink, and He had to drink it alone.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 22:2. Thou hearest not St. Paul says, Heb 5:7. That Christ was heard in that he feared; but Christ here says, that his father heard him not, only to intimate that he did not dispense him from suffering the death of the cross; for which the father, who heard him always, (Joh 11:42.) had wise reasons, taken from the end for which his son was incarnate. See Joh 12:27. The last words may be rendered, And have no rest.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psa 22:2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.
Ver. 2. O my God, I cry in the day time, &c. ] This was a sore temptation, that his heartiest prayers were not heard. This might have made him jealous of God; to have had hard conceits of him and heavy conceits of himself. But saith he in the following verses, Thou art holy, and thy name is to be sanctified, though I be not gratified. And moreover, others have called upon thee and have been heard, Psa 22:4-5 , though I now for mine unworthiness am denied. For “I am a worm, and no man,” Psa 22:6 . Thus it puts him not off that he is not heard, as others; but humbles him. It drives him not (as is usual with carnal people in like case) to shifting courses, as a dog that hath lost his master will follow after any one for relief. A Christian never prevaileth so little by his prayers but that he will take heart of grace to come again to God. Silence, or sad answers, do not utterly dishearten him. He ceaseth not wrestling till he hath wrested the blessing out of God’s hand with Jacob, and gotten matter of praise for his prayers granted, as David here doth, ere he had done the psalm, Psa 22:24-25 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
God. Hebrew. Elohim. App-4.
hearest not = answerest not.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I cry: Psa 42:3, Psa 55:16, Psa 55:17, Psa 88:1, Luk 18:7, 1Th 3:10, 2Ti 1:3
but: Psa 80:4, Lam 3:8, Lam 3:44
in the night: Luk 6:12, Luk 18:7, Luk 22:41-46
am not silent: Heb. there is no silence to me, Mat 26:44
Reciprocal: 2Ch 6:40 – my God Job 3:24 – my roarings Job 19:7 – I cry Job 30:17 – in the night season Job 30:20 – I cry Psa 3:4 – I cried Psa 5:3 – General Psa 13:1 – wilt thou hide Psa 16:7 – in the Psa 22:24 – but Psa 25:5 – on thee Psa 28:1 – Unto Psa 31:14 – Thou Psa 38:8 – roared Psa 42:9 – Why hast Psa 69:3 – I am Psa 102:7 – watch Son 3:1 – night Son 3:2 – I sought Son 5:6 – I sought Hab 1:2 – and thou wilt not save Mat 26:36 – while Mat 26:42 – the second Mar 4:38 – carest Mar 14:32 – while Luk 2:37 – but Luk 22:44 – being Act 16:25 – at midnight
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 22:2. I cry in the day-time, &c. I continue praying night and day without intermission; but thou hearest not St. Paul says, Heb 5:7, that Christ was heard in that he feared. Christ therefore here says that his Father heard him not, only to intimate that he did not exempt him from suffering the death of the cross, for which the Father, who heard him always, had wise reasons, taken from the end for which his Son became incarnate, Joh 12:27. And am not silent Hebrew, I have no silence, no rest, or quietness, as the word , dumijah, here used, is sometimes rendered.