Psalm 22:3-5 meaning

THE IMMEDIATE MEANING OF DAVID’S PSALM 22:3-5

David, the psalmist contrasts what he feels God is doing to him (forsaking him—Psalm 22:1) with both 1) who he believes God to be—holy; and 2) the way God delivered those who trusted Him in the past. 

The word Yet (v 3), marks this contrast between David’s powerful feelings tempting him to believe God is untrustworthy with his convictions that God is faithful. 

This contrast is David’s declaration of faith and trust in God’s goodness no matter the intensity or volume of anxieties he suffers. David seems to be reminding himself and/or informing the reader that God has not literally forsaken him (Psalm 22:1), even though it may feel like He has abandoned him.

Feelings are not bad or evil in themselves. Feelings and emotions are good gifts and are part of God’s good creation. God created us with emotions to motivate us to action. Feelings and emotions are part of what make us human, and they enrich our lives when used properly. David here demonstrates the proper use of emotions. In verses 1-2 he acknowledges his emotions, and expresses them. But then beginning in verse 3, David pivots to deciding what perspective he should choose based on reason, experience, and faith, rather than emotions. 

Neither our feelings nor our emotions accurately convey reality. They tell us “Something is wrong and needs to be addressed.” David does not suppress his emotions. Rather, he expresses them to God. But he does not stop there. He continues to reason while in prayer to God. 

Emotions are reliable in telling us action is needed, but unreliable in leading us see what is true. Therefore, we should not let them determine how we perceive reality. Authorizing emotions to run our lives is a misapplication or misappropriation of them and can be disastrous. If David did this in Psalm 22, it would end with him blaming God and justifying himself. 

Feelings and emotions should not have the final (or only say) in our decision-making process. 

A proper or healthy application of feelings follows the acronym LIDD: 

1. Listen: Acknowledge what we are feeling and have emotional awareness. 
2. Investigate: Next, verify if our feeling’s message is accurate against what we know is true and good. God’s word is true and accurately defines what is good. 
3. Decide: Then, we should consider how to act according the truth and goodness of God’s word. Our decision of what perspective to choose and what action to take should be rooted in faith. 
4. Dismiss: Finally, we should “thank our emotions” for doing their job of acting as a “sentry” to tell us action is needed, then act according to the true perspective we have chosen.

This process can be described as: “Feel—Think—Act.” The approach of thinking prior to acting is vastly superior to the popular approach of “Feel—Act—Think.” In that approach, we feel (anger), act (retaliate), then think (rationalize our behavior). It is vastly superior to feel (anger), think (if I retaliate I am going to get a penalty and hurt my team), then act (refuse to take the bait). 

In both models of response, our emotions initially convey something to us through our feelings, and these feelings are designed to move us to action. 

The “Feel—Think—Act” model has us consider our response before acting, and act according to what is right and true. This approach is proactive and helps us stay on course to achieve our purpose in life. 

The inferior (but more natural) “Feel—Act—Think” model is reactive. It acts according to the emotional demands of the moment before verifying them or considering what is likely to come of them. According to this approach, the “think” phase comes after the action, so naturally leads to “regret”; “self-rationalize”; or “find something or someone else to blame.” 

Instead of feeling first, acting second, and thinking last, as is typical, David takes the superior approach. He thinks aloud in prayer with God about His feelings. He shifts from expressing his tortured emotions of abandonment to praising God for His holiness and everlasting faithfulness. Thus he is thinking/processing/praying before he acts. He feels abandoned, yet he realizes the reality of God:

Yet You are holy,
O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel (v 3).

David declares: You are holy. Holy means to be separate and distinct—particularly when it comes to moral uprightness. God is morally perfect and therefore He is holy. The inference is that David’s feelings of abandonment do not and cannot change the basic nature of God.

As a declaration of faith, the psalmist may assert this praise of God to help him remain steadfast in his faith despite the terrible circumstances he is suffering. David may be reminding himself of God’s character that He is holy and perfect. He may also simply be reminding himself of the reality of what is true: God is God regardless of what we might be feeling or experiencing. 

Reminding oneself of what is true according to God’s character and God’s word is a helpful technique to discover possible errors and/or temptations lurking within the things we feel. Whenever we feel emotions—especially emotions or desires that are intense—we should test them against the God’s word in the Bible and follow His teachings. Our emotions are real, but do not lead us to see and know reality as God’s word does. 

David further describes God while addressing Him: Oh You (God) who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel. By this he means that God is renowned and highly praised by Israel. The people of Israel have exalted God in praise of His deliverance of them. God is the undisputed champion of Israel for the mighty things He has done for His people.

In You our fathers trusted;
They trusted and You delivered them (v 4).

