Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 22:9
But thou [art] he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope [when I was] upon my mother’s breasts.
9. But thou art he ] Rather, Yea, thou art he. The mocking words of his enemies are true, and he turns them into a plea. All his past life has proved Jehovah’s love. Cp. Psa 71:5-6.
thou didst make me hope ] Rather, that didst make me trust, (cp. Psa 22:4-5). The marg., keptest me in safety, lit. didst make me lie securely upon my mother’s breasts, is a less probable rendering. The P.B.V. my hope follows LXX, Vulg., Jer., which represent a slightly different reading.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
But thou art he that took me out of the womb – I owe my life to thee. This is urged by the sufferer as a reason why God should now interpose and protect him. God had brought him into the world, guarding him in the perils of the earliest moments of his being, and he now pleads that in the day of trouble God will interpose and save him. There is nothing improper in applying this to the Messiah. He was a man, with all the innocent propensities and feelings of a man; and no one can say but that when on the cross – and perhaps with special fitness we may say when he saw his mother standing near him Joh 19:25 – these thoughts may have passed through his mind. In the remembrance of the care bestowed on his early years, he may now have looked with an eye of earnest pleading to God, that, if it were possible, he might deliver him.
Thou didst make me hope – Margin, Keptest me in safety. The phrase in the Hebrew means, Thou didst cause me to trust or to hope. It may mean here either that he was made to cherish a hope of the divine favor in very early life, as it were when an infant at the breast; or it may mean that he had cause then to hope, or to trust in God. The former, it seems to me, is probably the meaning; and the idea is, that frown his earliest years he had been lea to trust in God; and he now pleads this fact as a reason why he should interpose to save him. Applied to the Redeemer as a man, it means that in his earliest childhood he had trusted in God. His first breathings were those of piety. His first aspirations were for the divine favor. His first love was the love of God. This he now calls to remembrance; this he now urges as a reason why God should not with. draw the light of his countenance, and leave him to suffer alone. No one can prove that these thoughts did not pass through the mind of the Redeemer when he was enduring the agonies of desertion on the cross; no one can show that they would have been improper.
Upon my mothers breast – In my earliest infancy. This does not mean that he literally cherished hope then, but that he had done it in the earliest period of his life, as the first act of his conscious being.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 22:9-10
Thou art He that took me out of the womb.
Davids acknowledgment of Gods goodness
1. He takes notice of common mercies. Such mercies as most men are partakers of. To come safe and sound into the world, and to be persuaded and sustained in it, they are such things as most men have allotted and vouchsafed unto them. But there are very few who are sensible of common mercies,–such is the corruption of our nature and our base ingratitude.
2. He acknowledges ancient mercies. He remembers those mercies which another would have forgotten. The mercies of his infancy and childhood and younger years. We should remember both temporal and spiritual mercies.
3. He remembers primitive or original mercies. Those mercies which he had at first, in the very entrance or beginning of his life when he first came into the world, and were likewise the ground and foundation of all the rest. It is with mercies as with judgments, one makes way for another, and the first is so much the more considerable as it induces and brings in the rest.
4. He takes notice of constant mercies. Those which were continued to him from the first moment of his being till now, through the whole course of his life to this present. He takes notice of the goodness of God to him in the full latitude and extent of it. See now the specification of the several particulars.
(1) The blessings of the womb, in his birth and first coming into the world.
(2) The blessings of the breast, in his nursery and first sustentation in the world.
(3) The blessing of the cradle, in the tutelary care of his orphanage and desolate condition.
(4) The blessings of the covenant, in the continued and mutual interest which he had in God and God in him. (T. Horton, D. D.)
Thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mothers breasts.—
On the nature and influence of hope
To a contemplative mind nothing will suggest more powerful inducements, perhaps, for adoring the wisdom and the goodness of God than a distinct consideration of the many faculties, passions, and propensities with which a human creature is furnished. Exposed to various evils; encompassed with manifold infirmities; subject to pain and labour, to poverty, disease, and death, we might soon feel life a burden unless there were some pervading principle which seems to connect us with futurity, and bids us forget our past calamities and our present sorrows in the bright prospects that are to come. Hence by the goodness of God we are all possessed of that lasting and universal passion, Hope. Now let us consider–
I. Its nature and influence. It enters largely into every mans system of happiness, whether they be prosperous or afflicted. It is the spring of mens conduct, the end of their life. It keeps his soul alive within him, invigorates his faculties, purifies his passions, and directs the exertions both of his mind and body to their proper objects.
II. By what principles to regulate it. A passion so general, and that has such an influence on the sum of life, cannot be too carefully regulated nor disciplined to its proper objects. In this, as in most other cases of moral and religious duty, the folly and the danger of extremes should be avoided. The happy medium, which we should all labour to attain on the present occasion, lies equally remote from silly and extravagant expectations,–from sluggish indifference and helpless despondency, or the dead calm of insensibility. The one is apt to lead to every kind of excess, and to end in misery and disappointment; the other disqualifies us for fulfilling the duties of life, and is, in fact, the destruction or subversion of every virtue.
III. The objects to which it should be directed. These are to be found in the blessed future world. (J. Hewlett, B. D.)
The meaning of hope as an instinct of the soul
The text is a strong figure intended to express the idea that hope is an inbred sentiment of the soul. The body, it is true, may exist without the eye, but in a very incomplete state. And there are emaciated souls, souls with deadened senses and broken faculties. But hope is yet an instinct keeping the face of the soul ever towards the future. Now, this instinct–
I. Implies the goodness of God in the constitution of our nature. For it is one of the chief blessings of humanity.
1. It is one of the most powerful impulses to action.
2. It is one of the chief elements of support under trial. Hope buoys us up beneath the load; gives us a steady anchorage amid the fiercest surgings of the storm.
3. It is a source of joy. The joys of memory and the pleasures of the passing hour are not to be compared with the joys of hope.
II. Suggests a future state of existence. It may not prove such existence, but it does much in that direction. For–
1. Analogy supports it. All our senses and appetites have provision made for them–light for the eye, sounds for the ear, etc. And so in our social relations.
2. The Divine goodness leads to belief in it.
III. Means that progress in blessedness is the law of our being. Hope points not only to the future, but to good in the future.
IV. Shows the fitness of Christianity to human nature. For–
1. It reveals eternal blessedness; and–
2. Supplies means of its attainment which are both soul pacifying and purifying.
V. Indicates the congruity of the religious life with our nature. Therefore, if we quench this hope midnight reigns; and sin tends to do this. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 9. But thou art he that took me out of the womb] Thou hast made me; and hast guided and defended me from my earliest infancy.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
This is noted as an effect of Gods wonderful and gracious providence. And although this be a mercy which God grants to all mankind, yet it may well be alleged here, partly in way of gratitude for this great, though common, mercy; nething being more reasonable and usual than for David and other holy men to praise God for such blessings; and partly as an argument to encourage himself to expect and to prevail with God, to grant him the deliverance which now he desires, because he had formerly delivered him; this being a very common argument: see 1Sa 17:37; 2Co 1:10. But this is applicable to Christ in a singular manner, not as a late learned writer takes it, that God separated him from the womb, but that God did bring him out (as the word properly signifies)
of the womb, to wit, immediately and by himself, and without the help of any man, by the miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost, which made him there, or else he could never have been brought thence.
Thou didst make me hope, or trust, i.e. thou didst give me sufficient ground for hope and trust, if I had then been capable of acting that grace, because of thy wonderful and watchful care over me in that weak and helpless state; which was eminently true of Christ, whom God so miraculously preserved and provided for in his infancy; the history whereof we read Mt 2. It is not strange that hope is figuratively ascribed to infants, seeing even the brute creatures are said to hope, Rom 8:20, and to wait and cry to God, Psa 145:15; 147:9.
