I will declare your name to my people;
    in the assembly I will praise you.
23 You who fear the Lord, praise him!
    All you descendants of Jacob, honour him!
    Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or scorned
    the suffering of the afflicted one;
he has not hidden his face from him
    but has listened to his cry for help.

25 From you comes the theme of my praise in the great assembly;
    before those who fear you I will fulfil my vows.
26 The poor will eat and be satisfied;
    those who seek the Lord will praise him –
    may your hearts live for ever!

27 All the ends of the earth
    will remember and turn to the Lord,
and all the families of the nations
    will bow down before him,
28 for dominion belongs to the Lord
    and he rules over the nations.

29 All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
    all who go down to the dust will kneel before him –
    those who cannot keep themselves alive.
30 Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord.
31 They will proclaim his righteousness,
    declaring to a people yet unborn:
    He has done it! NIVUK

‘He has done it!’ God has raised Christ from the dead. Jesus is alive and He is Lord.

He will do it! As the gospel goes out to all the world, people from every tribe, tongue and nation will fall at the feet of Jesus (27-31, see Phil.2:9-11).

Here is an important point of contact between Is.52:19- 53:12 and Psalm 22: in both passages we ‘stand at the foot of the Cross’ centuries before Jesus died, and in both the Lord also comes through the suffering of death and into the place of ultimate triumph.


25-26 Here in this great gathering for worship
    I have discovered this praise-life.
And I’ll do what I promised right here
    in front of the God-worshipers.
Down-and-outers sit at God’s table
    and eat their fill.
Everyone on the hunt for God
    is here, praising him.
“Live it up, from head to toe.
    Don’t ever quit!”

27-28 From the four corners of the earth
    people are coming to their senses,
    are running back to God.
Long-lost families
    are falling on their faces before him.
God has taken charge;
    from now on he has the last word.

29 All the power-mongers are before him
    —worshiping!
All the poor and powerless, too
    —worshiping!
Along with those who never got it together
    —worshiping!

30-31 Our children and their children
    will get in on this
As the word is passed along
    from parent to child.
Babies not yet conceived
    will hear the good news—
    that God does what he says. The Message

Let’s not forget, though, that although Psalm 22 is prophetic of Jesus, it had its origin in some personal situation (suffering) of David’s (possibly, more widely, of the people of Israel in general). Derek Tidball helpfully points out that the experiences of both ”touch one another as much in the latter part of the psalm as in the first. Both experience the deliverance of God. Both the psalmist and Jesus come through their times of suffering and are restored to full life and health. But there is a difference we should note. As Peter Craigie says, ‘The psalm concludes with praise because the sufferer escaped death; Jesus died.’ The psalmist is delivered from death, whereas Jesus is delivered through death. The deliverance experienced by Jesus, then, was total. For the psalmist, death was merely postponed. One day it would come knocking on his door again. For the Christ, death was defeated.”