Psalm 22:24-30 (Lectionary Translation)
24 My praise is of him in the great assembly; *
I will perform my vows in the presence of those who worship him.
25 The poor shall eat and be satisfied,
and those who seek the Lord shall praise him: *
“May your heart live forever!”
26 All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord, *
and all the families of the nations shall bow before him.
27 For kingship belongs to the Lord; *
he rules over the nations.
28 To him alone all who sleep in the earth bow down in worship; *
all who go down to the dust fall before him.
29 My soul shall live for him;
my descendants shall serve him; *
they shall be known as the Lord’s forever.
30 They shall come and make known to a people yet unborn *
the saving deeds that he has done.
PSALM 22
“A World More Right and True”
Psalm 22 is complex and textured. It opens with a verse that Jesus quotes on the cross – a cry of desperation and longing for divine presence. Until verse 21, the theme of calling for help continues, and then there is a sudden transition from “Save me!” to “You answered me!” The rest of the psalm is a sustained expression of trust and praise.
The closing verses (vss. 28, 29 and 30 above) are numbered 30-32 in the Hebrew Masoretic Text (M.T.). They offer what Psalms scholar Beth Tanner calls “the most significant textual problems in the entire psalter.” The ancient Hebrew is disjointed, cryptic and almost impossible to render into English. That, of course, makes these verses all the more enticing and interesting. This is especially true since they are rich in images of a “community of praise” - including not only the living faithful, but also those who “sleep in the earth,” and those who are “yet unborn.” Community here transcends time, loss and death. There is a strong sense of our unity with our ancestors, our children, and even distant generations far in the future.
A new rendering of these verses will celebrate the organic and enduring bond of love that must unite the human family on our fragile earth in times of global crisis. In such a rendering, “praise” and “worship” are understood (following the Hebrew sense of the words) as the radiating of life-giving presence and light (tehillah) and the work of “becoming the holy” (avodah). These tasks/vocations are not alien to us; they are our very reason for living. To describe these vocations over time, we find the Hebrew verbs for “bowing down,” “living,” “serving,” “coming (forth),” and “telling.” Divine praise spans and includes all human experiences: birth, living, dying and – finally – becoming part of humanity’s holistic sacred story.
PSALM 22: 28-30 [M.T. 30-32]
Alone in the earth, the sleepers bow their faces low,
kneeling to drink from the fountains of dust -
but my soul will bring them life!
Earth-children, now together we wake
into our holy work of becoming.
So this human family spins its sacred story,
cherishing Earth as our enduring dwelling-place.
And so we’ll tell our children yet unborn
how a world more right and true
may yet be made.
[Rendered from the Hebrew by Henry Ralph Carse;
copyright Henry Ralph Carse 2021]
Henry Ralph Carse - May 2, 2021