When I was upon my mothers breasts, i.e. when I was a sucking child; which may be properly understood.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
9, 10. Though ironically spoken,the exhortation to trust was well founded on his previous experienceof divine aid, the special illustration of which is drawn from theperiod of helpless infancy.
didst make me hopeliterally,”made me secure.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
But thou [art] he that took me out of the womb,…. The Papists affirm, that there was something miraculous in the manner of Christ’s coming into the world, as well as in his conception; that his conception of a virgin was miraculous is certain, being entirely owing to the wonderful and mysterious overshadowing of the Holy Ghost, and which was necessary to preserve his human nature from the contagion of sin, common to all that descend from Adam by ordinary generation; that so that individual of human nature might be proper to be united to the Son of God, and that it might be a fit sacrifice for the sins of men; but otherwise in all other things, sin only excepted, he was made like unto us; and it is a clear case, that his mother bore him the usual time, and went with him her full time of nine months, as women commonly do; see Lu 1:56; and it is as evident that he was born and brought forth in the same manner other infants are, seeing he was presented, to the Lord in the temple, and the offering was brought for him according to the law respecting the male that opens the womb, Lu 2:22; and the phrase that is here used is expressive of the common providence of God which attends such an event, every man being as it were midwifed into the world by God himself; see Job 10:18; though there was, no doubt, a peculiar providence which attended the birth of our Lord, and makes this expression more peculiarly applicable to him; since his mother Mary, when her full time was come, was at a distance from the place of her residence, was in an inn, and in a stable there, there being no room for her in the inn, and so very probably had no women about her to assist her, nor any midwife with her; and there was the more visible appearance of the hand of God in this affair, who might truly be said to take him out of the womb:
thou didst make me hope [when I was] upon my mother’s breasts; which may be understood of the expectation and hope, common to infants, which have not the use of reason, with all creatures, whose eyes wait upon the Lord, and he gives them their meat in due season; and here may regard the sudden and suitable provision of milk in the mother’s breast, to which there is in the infant a natural desire, and an hope and expectation of. The words may be rendered, as they are by some, “thou didst keep me in safety”, or make me safe and secure z, when I was “upon my mother’s breast”: this was verified in Christ at the time Herod sought to take away his life; he was then in his mother’s arms, and sucked at her breast; when the Lord in a dream acquainted Joseph with Herod’s design, and directed him to flee with the young child and his mother into Egypt, where they were kept in safety till the death of Herod. This sense of the words frees them from a difficulty, how the grace of hope, or of faith and confidence, can, in a proper sense, be exercised in the infant state; for though the principle of grace may be implanted so early, yet how it should be exercised when there is not the due use of reason is not easy to conceive; if, therefore, the words are taken in this sense, the meaning must be, that he was caused to hope as soon as he was capable of it, which is sometimes the design of such a phrase; see Job 31:18; unless we suppose something extraordinary in Christ’s human nature, which some interpreters are not willing to allow, because he was in all things like unto us excepting sin; but I see not, that seeing the human nature was an extraordinary one, was perfectly holy from the first of it, the grace of God was upon it as soon as born, and it was anointed with the Holy Ghost above its fellows, why it may not be thought to exercise grace in an extraordinary manner, so early as is here expressed, literally understood.
