Matthew 27:46

Eli, Eli, etc.] Psalms 22:1. It is not certain whether Jesus spoke in Hebrew or Aramaic, for most MSS contain a mixture of both.

These words are a cry of the human nature of Jesus, which alone could suffer desertion, when He experienced the bitterness of death. They may serve to comfort Christian men and women when they experience the greatest of all trials, the temporary withdrawal of the consciousness of God's presence. But a deeper meaning is also to be sought. Upon the cross Jesus was making atonement for the sins of the world, 'bearing our sins in his own body on the tree,' for upon Him was laid 'the iniquity of us all.' He was so closely identified with the race which He came to save, that He felt the burden of its sin, and cried as the Representative of Humanity, 'My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?' 'The Lord was forsaken, that we might not be forsaken; He was forsaken that we might be delivered from our sins and from eternal death; He was forsaken that we might show His love to us, and manifest to us His justice and His pity; that He might attract to Himself our love, in short that He might exhibit to us a pattern of patience. The way to heaven lies open, but it is steep and difficult. He willed to go before us with an example full of wonder, that the way might not alarm us, but that the stupendous example of a suffering God might incite us' (St. Cyprian).