And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Jesus has been crucified and has been hanging on the cross for hours. The 'ninth hour' in Jewish timekeeping is approximately 3 in the afternoon. In his anguish, Jesus cries out in Aramaic — the everyday spoken language of Jewish people in first-century Palestine — quoting the opening line of Psalm 22, a psalm written by King David roughly a thousand years earlier. That ancient psalm begins in devastating abandonment but moves toward trust and ends in praise. Jesus is not simply venting despair; he is voicing a genuine, human experience of feeling cut off from God while also invoking a scripture his Jewish listeners would have recognized immediately. This is the most raw and theologically disorienting moment in all four Gospels — the one Christians call the Son of God, feeling forsaken by God.
God, I don't fully understand how your Son could feel abandoned by you. But I'm grateful he went there — into that darkness — so I would never have to face it alone. On the days when prayer feels like shouting into silence, remind me that you know exactly what that feels like. Amen.
There is no tidy way to sit with this verse. The one John's gospel says existed before creation — through whom everything was made — hangs on a cross in the middle of the afternoon and screams that God has abandoned him. If you've ever tried to soften this moment or explain it away quickly, it's worth stopping and letting it land. He didn't whisper it. He cried out in a loud voice. This is not polished theology. This is a human being in agony. What this means is that Jesus knows the specific texture of your worst moments — not theoretically, not from a safe observatory above the pain, but from inside it. The 3 AM terror when God feels completely absent. The grief that doesn't lift no matter how many prayers you pray. The silence on the other end of what felt like a sincere cry for help. He has been *exactly there*. That doesn't dissolve the mystery or tie a bow on the suffering. But it means you are never alone in the dark — because the God you're crying out to has cried out too.
Jesus is quoting Psalm 22 here, a psalm that begins in abandonment but ends in praise and trust. Does knowing that change how you read his cry — or does it feel like too neat an explanation?
Have you ever felt like God was absent or completely silent when you needed him most? What was that experience like, and how did it affect your faith?
Some people find this verse deeply comforting; others find it deeply disturbing. What is your honest, unfiltered reaction to God crying out to God?
How might the fact that Jesus experienced forsakenness change how you sit with someone going through spiritual darkness — someone who says they feel like God isn't there?
What would it mean for you to hold both the reality of genuine suffering and the reality of faith at the same time, without rushing to resolve the tension into something more comfortable?
And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is, being interpreted, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Mark 15:34
Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
Isaiah 53:10
After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.
John 19:28
To the chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, A Psalm of David. My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?
Psalms 22:1
And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
Luke 23:46
When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.
John 19:30
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;
Hebrews 5:7
My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me; and also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.
Daniel 6:22
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud [agonized] voice, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" that is, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?"
AMP
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” that is, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
ESV
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, 'ELI, ELI, LAMA SABACHTHANI?' that is, 'MY GOD, MY GOD, WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?'
NASB
About the ninth hour Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?”—which means, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
NIV
And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”
NKJV
At about three o’clock, Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” which means “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
NLT
Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" which means, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?"
MSG