z “tu me tutum fecisti”, Cocceius; so Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(Heb.: 22:10-12) The sufferer pleads that God should respond to his trust in Him, on the ground that this trust is made an object of mockery. With he establishes the reality of the loving relationship in which he stands to God, at which his foes mock. The intermediate thought, which is not expressed, “and so it really is,” is confirmed; and thus comes to have an affirmative signification. The verb ( ) signifies both intransitive: to break forth (from the womb), Job 38:8, and transitive: to push forward (cf. Arab. jchcha ), more especially, the fruit of the womb, Mic 4:10. It might be taken here in the first signification: my breaking forth, equivalent to “the cause of my breaking forth” (Hengstenberg, Baur, and others); but there is no need for this metonymy. is either part. equivalent to , my pusher forth, i.e., he who causes me to break forth, or, – since in a causative signification cannot be supported, and participles like stamping and veiling (Ges. 72, rem. 1) are nowhere found with a suffix, – participle of a verb , to draw forth (Hitz.), which perhaps only takes the place, per metaplasmum , of the Pil. with the uneuphonic (Ewald S. 859, Addenda). Ps 71 has (Psa 71:6) instead of , just as it has (Psa 71:5) instead of . The Hiph. does not merely mean to make secure (Hupf.), but to cause to trust. According to biblical conception, there is even in the new-born child, yea in the child yet unborn and only living in the womb, a glimmering consciousness springing up out of the remotest depths of unconsciousness ( Psychol. S. 215; transl. p. 254). Therefore, when the praying one says, that from the womb he has been cast
(Note: The Hoph. has o, not u, perhaps in a more neuter sense, more closely approximating the reflexive (cf. Eze 32:19 with Eze 32:32), rather than a purely passive. Such is apparently the feeling of the language, vid., B. Megilla 13 a (and also the explanation in Tosefoth).)
upon Jahve, i.e., directed to go to Him, and to Him alone, with all his wants and care (Psa 55:23, cf. Psa 71:6), that from the womb onwards Jahve was his God, there is also more in it than the purely objective idea, that he grew up into such a relationship to God. Twice he mentions his mother. Throughout the Old Testament there is never any mention made of a human father, or begetter, to the Messiah, but always only of His mother, or her who bare Him. And the words of the praying one here also imply that the beginning of his life, as regards its outward circumstances, was amidst poverty, which likewise accords with the picture of Christ as drawn both in the Old and New Testaments. On the ground of his fellowship with God, which extends so far back, goes forth the cry for help (Psa 22:12), which has been faintly heard through all the preceding verses, but now only comes to direct utterance for the first time. The two are alike. That the necessity is near at hand, i.e., urgent, refers back antithetically to the prayer, that God would not remain afar off; no one doth, nor can help except He alone. Here the first section closes.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
9. Surely thou. David again here raises a new fortress, in order to withstand and repel the machinations of Satan. He briefly enumerates the benefits which God had bestowed upon him, by which he had long since learned that he was his father. Yea, he declares that even before he was born God had shown towards him such evidence of his fatherly love, that although now overwhelmed with the darkness of death, he might upon good ground venture to hope for life from him. And it is the Holy Spirit who teaches the faithful the wisdom to collect together, when they are brought into circumstances of fear and trouble, the evidences of the goodness of God, in order thereby to sustain and strengthen their faith. We ought to regard it as an established principle, that as God never wearies in the exercise of his liberality, and as the most exuberant bestowment cannot exhaust his riches, it follows that, as we have experienced him to be a father from our earliest infancy, he will show himself the same towards us even to extreme old age. In acknowledging that he was taken from the womb by the hand of God, and that God had caused him to confide upon the breasts of his mother, the meaning is, that although it is by the operation of natural causes that infants come into the world, and are nourished with their mother’s milk, yet therein the wonderful providence of God brightly shines forth. This miracle, it is true, because of its ordinary occurrence, is made less account of by us. But if ingratitude did not put upon our eyes the veil of stupidity, we would be ravished with admiration at every childbirth in the world. What prevents the child from perishing, as it might, a hundred times in its own corruption, before the time for bringing it forth arrives, but that God, by his secret and incomprehensible power, keeps it alive in its grave? And after it is brought into the world, seeing it is subject to so many miseries, and cannot stir a finger to help itself, how could it live even for a single day, did not God take it up into his fatherly bosom to nourish and protect it? It is, therefore, with good reason said, that the infant is cast upon him; for, unless he fed the tender little babes, and watched over all the offices of the nurse, even at the very time of their being brought forth, they are exposed to a hundred deaths, by which they would be suffocated in an instant. Finally, David concludes that God was his God. God, it is true, to all appearance, shows the like goodness which is here celebrated even to the brute creation; but it is only to mankind that he shows himself to be a father in a special manner. And although he does not immediately endue babes with the knowledge of himself, yet he is said to give them confidence, because, by showing in fact that he takes care of their life, he in a manner allures them to himself; as it is said in another place,
“
He giveth to the beast his food, and to the young ravens which cry,” (Psa 147:9.)
