Psalm 22:19

But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(19) Darling.—See margin. The Hebrew word is used of an only child, Genesis 22:2; Genesis 22:12, Judges 11:34; of a person left desolate, Psalm 25:16; Psalm 68:6; here as a synonym for “soul” or “life.” We may compare the common Homeric expression, ϕίλον κῆρ.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

22:11-21 In these verses we have Christ suffering, and Christ praying; by which we are directed to look for crosses, and to look up to God under them. The very manner of Christ's death is described, though not in use among the Jews. They pierced his hands and his feet, which were nailed to the accursed tree, and his whole body was left so to hang as to suffer the most severe pain and torture. His natural force failed, being wasted by the fire of Divine wrath preying upon his spirits. Who then can stand before God's anger? or who knows the power of it? The life of the sinner was forfeited, and the life of the Sacrifice must be the ransom for it. Our Lord Jesus was stripped, when he was crucified, that he might clothe us with the robe of his righteousness. Thus it was written, therefore thus it behoved Christ to suffer. Let all this confirm our faith in him as the true Messiah, and excite our love to him as the best of friends, who loved us, and suffered all this for us. Christ in his agony prayed, prayed earnestly, prayed that the cup might pass from him. When we cannot rejoice in God as our song, yet let us stay ourselves upon him as our strength; and take the comfort of spiritual supports, when we cannot have spiritual delights. He prays to be delivered from the Divine wrath. He that has delivered, doth deliver, and will do so. We should think upon the sufferings and resurrection of Christ, till we feel in our souls the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

But be not thou far from me, O Lord - "O Yahweh." Others - all others - have forsaken me, and left me to perish. Now, in the day of my desertion and my peril, be thou near to me. See Psalm 22:11. This is the burden of the prayer in the whole psalm, that God would not leave him, but sustain and deliver him. Compare Psalm 22:1.

O my strength - Source of my strength; thou on whom I rely for support and deliverance.

Haste thee to help me - Help me speedily. Come to support me; come to deliver me from these dreadful sorrows. This is not necessarily a prayer to be rescued from death, but it would be applicable to deliverance from those deep mental sorrows that had come upon him - from this abandonment to unutterable woes.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

19, 20. He now turns with unabated desire and trust to God, who, in His strength and faithfulness, is contrasted with the urgent dangers described.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

But be not thou far from me, O Lord,.... See Gill on Psalm 22:11;

O my strength; Christ as God is the mighty God, the Almighty; as Mediator, he is the strength of his people; but, as man, God is his strength; he is the man of his right hand, whom he has made strong for himself, and whom he has promised his arm shall strengthen, Psalm 80:17; and therefore he addresses him in this manner here, saying,

haste thee to help me; his help was alone in God his strength; there were none that could help him but he, and he seemed to stand afar off from helping him, Psalm 22:1; and his case being so distressed, as is represented in the preceding verses, it required haste.

Geneva Study Bible

But be not thou far from me, O LORD: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

19. The prayer for help is repeated after this description of the urgency of his need. But thou, O lord (in emphatic contrast to they in Psalm 22:17), keep not thou far off. The sufferer looks away from his numerous tormentors and fixes his gaze upon Jehovah.

O my strength] R.V., O thou my succour.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 19. - But be not thou far from me, O Lord (comp. ver. 11). The special trouble for which he had invoked God's aid having been minutely described, the Sufferer reverts to his prayer, which he first repeats, and then strengthens and enforces by requesting that the aid may be given speedily, O my strength, haste thee to help me. Eyaluth, the abstract term used for "strength," seems to mean "source, or substance, of all strength." Psalm 22:19

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

(Heb.: 22:20-22)In Psalm 22:19 the description of affliction has reached its climax, for the parting of, and casting lots for, the garments assumes the certain death of the sufferer in the mind of the enemies. In Psalm 22:20, with ואתּה the looks of the sufferer, in the face of his manifold torments, concentrate themselves all at once upon Jahve. He calls Him אילוּתי nom. abstr. from איל, Psalm 88:5 : the very essence of strength, as it were the idea, or the ideal of strength; lė‛ezrāthi has the accent on the penult., as in Psalm 71:12 (cf. on the other hand Psalm 38:23), in order that two tone syllables may not come together. In Psalm 22:21, חרב means the deadly weapon of the enemy and is used exemplificatively. In the expression מיּד כּלב, מיּד is not merely equivalent to מן, but יד is, according to the sense, equivalent to "paw" (cf. כּף, Leviticus 11:27), as פּי is equivalent to jaws; although elsewhere not only the expression "hand of the lion and of the bear," 1 Samuel 17:37, but also "hands of the sword," Psalm 63:11, and even "hand of the flame," Isaiah 47:14 are used, inasmuch as יד is the general designation of that which acts, seizes, and subjugates, as the instrument of the act. Just as in connection with the dog יד, and in connection with the lion פי (cf. however, Daniel 6:28) is mentioned as its weapon of attack, the horns, not the horn (also not in Deuteronomy 33:17), are mentioned in connection with antilopes, רמים (a shorter form, occurring only in this passage, for ראמים, Psalm 29:6; Psalm 34:7). Nevertheless, Luther following the lxx and Vulgate, renders it "rescue me from the unicorns" (vid., thereon on Psalm 29:6). יהידה, as the parallel member here and in Psalm 35:17 shows, is an epithet of נפשׁ. The lxx in both instances renders it correctly τὴν μονογενῆ μου, Vulg. unicam meam, according to Genesis 22:2; Judges 11:34, the one soul besides which man has no second, the one life besides which man has no second to lose, applied subjectively, that is, soul or life as the dearest and most precious thing, cf. Homer's fi'lon kee'r. It is also interpreted according to Psalm 25:16; Psalm 68:7 : my solitary one, solitarium, the soul as forsaken by God and man, or at least by man, and abandoned to its own self (Hupfeld, Kamphausen, and others). But the parallel נפשׁי, and the analogy of כּבודי ( equals נפשׁי), stamp it as an universal name for the soul: the single one, i.e., that which does not exist in duplicate, and consequently that which cannot be replaced, when lost. The praet. עניתני might be equivalent to ענני, provided it is a perf. consec. deprived of its Waw convers. in favour of the placing of מקּרני רמים first for the sake of emphasis; but considering the turn which the Psalm takes in Psalm 22:23, it must be regarded as perf. confidentiae, inasmuch as in the very midst of his supplication there springs up in the mind of the suppliant the assurance of being heard and answered. To answer from the horns of the antilope is equivalent to hearing and rescuing from them; cf. the equally pregnant expression ענה בּ Psalm 118:5, perhaps also Hebrews 5:7.

(Note: Thrupp in his Emendations on the Psalms (Journal of Classic and Sacred Philology, 1860) suggests עניּתי, my poverty (my poor soul), instead of עניתני.)