Prophecies of His Suffering
Forsaken by God
My God, Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?
Description
Psalm 22 begins with the cry Jesus uttered on the cross: 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' This psalm, written a thousand years before crucifixion existed, describes it in remarkable detail: hands and feet pierced, bones out of joint, casting lots for garments. The forsaking was real—at the cross, the Father turned His face from the Son who had become sin for us. Christ experienced the full weight of divine abandonment that sinners deserve. Yet the psalm ends in triumph, pointing to the resurrection victory.
Key Verses
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.
Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts... They said therefore among themselves, Let us not rend it, but cast lots for it, whose it shall be: that the scripture might be fulfilled.
For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.