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Father and Son
Forsaken by God About the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?—Matthew 27:46 (also Mark 15:34) Michael Nekora The four gospel writers record seven different utterances by Jesus while he was on the cross. Matthew and Mark are the only ones who give us the words “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani,” and these are the only words Jesus uttered which were recorded by these two evangelists. Although the words were heard clearly enough to be recorded, some onlookers, perhaps Hellenistic Jews from afar who might not have been fluent in Aramaic, thought Jesus was calling for Elijah for help. The Aramaic word šabaqtanî is based on the verb šabaq which means “to allow, to permit, to forgive, and to forsake.” The words are in the first verse of Psalm 22. While many find it hard to believe the heavenly Father would actually forsake his dearly beloved son at any time, and certainly not when he was experiencing the most excruciatingly painful experience of his entire life, nonetheless that is what the Bible appears to say.{FOOTNOTE: Some of the editors are inclined to think that Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34 indicate that Jesus was abandoned for a brief time when God laid iniquity upon Jesus (Isaiah 53:6), but he was fully restored when God raised him up from the dead.} A Bible believer probably feels he must accept it, even though he might not understand it. Thinking that the Father did forsake his son, even if it was only for a short time while on the cross, seemingly contradicts how Jesus characterized his relationship with his Father prior to this final event in his life: “Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always” (John 11:41, 42). “Ye shall be scattered, every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me” (John 16:32). “I foresaw the Lord always before my face” (Acts 2:25, Peter applying Psalm 16:8 to the words of Jesus). Other psalms vividly show the close relationship that existed between Father and son: “They that know thy name will put their trust in thee: for thou, LORD, hast not forsaken them that seek thee” (Psalm 9:10). “I sought the LORD, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears. ... Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all” (Psalm 34:4,19). “In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul” (Psalm 138:3). “When Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world unto the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end” (John 13:1). Since Jesus loved his disciples unto the end, surely the Father would not do less. As James wrote: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Finally there is Psalm 41. If Jesus had not quoted verse 9 and applied it to himself and his betrayal at the hands of Judas (see John 13:18), we might not consider it a messianic psalm. But since we can be sure that it is, we can confidently apply verse 12 to Jesus as well: “As for me, thou [God] upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face forever.” Except for “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani” found in Matthew and Mark which Jesus quoted from Psalm 22, the Bible always speaks of the close communion Jesus enjoyed with his Father. How, then, can we explain these words knowing what we do about their relationship? Psalm 22 “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?” (Psalm 22:1). Since books (scrolls) in our Lord’s day could be duplicated only by making a copy by hand, they were rare and expensive. Few possessed even one, and so people were forced to memorize the Scriptures and anything else that was important to them. When the apostle Paul wrote, “One in a certain place testified, saying, What is man, that thou art mindful of him?” (Hebrews 2:6), most of his audience immediately knew that “certain place” was Psalm 8:4. Today, with memories not so keenly developed, most of us use a Bible’s margin or a computer’s software to find where a New Testament quotation can be found in the Old Testament. Although Psalm 22 would be well-known by devout Jews, they would not necessarily know how to interpret the words. It is identified as a “Psalm of David,” but was David writing of himself, or someone else? Knowing the right answer requires the inspiration of the holy spirit. For example, on the day of Pentecost, Peter addressed the crowd and quoted David’s words in Psalm 16: “For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved ... because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Acts 2:25-27). Peter emphasized that David could not be speaking of himself because, “He is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day” (verse 29). He concluded by saying David spoke these words prophetically of Jesus Christ, the Messiah (verse 31). Psalm 22 is also a prophecy of Jesus Christ. As soon as Jesus uttered the opening words of this psalm from the cross, the memory of many onlookers would immediately recall the other words of this psalm: “All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him” (verses 7,8). “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels” (verse 14). “The assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet” (verse 16). “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture” (verse 18). As the psalm continues, we learn that the sufferer would not be forsaken. In fact there is reassurance that there would always be a hearing ear: “Ye that fear the LORD, praise him ... for he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard” (Psalm 22:23,24). The psalm ends in triumph: “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the LORD’s: and he is the governor among the