Quotations are mainly based on the King James text. Readers are advised to look up each quotation in good translations of the Bible and examine them in context to satisfy themselves that we are not misusing them. Paraphrased bibles and dynamic interpretive translations (such as the Good News Bible) are not suitable for this kind of study.

A reader's enquiry:-

You quote Hebrews. 5:7 and say "God did not forsake his Son." I've always thought that since sin separates the sinner from God (Isaiah. 59:2), and since Jesus bore all sins on the cross, that for that moment, God turned "His back" (so to speak) on Jesus. What else could Jesus have meant when he said, "Why hast thou forsaken me?"?

HOW COULD GOD ABANDON HIS ONLY BELOVED SON? "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Mark 15:34 (Psalm 22:1) [According to verse 24 of Psalm 22 and to Hebrews 5:7 God did not forsake his Son. The Jews thought he had - which could be why the Lord drew their attention to that Psalm. Psalm 22:23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; .. 24 For he hath not ... hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard. Hebrews 5:7 Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared; The Lord Jesus knew that the Father would not desert Him. Talking to his disciples of his imminent his arrest and crucifixion the Lord Jesus said 'Behold, the hour comes, yes, is now come, that you will be scattered, every man to his own, and will leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me' (John16:32). God was actually in Christ, even on the cross, through it reconciling the world unto himself: 2 Corinthians 5:19 To wit, that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them; and hath committed unto us the word of reconciliation. The Father knew the pain and anguish His only well beloved Son went through. However the fact remains that the Lord Jesus still personally suffered it all as a man - Why?]

Here is the question again:-

"What else could Jesus have meant when he said, Why hast thou forsaken me?"?

Devout Jews would quote a portion of scripture expecting the learned hearer to be fully familiar with its context.

So the learned Jews present, seeing the Lord in an apparently hopeless situation - apparently fully discredited - on hearing Jesus quote the first sentence of Psalm 22 would recall the whole of the psalm.

The psalm begins with the LORD's anointed bewailing God's apparent deafness to the ridicule and suffering he was enduring - but a change of tone begins in verse 22. The psalm turns into a song of triumph:-

22 ... in the midst of the congregation I will praise thee ...

He asserts that God has not forsaken him:-

23 Ye that fear the LORD, praise him; .. 24 For he hath not ... hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard. Declaring in the last verse that YHWH* "hath done this". (* see verse.28 "the LORD's")

When I read in verses 27 and 28 the predicted outcome of His suffering, I am amazed and thrilled.

Psalm 22:27  All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.  28 For the kingdom is the LORD’s and he is the governor among the nations.

And to think that this is what our Lord had in mind as He hung on the cross.

Hebrews 12:2  Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.