Have you forsaken me?

Introduction[ ]

Overview[ ]

The purpose was the psalmist's probable intent or reason for writing this psalm. The Content is a concise summary of the whole psalm's content. The Message is the main idea the psalmist probably wanted the audience to remember upon or after hearing the psalm.

Purpose: To showcase YHWH's salvation of a servant near death.

Content: It looked like YHWH had abandoned me, even though he had been faithful to our nation and to me in the past. That's why I cried out one last time, thinking myself at the point of death. And then, at last, he heard me! That's why I will declare his praise and exhort others to honour him, so that even the nations and future generations will worship him.

Message: Even though it seemed YHWH had abandoned me in my affliction, he heard me, and his deliverance rightly results in the public praise of his name.

Background Ideas

Cultural, historical, and contextual information that is important to know to understand this psalm

YHWH has been faithful in Israel's past and in David's early life.
YHWH's faithful loyalty results in his praise.
Onlookers think that anyone who suffers must deserve it.
If YHWH does not help, there is no one else.
YHWH does not treat the sufferer's affliction as worthless.
The rescued hold a thanksgiving meal and invite the poor.
Those invited join the recovered in songs of praise.

Background Situation

A brief explanation of the "story behind" the psalm--what was going on in the psalmist's life, and/or Israel's history, that prompted the psalmist to pen this psalm? The colors in the boxes correspond to the participants in the psalm (see Participant Analysis).

Sections

These sections divide the content of the psalm into digestible pieces , and are determined based on information from many of our layers, including Semantics, Poetics, and Discourse. The columns, left to right, contain: the verse numbers; the main title of the section; a brief summary of the content of that section (quote marks indicate the text is taken directly from the English text of the psalm (as per our Close-but-Clear translation)); and an icon to visually represent and remember the content.

Videos[ ]

The Overview video is a brief, concise explanation of the psalm, pulling all the most important information specific to this psalm from each of our analytical layers. The video begins with a high-level, birds-eye view of the content of the psalm, then explores and explains the psalm verse by verse. Relevant contextual information is also included. No Hebrew knowledge required--this video serves as an entry point for all users to all our other information about the psalm.

Translation Aids[ ]

Recommended steps for translating the psalms[ ]

To translate poetry accurately and beautifully, a knowledge of both the source language's poetry and the target language's poetry is needed. So, here are the steps we recommend to follow when setting out to translate the psalms:

GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE TARGET LANGUAGE'S POETRY/ARTS. Research and analyze many examples from numerous genres of poetry, storytelling, and music in the target language and culture, and document findings. See our for help.
GAIN AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE SOURCE LANGUAGE'S (HEBREW) MEANING AND POETRY. The aim of all our materials is to provide exactly this for the translator, poet/musician/artist, and consultant: an understanding of what the psalm means, as well as its poetics.
TRANSLATE THE PSALM IN THE APPROPRIATE LOCAL ART/POETRY GENRE.

Translation and Performance Notes

TPNs are an at-a-glance reference for anyone involved with translating or checking a translation of the psalm. Specific words, phrases, and images that could be difficult to understand or to translate are highlighted, and then briefly discussed. Each note is intended to help the reader understand the meaning of the Hebrew word or phrase in its context, as well as provide a few translation options or suggestions, often pulling from existing translations. Where pertinent, our preferred translation option is given. NOTE: These notes are intended to supplement a robust internalization of the psalm, not replace it. Translation Challenges for Psalm 22 not available yet.

Close-but-Clear Translation

The Close-but-clear translation (CBC) exists to provide a window into the Hebrew text according to how we understand its syntax and word-to-phrase-level semantics. It is not intended to be used as a stand-alone translation or base text, but as a supplement to Layer-by-Layer materials to help users make full use of these resources.

1. For the director. According to “The Doe of the Dawn.” A psalm by David.

2. My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?

Why are you far from my protection, from my words of groaning?

3. My God, I cry out by day, but you don’t answer,

and by night, and I am not silent.

4. But you are holy,

the one sitting enthroned on Israel’s songs of praise.

5. Our ancestors trusted you;

they trusted and you rescued them.

6. They called to you, so that they escaped;

they trusted you and they were not disappointed.

7. But I am a worm and not a man;

I am scorned by mankind and despised by people.

8. Everyone who sees me mocks me;

they open their mouth wide; they shake their head.

9. “Commit it to YHWH! - Let him rescue him,

Let him deliver him because he is pleased with him.”

10. However, you are the one who took me out of the womb,

who made me feel secure upon my mother’s breasts.

11. I have been cast upon you from the womb;

you have been my God from my mother’s womb.

12. Don’t be far from me,

because trouble is near;

because there is no one helping.

13. Many bulls have surrounded me;

mighty ones of Bashan have surrounded me.

14. They have opened their mouth wide against me

like a mauling and roaring lion.