nations. ... They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this” (Psalm 22:27,28,31). The events on that crucifixion day certainly did not appear to end in triumph, but triumph it became when on the third day the Lord arose from the grave, having received the highest form of spiritual life from his heavenly Father. Those who heard him say these words might not have made all the connections at the time, but as they heard the preaching of the disciples who actually communicated with the Lord after his resurrection, they might think about how Jesus Christ fulfilled David’s great poem we call Psalm 22. Shortly after Jesus uttered the opening words of Psalm 22, he said “It is finished!” (John 19:30). According to the Companion Bible, the last word of Psalm 22 means “It is finished.” That single Hebrew word asah (Strong’s #6213, translated “he hath done this” in the KJV) appears over 2,600 times in the Old Testament. The word means “to make, accomplish, finish.” So by quoting the beginning and the end of that psalm, Jesus could adroitly call the entire psalm to the minds of onlookers and effectively apply it to himself. When Jesus said he was forsaken, he could have been describing the events from the point of view of those who were watching: “The chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him. He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him” (Matthew 27:41-43). In their view, God had forsaken him. A few days later, after he had been resurrected by his heavenly Father, he demonstrated that he had successfully “come down from the cross,” though that did not change the beliefs and attitudes of the heart-hardened chief priests, scribes, and elders. There are also other explanations for how these words were used by Jesus without in any way calling into question the life-long, special relationship he had with his Father. An Alternative Translation The British Methodist theologian and biblical scholar Adam Clarke made this observation about these words in Matthew and Mark: “The particle lamah may be translated ‘to what—to whom—to what kind or sort— to what purpose or profit’: Genesis 25:32, 32:29, 33:15, Job 9:29, Jeremiah 6:20, 20:18; and the verb âzab signifies ‘to leave —to deposit—to commit to the care of.’ See Genesis 39:6, Job 39:11, Psalm 10:14, and Jeremiah 49:11. The words, taken in this way, might be thus translated: ‘My God! my God! to what sort of persons hast thou left me?’ The words thus understood are rather to be referred to the wicked Jews than to our Lord, and are an exclamation indicative of the obstinate wickedness of his crucifiers, who steeled their hearts against every operation of the Spirit and power of God.”{FOOTNOTE: Adam Clarke, Commentary and Critical Notes, vol. 5, p. 277). Italicized words are Clarke’s. He also said the words in Matthew come nearest to being Hebrew, the words in Mark are more nearly Syriac, but that neither is exactly the one or the other. Why Matthew and Mark did not simply quote the Greek Septuagint translation of Psalm 22:1 instead of transliterating the sounds of the words into Greek then giving the Greek translation of those sounds, is not clear.} In an article on these same words, Carl Hagensick observed that this cry from the cross is the only time in the New Testament where Jesus addressed the Supreme Being of the universe as “My God.” His usual method of address is the intimate “Father.”{FOOTNOTE: “Forsaken, But Not Abandoned,” The Herald of Christ’s Kingdom, March/April 2002, p. 15.} A footnote in that same article makes this observation about these Aramaic words: “A different slant on this verse is found in the Aramaic manuscripts as seen in this quotation from an article in the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Press of December 5, 1998, entitled Aramaic—the Language of Jesus—a Boon to Academia, Worshippers. “Even if Aramaic was not the language the gospels were originally written in, it was the language that Jesus taught and spoke in. So it sheds light on many of his sayings. Perhaps the most famous passage of Aramaic in the Bible is the words of Jesus on the cross in Matthew 27:46 and Mark 15:34. The exact phrase used by Jesus was so important that the gospel writers, in Greek, left the actual Aramaic words within the Greek text: ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabach-thani,’ and then attempted to translate it. The translation, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ is not accurate. How could he have been forsaken if the next phrase out of his mouth is ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit’? “The Aramaic-to-English translation offers a different twist: The words of Jesus on the cross are ‘Oh God, oh God, to what a purpose you have kept me.’ God was with Jesus through everything, the suffering on the cross, everything. Assyrian scholars never thought he was forsaken.” Conclusion Was Jesus an exception to the general principle that God will help the righteous when they are under duress? No, he was not. Jesus knew why he had come to earth, and he knew he had to die as a ransom for father Adam—giving his perfect life for a perfect life. Nothing in the Old Testament told him he had to be abandoned by God, even for a moment, and that book, especially the Psalms, taught Jesus what was expected of him as Israel’s Messiah, and ultimately the savior of all mankind. As footstep followers of the Master, we should take great comfort knowing that the Father is with us as well, especially when we experience great tribulation. What may look like failure to the world now will, in the kingdom, be revealed as great triumph. “Unless the LORD had been my help, my soul had almost dwelt in silence ... Thy mercy, O LORD, held me up ... Thy comforts delight my soul” (Psalm 94:17-19).