Since God anticipates in this manner, by his grace, little infants before they have as yet the use of reason, it is certain that he will never disappoint the hope of his servants when they petition and call upon him. This is the argument by which David struggled with, and endeavored to overcome temptation.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(9) But.Better, For. Faith that turns to God in spite of derision is the best answer to derision.
Thou didst make me hope.Better, thou didst make me repose on my mothers breast.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
9. But thou art he, etc. The strong adversative force of the Hebrew conjunction indicates the firm, withstanding faith of the Sufferer. God is still his Father; and he who gave being at first, and nourished the flickering life of infancy, will not now abandon the life he gave. He will not cast off his own child. The argument is given Mat 6:25. The gift of life is the greater blessing, and will God withhold the lesser?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘But You are He who took me out of the womb. You made me trust when I was on my mother’s breasts. I was cast on you from the womb. You are my God since my mother bore me.’
Yet in it all He could not forget that it was God Who had brought Him forth from the womb. God had taught Him to trust even as He was breast fed by His mother. God had as it were breast fed Him too. Right from the womb He had trusted Him. How then could He fail Him now?
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 22:9-10. But thou art he, &c. It was by the particular order of his Father that Christ came into the world; and therefore he said at his entrance into it, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me: Heb 10:5. When I was upon my mother’s breasts, evidently relates to the miraculous order which God gave to Joseph and Mary to carry into Egypt the young child Jesus, who as yet hanged upon his mother’s breasts, Mat 2:20-21. I was cast upon thee from the womb, means that God took him at his birth, and in a particular manner charged himself with the care of him. It was anciently the custom, when a child was born, to lay it upon the ground; and then he who lifted it from thence thereby declared himself to be its father, and took upon himself the care of its maintenance. See Gen 30:3; Gen 50:23. Therefore when the poets would exaggerate the happiness of a man to whom all things succeeded according to his desire, they said, that he was taken up by some god or goddess.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
The miraculous conception and birth of Christ, for the purpose of redemption, hath numberless particularities in it, which make these expressions peculiarly suited to our Lord, Compare Psa 40:6 with Heb 10:5 ; Psa 139:13-16 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 22:9 But thou [art] he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope [when I was] upon my mother’s breasts.
Ver. 9. But thou art he that took me out of the womb ] When, but for thine almighty midwifery, I might have been strangled; or, as an untimely birth, never seen the sun. It is no less than a miracle that the child is kept alive in the womb, and perisheth not in the midst of those excrements, and that, in coming forth, it dieth not, &c. The very opening and shutting again of the body when the child is to be born is a thing so incomprehensible that some naturalists acknowledge the immediate hand and power of God in it. But because it is a common mercy little notice is taken or use made of it.
Thou didst make me hope
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 22:9-10
9Yet You are He who brought me forth from the womb;
You made me trust when upon my mother’s breasts.
10Upon You I was cast from birth;
You have been my God from my mother’s womb.
Psa 22:9-10 The imagery of these verses is the predestined purpose of the righteous suffering servant.
1. sometimes an individual (used of Messiah in Isa 42:1 and of His death in Isa 52:13 to Isa 53:12)
2. sometimes the collective people of YHWH (cf. Isa 41:8-9; Isa 42:18-19; Isa 46:3; Isa 49:1)
This is OT covenant language. It expresses the redemptive purposes of God for Israel (see Special Topic: YHWH’s Eternal Redemptive Plan ). The psalmist believed he had a purpose in God’s plan and could not understand God’s seeming abandonment (cf. 2Co 5:21).
