verse, the rhythm, and the custom of the language, and gives to the Psalm a flat and unlyrical commencement. Thus, therefore, רחוק in the primary form, as in Psa 119:155, according to Ges. §146, 4, will by the predicate to דברי and placed before it: far from my salvation, i.e., far from my being rescued, are the words of my cry; there is a great gulf between the two, inasmuch as God does not answer him though he cries unceasingly.
In Psa 22:3 the reverential name of God אלחי takes the place of אלי the name that expresses His might; it is likewise vocative and accordingly marked with Rebia magnum. It is not an accusative of the object after Psa 18:4 (Hitzig), in which case the construction would be continued with ולא יענה. That it is, however, God to whom he calls is implied both by the direct address אלהי, and by ולא תענה, since he from whom one expects an answer is most manifestly the person addressed. His uninterrupted crying remains unanswered, and unappeased. The clause ולא־דמיּה לּי is parallel to ולא תענה, and therefore does not mean: without allowing me any repose (Jer 14:17; Lam 3:49), but: without any rest being granted to me, without my complaint being appeased or stilled. From the sixth to the ninth hour the earth was shrouded in darkness. About the ninth hour Jesus cried, after a long and more silent struggle, ἠλί, ἠλί. The ἀνεβόησεν φωνῇ μεγάλῃ, Mat 27:46, and also the κραυγὴ ἰσχυρά of Hebr. Psa 5:7, which does not refer exclusively to the scene in Gethsemane, calls to mind the שׁאגתי of Psa 22:2. When His passion reached its climax, days and nights of the like wrestling had preceded it, and what then becomes audible was only an outburst of the second David's conflict of prayer, which grows hotter as it draws near to the final issue.
Verses 3-5
Psa 22:3-5 (Hebrew_Bible_22:4-6) The sufferer reminds Jahve of the contradiction between the long season of helplessness and His readiness to help so frequently and so promptly attested. ואתּה opens an adverbial clause of the counterargument: although Thou art...Jahve is קדושׁ, absolutely pure, lit., separated (root קד, Arab. qd, to cut, part, just as ṭahur, the synonym of ḳadusa, as the intransitive of ṭahara = ab‛ada, to remove to a distance, and בּר pure, clean, radically distinct from pû-rus, goes back to בּרר to sever), viz., from that