On the Other Hand In Mark 15:34 and Matthew 27:46, Jesus said, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The word “forsaken” is translated from a Greek word egkataleipo,{FOOTNOTE: This word, from the root leipo (leave), means “leave behind, leave in the lurch” (Liddell & Scott), “abandon, desert” (Thayer), to which Gingrich and Vine each agree. Ghazab is the word in Hebrew and has the same meaning (Gesenius; Hebrew Students Manual; Wm. Wilson’s O.T. Word Studies).} which is used eight other times in the New Testament: “Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell ... his soul was not left in hell” (Acts 2:27,31). “Except the Lord of Sabaoth [Hosts] had left us a seed” (Romans 9:29). “[We are] persecuted, but not forsaken” (2 Corinthians 4:9). “Demas hath forsaken me ... all men forsook me” (2 Timothy 4:10,16). “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25). “He hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” (Hebrews 13:5). When Demas and all the others forsook Paul, the meaning is clear: “to forsake.” In Hebrews the meaning is evidently the same (where he applies it not to Jesus but to the church), and so also in 2 Corinthians, even if not in Romans. Mark wrote in Greek, not in Aramaic, nor does he exactly quote from the Greek Septuagint. Therefore, it is better to take his words at face value. Peter in Acts 2 harmonizes with Jesus’ words. Jesus was forsaken at some point in time while on the cross, but God’s forsaking of him was ended by the time Jesus was resurrected. He was resurrected from the dead, only to never be forsaken again forever. Why Forsaken Jesus, the Messiah, could have given himself a ransom (a price corresponding to Adam) for all, by any kind of death. But by being born a Jew, under the Law, may not the means of his death pay the penalty for the curses of disobedience to the Law? (Galatians 3:10-13; 4:4,5). “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6). So can it be unreasonable that God had abandoned—forsaken—Jesus briefly, when he laid on him the iniquity of Israel, that believing Jews might be freed from that curse during the Gospel age, and the remainder of Israel might be freed from the curse during the Millennium? On the Cross When Jesus felt the fellowship of God depart from him, it would have been quite natural to blurt out, “My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?” Having so asked, Jesus would suddenly remember those words opening the twenty-second psalm, and how that psalm described him. Then he could realize: “It is finished!” Near the end of Psalm 22, verse 30 says, “A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted unto the Lord for a generation.” This would reassure Jesus that his three-and-a-half-years of work for the church would not have been in vain. The entire church are sons of the same Father, God, and of the same “mother,” the Promise Covenant, typified as the Sarah Covenant (Galatians 4:22-28). Thus are “the seed” one generation. (Hence Matthew 24:34 may only be saying, “This generation of the faithful church will not be complete until all these things be fufilled.”) Key Questions Few if any English versions agree with Adam Clarke’s interpretation: Could the Jewish leaders forsake Jesus, when they had never been with him? Does High Priest Jesus not know what it is like to be forsaken? On the other hand, how could God lay iniquities upon Jesus without forsaking him for at least a moment? —James Parkinson |