Psa 22:9
NASB, REBbrought me forth
NKJVtook me out
NRSVtook me
NJB, JPSOAdrew me
LXXcast from
This participle (BDB 161, KB 189) occurs only here in the OT. Context gives us a general sense but the exact connotation must remain uncertain. However, the general meaning of the verse is clear.
YHWH is involved in a person’s life even before birth (cf. Job 3:11; Psa 139:13-16; Ecc 11:5; Jer 1:5). Life begins with God! Humans are created by Him and for Him. See Special Topic: The Fatherhood of God.
Psa 22:10 This verse is reflecting the concept of covenant acceptance by birth (i.e., circumcision). Israelites were born into the covenant people, however, true covenant faith and obedience were the confirming evidence of the reality of their faith. So many Israelites were not truly covenant people (i.e., disobedience to the covenant stipulations, idolatry)!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
make = cause.
hope = trust, or confide. Hebrew. batah. App-69.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 22:9-10
Psa 22:9-10
“But thou art he that took me out of the womb;
Thou didst make me trust when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
I was cast upon thee from the womb;
Thou art my God since my mother bare me.
Be not far from me; for trouble is near;
For there is none to help.”
“Thou art my God since my mother bare me” (Psa 22:10). In a sense, this is true of all men, “But of the Holy Child, it was most true (Luk 2:40; Luk 2:49; Luk 2:52).”
“Trouble is near; there is none to help” (Psa 22:11). The agony of death itself was approaching; the disciples had all forsaken him and fled, with the exception of John; and in the excruciating agony of that situation, Jesus again cried out for help.
We simply cannot understand why any Christian writer could complain that the Scriptures here are so general, “That no particular illness, or distressful situation can be identified.” It is no illness whatever that is described here. “This is not the description of an illness, but of an execution”! The torture described here is clearly that of a crucifixion, a form of execution, which, as far as we can determine, had never at that time been used by any government. Although it resembles the impaling of enemies upon stakes, as practiced by the Assyrians, the practice of crucifixion was never developed until a later time by the Romans.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 22:9. A nursing babe could not literally have the sentiments of hope. It means that God was the source of all hope for the newborn infant. The argument is that since God was the one who brought the infant into being, it was reasonable to expect Him to see that he would succeed in life.
Psa 22:10. Cast upon thee denotes that from the first moment of his life, David was dependent on God for his continued existence.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
that took: Psa 71:6, Psa 139:15, Psa 139:16, Isa 49:1, Isa 49:2
thou didst: Psa 71:17, Isa 7:14, Isa 7:15, Isa 9:6
make me hope: or, keep me in safety, Mat 2:13-15, Rev 12:4, Rev 12:5
Reciprocal: 1Sa 1:23 – son suck Job 3:11 – when I came Psa 71:5 – my trust Psa 139:13 – covered me Ecc 12:1 – Remember Isa 46:3 – borne Mat 27:22 – What Luk 1:15 – even Luk 2:40 – the child
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 22:9-10. Thou art he, &c. This seems to refer to the miraculous conception of Christ, who was the Son of God, in a sense in which no other man ever was, being formed, as to his human nature, by the power of God, in the womb of a pure virgin. Therefore he said, at his entrance into the world, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. Thou didst make me hope Or, trust, that is, Thou didst give me sufficient ground for hope and trust, if I had been capable of it, because of thy wonderful and watchful care over me in that weak and helpless state; when I was upon my mothers breasts When I was a sucking child. This was eminently true of Christ, whom God so miraculously preserved and provided for in his infancy, giving, in a supernatural way, an order to Joseph and Mary to carry him into Egypt, as we read Mat 2:20-21. I was cast upon thee from the womb Thou didst take me at my birth, and in a particular manner didst charge thyself with the care of me.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
22:9 But thou [art] he that took me out of the {e} womb: thou didst make me hope [when I was] upon my mother’s breasts.
(e) Even from my birth you have given me opportunity to trust in you.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Nevertheless, David drew strength by remembering that God had sustained him all his life, even from his birth. When David was only a small boy he had learned to trust in the Lord, who had sustained him to the present day.