Psalm 22:10

I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:1-10 The Spirit of Christ, which was in the prophets, testifies in this psalm, clearly and fully, the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. We have a sorrowful complaint of God's withdrawings. This may be applied to any child of God, pressed down, overwhelmed with grief and terror. Spiritual desertions are the saints' sorest afflictions; but even their complaint of these burdens is a sign of spiritual life, and spiritual senses exercised. To cry our, My God, why am I sick? why am I poor? savours of discontent and worldliness. But, Why hast thou forsaken me? is the language of a heart binding up its happiness in God's favour. This must be applied to Christ. In the first words of this complaint, he poured out his soul before God when he was upon the cross, Mt 27:46. Being truly man, Christ felt a natural unwillingness to pass through such great sorrows, yet his zeal and love prevailed. Christ declared the holiness of God, his heavenly Father, in his sharpest sufferings; nay, declared them to be a proof of it, for which he would be continually praised by his Israel, more than for all other deliverances they received. Never any that hoped in thee, were made ashamed of their hope; never any that sought thee, sought thee in vain. Here is a complaint of the contempt and reproach of men. The Saviour here spoke of the abject state to which he was reduced. The history of Christ's sufferings, and of his birth, explains this prophecy.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I was cast upon thee from the womb - Upon thy protection and care. This, too, is an argument for the divine interposition. He had been, as it were, thrown early in life upon the protecting care of God. In some special sense he had been more unprotected and defenseless than is common at that period of life, and he owed his preservation then entirely to God. This, too, may have passed through the mind of the Redeemer on the cross. In those sad and desolate moments he may have recalled the scenes of his early life - the events which had occurred in regard to him in his early years; the poverty of his mother, the manger, the persecution by Herod, the flight into Egypt, the return, the safety which he then enjoyed from persecution in a distant part of the land of Palestine, in the obscure and unknown village of Nazareth. This too may have occurred to his mind as a reason why God should interpose and deliver him from the dreadful darkness which had come over him now.

Thou art my God from my mother's belly - Thou hast been my God from my very childhood. He had loved God as such; be had obeyed him as such; he had trusted him as such; and he now pleads this as a reason why God should interpose for him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9, 10. Though ironically spoken, the exhortation to trust was well founded on his previous experience of divine aid, the special illustration of which is drawn from the period of helpless infancy.

didst make me hope—literally, "made me secure."

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I was like one forsaken by his parent, and cast wholly upon thy providence. I had no father upon earth, and my mother was poor and helpless.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I was cast upon thee from the womb,.... Either by himself, trusting in God, hoping in him, and casting all the care of himself upon him; or by his parents, who knew the danger he was exposed to, and what schemes were laid to take away his life; and therefore did, in the use of all means they were directed to, commit him to the care and protection of God: the sense is, that the care of him was committed to God so early; and he took the care of him and gave full proof of it:

thou art my God from my mother's belly: God was his covenant God from everlasting, as he loved his human nature, chose it to the grace of union, and gave it a covenant subsistence; but he showed himself to be his God in time, and that very early, calling him from the womb, and making mention of his name from his mother's belly, and preserving him from danger in his infancy; and it was his covenant interest in God, which, though mentioned last, was the foundation of all his providential care of him and goodness to him. Now all these early appearances of the power and providence of God, on the behalf of Christ as man, are spoken of in opposition to the scoffs and flouts of his enemies about his trust in God, and deliverance by him, and to encourage his faith and confidence in him; as well as are so many reasons and arguments with God yet to be with him, help and assist him, as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's {f} belly.

(f) For unless God's providence preserves the infants, they would perish a thousand times in the mother's womb.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

10. Upon thee have I been cast &c. Upon thee stands first emphatically. Cp. Psalm 22:4-5. To THY care have I been entrusted from my birth. Cp. Psalm 55:22; Psalm 71:6. There does not seem to be any reference to the practice of placing a new-born infant upon its father’s knees, as much as to say, Thou didst adopt me.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 10. - I was cast upon thee from the womb. In a certain sense this is true of all; but of the Holy Child it was most true (Luke 2:40, 49, 52). He was "cast" on God the Father's care in an especial way. Thou art my God from my mother's belly. The Child Jesus was brought near to God from his birth (Luke 1:35; Luke 2:21, 22). From the first dawn of consciousness God was his God (Luke 2:40, 49). Psalm 22:10

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(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 כּי 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 כי comes to have an affirmative signification. The verb גּוּח (גּיח) 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, Micah 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. גּחי is either part. equivalent to גּחי, my pusher forth, i.e., he who causes me to break forth, or, - since גוח in a causative signification cannot be supported, and participles like בּוס stamping and לוט veiling (Ges. 72, rem. 1) are nowhere found with a suffix, - participle of a verb גּחהּ, to draw forth (Hitz.), which perhaps only takes the place, per metaplasmum, of the Pil. גּחח with the uneuphonic מגחחי (Ewald S. 859, Addenda). Psalm 71 has גוזי (Psalm 71:6) instead of גּחי, just as it has מבטחי (Psalm 71:5) instead of מבטיחי. The Hiph. הבטיח 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. Ezekiel 32:19 with Ezekiel 32:32), rather than a purely passive. Such is apparently the feeling of the language, vid., B. Megilla 13a (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 (Psalm 55:23, cf. Psalm 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 (Psalm 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 כּי 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.