My God, Why?
They cried out to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disappointed. Psalm 22:5 · Berean Standard Bible
Those ancestors weren't disappointed when they cried out to God; they were rescued and their trust proved warranted.
The psalmist is building his case—not with arguments, but with evidence. Real people faced real danger and God showed up. The word 'set free' carries the weight of actual deliverance, not just comfort.
The psalmist, continuing to reflect on Israel's history.
This is the foundation of Israel's entire spiritual identity: God hears, God delivers, God keeps His word. The psalmist is clinging to this when his own experience seems to contradict it.
The psalmist reinforces the point: when Israel's ancestors cried out to God, they were delivered and never left disappointed.
The reiteration here employs *parallelism*—a structural device where the second colon amplifies the first. *Cried out* (זָעַק, zaaq) and *were set free* (מִלְטוּ, miltu) form a causal relationship in Israel's covenantal memory. The phrase *not disappointed* (לא בוּשׁוּ, lo boshu—literally 'not shamed') carries the weight of covenant obligation: YHWH's reputation depends upon vindicating those who rely upon divine name. Matthew Henry, the seventeenth-century exegete, emphasized that this verse anchors subjective petition in objective divine precedent—faith reasons from past covenantal action to present petition.
The psalmist, strengthening his warrant for hope through accumulated historical testimony.
This confidence in divine vindication grounded in ancestral testimony becomes the seedbed from which messianic expectation grows—the conviction that God has not ceased acting redemptively but will act again, definitively, in eschatological time.
3Yet You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
4In You our fathers trusted; they trusted and You delivered them.
5They cried out to You and were set free; they trusted in You and were not disappointed.
6But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by men and despised by the people.
7All who see me mock me; they sneer and shake their heads:
Read all of Psalm 22 — Begins with a cry Jesus echoes on the cross. The anguish is real — but so is the turn toward praise that comes at the end.
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