15. I am poured out like water

and all of my bones are disjointed;

my heart is like wax;

it is melted like wax in the midst of my interior.

16. My strength has dried up like a potsherd

and my tongue clings to the roof of my mouth

and you place me in the dust of death,

17. because dogs have surrounded me;

a company of evildoers has encompassed me;

they have pierced my hands and my feet.

18. I can count all of my bones;

they look, they gaze at me.

19. They divide my clothes among themselves

and cast a lot for my garment.

20. But you, YHWH, don’t be far!

My strength, hurry to my aid!

21. Rescue my life from a sword,

my only [life] from a dog’s power,

22. save me from a lion’s mouth!

And from wild oxen’s horns — you answered me!

23. I will announce your name to my brothers;

I will praise you in the midst of the community.

24. You who fear YHWH: praise Him!

All you offspring of Jacob: honour Him!

And be in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!

25. Because he has not regarded the sufferer’s affliction as worthless nor detestable

and he has not hidden his face from him

but he has heard when he cries to him for help.

26. My praise among a great community is from you;

I will fulfil my vows in the presence of those who fear Him;

27. The afflicted will eat and be satisfied;

those who seek him will praise YHWH.

May your heart live forever!

28. Let all of the ends of the earth consider so that they will turn to YHWH,

so that all of the families of the nations will worship before you,

29. because the kingdom is YHWH’s

and he rules over the nations.

30. All of the strong ones of the earth have eaten and worshipped;

all of those going down to dust will kneel before him

— that is, whose life he will not have preserved.

31. Future generations will serve him;

it will be proclaimed concerning the Lord to the generation…

32. Let them come so that they tell his righteous deed

to a people being born - what he has done.

Explore the Layers

Exegetical Issues[ ]

The Hebrew of the psalms can be difficult to understand at times. In this section, you can explore (in either video or text format) what we've deemed to be the three most important difficulties in the Hebrew, and follow our reasoning as we do a deep dive in scholarly work and explain our conclusions.

The Text, Grammar and Participants of Ps 22:9

The Text of Ps. 22:17b

The Text and Grammar of Ps 22:30

Grammar[ ]

A full, detailed diagram showing the grammatical function of each word/morpheme in the Hebrew text, along with accompanying notes.

Explore the Grammar layer

Semantics[ ]

Lexical and Phrase-level Semantics[ ]

Lexical semantics is the study of word meanings. It examines semantic range (=possible meanings of a word), the relationship between words (e.g. synonymy, hyponymy), as well as the relationship between words and larger concepts (conceptual domains). One component of our approach involves not only the study of the Hebrew word meaning, but also of our own assumptions about word meaning in modern languages. Because the researcher necessarily starts with their own cultural assumptions (in our case, those of Western-trained scholars), this part of the analysis should ideally be done afresh for every culture. Phrase-level semantics analyses the meaning of syntactic units which are larger than the level of the word and smaller than the level of the clause. Specifically, this layer analyses the meaning of prepositional phrases , construct phrases (a special type of construction in Hebrew), phrases formed by a coordinating waw conjunction, and noun phrases which consist of a noun plus a determiner (such as "the") or a quantifier (such as "all").

Explore Lexical and Phrasal Semantics

Verbal Semantics[ ]

Verbal Semantics focuses on the relationship between verbs, time and modality, and gives details about each verb in the psalm. This is important for interpretation and translation, and how one analyses a verb can have a significant effect on how it is rendered.

Explore Verbal Semantics

Story Behind the Psalm (Unit-level Semantics)

The Story Behind triangle tells the "story" (reading from left to right, beginning at the bottom left corner) of what might have prompted the psalmist to write this psalm. The events and ideas on the triangle are taken from the Propositions and Assumptions table below. Propositional content is the part of the meaning of a clause or sentence that is constant, despite changes in such things as voice, illocutionary force, tense/aspect/mode, person/gender/number, etc. It refers to “the kind of situation or event described by the underlying proposition.” Once we have identified the propositional content, we ask, “what would the world have to be like for this [proposition] to be true?” That is, what does this proposition presuppose about the world? What does it entail? What might be implied? In what kind of situation does this make sense? In other words, what assumptions are bound up with this proposition? We distinguish three kinds of assumptions:

Common-ground assumptions
Local-ground assumptions
Playground assumptions

See the Legend accompanying the chart for more details on the types of assumptions.

Understanding the assumptions involved will help translators understand the implicit information present in the text, so that they can decide which of these to make explicit in the translation or biblical helps for their audience to understand the text's larger meaning.

Explore the Story Behind the Psalm

Discourse[ ]

Participant Analysis

This layer examines each participant in the psalm, whether they have speaking roles in the psalm, or are just referenced in the poem. Often, the relationships and interactions among participants sheds much light on the understanding and translation of a psalm. The summary visuals give a view of the participants in the psalm as a whole, while the tables list the participant information for each clause.