Psalms 22:19

"But be not thou far off, O Jehovah:

O thou my succor, haste thee to help me.

Deliver my soul from the sword,

My darling from the power of the dog.

Save me from the lion's mouth;

Yea, from the horns of the wild-oxen thou hast answered me."

These lines conclude the first division of this psalm. Appropriately enough, they are concluded with an assurance of God's answer the Sufferer's petitions.

"My darling from the power of the dog" (Psalms 22:20). The word "darling" fails to reveal what was really meant; and, therefore, it seems better to render it "dear life" as allowed in the American Standard Version marginal reference. That rendition would stress the undeniable truth that Jesus did indeed value his precious life.

"From the horns of the wild-oxen" (Psalms 22:21). We are not able to understand what is meant by God's answering the Sufferer from the "horns of the wild-oxen," unless this may be referred to the fact that God did not answer our Lord until the very last instant of his earthly life.

"Yea ... thou has answered me" (Psalms 22:21). As Kidner noted, "Only our version (American Standard Version) captures the sudden and dramatic change, kept back in the Hebrew text until the very last word, rendered here as `thou-hast-answered-me.'[17]

This statement that Jehovah indeed answered the praying Sufferer was reserved until the very last word of the first section of the psalm; and, from this, we may conclude that God's forsaking Jesus on the cross ended at some point shortly before our Lord expired. The last section of the psalm stresses the wonderful things achieved by the death of the Sufferer. Verse 24, below, makes it clear enough that God did indeed heed the earnest cries of the Suffering Redeemer. The delay in God's doing so was perhaps due to the necessity that the Atoning Redeemer should indeed "taste of death for every man" in its ultimate sense of "sensing for awhile" the horrible agony of separation from God.