As a declaration of faith, David offers these words to ground himself in the truth that God has always proven Himself to be faithful. He powerfully grounds his assertions that God is holy and enthroned upon the praises of Israel in how God was faithful to our fathers who trusted in You as their God.

The phrase our fathers could refer to the familial ancestors of David—Jesse, Obed, Boaz the husband of Ruth, etc. More than likely it refers to the national figures, because he uses the first person plural—our—to describe them. He also could be referring to the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, later named Israel, and his son Joseph. He could be referring to Moses, Joshua, and the judges. Or he could be referring to all who trusted in God to deliver them during the generations before him. Finally, the psalmist could be referring to all these groups.

God had delivered—our fathers, whether speaking of individual figures or collectively of Israel’s preceding generations. 

In essence, what David is telling God (and likely himself) is that God can be trusted. He can be trusted because God proved Himself faithful whenever He delivered his fathers when they believed in Him. God had miraculously delivered them from slavery in Egypt. He had delivered them from dying of hunger and thirst in a hostile wilderness while traveling to the Promised Land. He had delivered them from venomous snakes and hostile enemies. 

To You they cried out and were delivered;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed (v 5).

David repeats the same truths concerning his ancestors’ trust and of God’s faithfulness to deliver them. He says their hopes of being delivered by God from their afflictions were not disappointed. This seems to be different than what the psalmist felt he was experiencing. He felt abandoned and forsaken (Psalm 22:1), but he is reasoning that “God never abandons His people”—(See Deuteronomy 31:6). While listening to his emotions (L in LIDD) David is now Investigating (I in LIDD) and Deciding (D in LIDD) based on what he knows is true and real. 

In a sense, the psalmist’s anguish is how virtually every godly person who trusts in the LORD feels whenever they have prayed to God about their affliction, but the affliction continues unabated or seemingly unanswered. Perhaps the Apostle Paul felt this way when he besought God to remove his “thorn in the flesh” (2 Corinthians 12:7-8) prior to God giving him an answer of “No” and adding “My grace is sufficient for you” (2 Corinthians 12:9a). 

Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and other righteous heroes of the faith struggled with similar questions during their season of anguish before they were delivered. This seems to be more the norm than the exception.

Even so, regardless of the fact that we know God has delivered others from their suffering, that does not naturally bring comfort during our pain without an intentional effort on our part to remember that reality. That seems to be what David is doing here, reminding himself that To You they cried out and were delivered. David is informing his faith through experience. 

Further, David reminds himself that the source of their deliverance was faith: In You they trusted and were not disappointed. David describes an active faith, a walk of faith. This is a theme of scripture, that righteousness (harmony with God’s design) comes through living by faith (Habakkuk 2:4, Romans 12:16-17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38). 

If this psalm reveals David’s thoughts during his time in imprisoned exile among the Philistines (1 Samuel 21:12-13), it shows an intentional approach to acknowledge and process emotions while remaining in reality through reflection in his prayer to God. Through the process of prayer and reminding himself of what he knows by faith to be true, David develops a wise perspective. This is ironic since in this episode of David living among the Philistines, he was thought to be a lunatic (as David pretended to be). 

While pretending to be a madman in a land of enemies, David could only have a rational conversation with God, and David is reasonably petitioning God for deliverance from this strange, lonely, and dangerous predicament. 

Amidst the bewildering circumstances and madness, David asserts that God is still in control and has the power to save him.

Yet You are holy,
O You who are enthroned upon the praises of Israel.
In You our fathers trusted;
They trusted and You delivered them.
To You they cried out and were delivered;
In You they trusted and were not disappointed.

PSALM 22:3-5 AS A MESSIANIC PROPHECY

Psalm 22:3-5 was implied by Jesus when He cried out the opening line of this psalm: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?” (Psalm 22:1a). This is because in Jewish tradition quoting the first line of the psalm infers the entirety of the psalm. 

Jesus knew how God had delivered the fathers of Israel who trusted in Him. Jesus is and was the holy God who delivered them. As He hung on the cross and was moments from His death, He too was entrusting Himself to God amidst His suffering. Indeed, Jesus would say as much with His final breath: 

“Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.”
(Luke 23:46)  

In the Garden of Gethsemane when Jesus was troubled “to the point of death” (Matthew 26:38), He turned to His Father in prayer. He requested another path to accomplish His mission, one that presumably would be less agonizing or humiliating than the cross (Matthew 26:39, 42). 

But as He prayed to God, so that He would not sin and enter temptation, He may have drawn solace from scriptures such as this portion of Psalm 22 which recalled God’s deliverance of Israel’s fathers when they cried out. The final line of verse 5—In You they trusted and were not disappointed—might have been particularly reassuring to Jesus as He encountered the cross and the other things Psalm 22 predicted concerning the Messiah’s suffering.