A prophetic psalm, astonishing in its detailed description of the coming sufferings of the Son of David. It is no accident that its words will be heard on Golgotha.
What inspired the psalmist to compose this psalm? Was it direct prophetic insight, or did the bitter experience of his own calamities and humiliations suggest to him wholly unexpected images that became reality centuries later?
But the psalm speaks not only of the coming sufferings and crucifixion of the persecuted Righteous One. Amid the pain, praise of the Lord rings out unexpectedly yet naturally. It contains not only a wish for earthly suffering to cease and for the poor to be fed, but also a prophetic wish of eternal life for those who seek the Lord. And there is another prophecy, one that began to be fulfilled after Golgotha: that at all the ends of the earth the Gentiles will come to know the Lord and will come to Him.
It is hardly an accident that the beginning of the psalm contains the note “at the appearance of the dawn.” Although this is an ordinary instruction to the psalm’s performers, these words allow us to imagine not only early morning in Jerusalem, but also the dawn of the Resurrection.
