Think of a song about a man’s death. A song that tells you people would mock and deride the dying man. That they’d gamble for his clothes. That his hands and feet would be pierced. Now imagine finding out the song was written about a 1000 years before he was born.
This is no riddle. It’s Psalm 22. And it’s only one of many places where Jesus appears in the Psalms.
Many people love the Psalms because they’re honest. But the Psalms are more than a book of feelings. Jesus Himself said they are about Him. We meet Jesus in 3 ways in the Psalms:
Jesus in the Old Testament — Book 19 of 39
This post is the nineteenth instalment in our series tracing Christ through every book of the Old Testament. See the full series index.
- As the King the Psalms long for
- As the Sufferer they describe, and
- As the Song people sing.
Jesus Said the Psalms Are About Him
After He rose from the dead, Jesus met His confused disciples and said:
‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.’ (Luke 24:44)
The Jewish Bible had 3 parts: the Law, the Prophets and the Writings, and the Psalms is the largest book in the third part. So Jesus is saying: every part of the Bible points to Him. He had said the same thing earlier: ‘it is they that bear witness about me’ (John 5:39).
So the real question isn’t whether Jesus is in the Psalms. He told us He is. The question is where and how.
KEY WORDS YOU’LL MEET IN THIS POST
- Psalm: a song or prayer. The book of Psalms has 150 of them. The whole collection is also called the Psalter.
- Messiah: a Hebrew word meaning ‘anointed one’. Kings were anointed (had oil poured on their heads) when they were crowned. ‘Christ’ is the same word in Greek.
- Messianic psalm: a psalm that speaks about the Messiah.
- Type: a real person or event that God designed as a picture of someone greater to come. King David is a type of Jesus.
The Apostles Spoke as the Spirit Prompted
Some think the first Christians simply picked verses that sounded like Jesus. Not so. The apostles argued from the words of the Psalms themselves. On the Day of Pentecost, Peter quotes Psalm 16:10: ‘For you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your holy one see corruption.’ (Sheol means the grave. Corruption means the body rotting.) Then he reasons like this:
- The psalm says: God’s ‘holy one’ will not rot in the grave.
- But David died: Peter says David’s ‘tomb is with us to this day’ (Acts 2:29). His body did rot.
- So David wasn’t speaking about himself: God had promised one of David’s descendants would sit on his throne forever (2 Samuel 7:12–16).
- Therefore: David, ‘being therefore a prophet … foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ’ (Acts 2:30–31).
Jesus used the same method. In Matthew 22 the religious teachers agreed the Messiah would be David’s son. Then Jesus quoted Psalm 110:1: ‘The LORD says to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ Here David calls the coming King ‘my Lord’. But in that culture a father never called his own son ‘lord’. So Jesus asked, ‘If then David calls Him Lord, how is He his son?’ (Matthew 22:45).
There’s only one answer. The Messiah is David’s son and David’s Lord—truly human and truly God.
Words Too Big for David
Many psalms were first sung about David or the kings after him. But again and again, the words are far too big for any ordinary king. They’re like a coat made for a giant. It hangs loosely on every king of Israel—well, until Jesus puts it on.
Table 1: Promises in the Psalms that no ordinary king could fulfil
| PSALM | WHAT IT SAYS | WHY NO ORDINARY KING FITS | WHO THE NEW TESTAMENT SAYS IT FITS |
|---|---|---|---|
| Psalm 2:7–8 | God calls the king ‘my Son’ and gives him ‘the ends of the earth’ | Israel’s kings ruled one small land | Jesus, God’s Son (Acts 13:33; Hebrews 1:5) |
| Psalm 45:6 | ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever’ | The king is called God | Jesus (Hebrews 1:8) |
| Psalm 72:5, 17 | The king will be honoured ‘as long as the sun’ | Every king of Israel died | Jesus, whose kingdom has no end (Luke 1:33) |
| Psalm 110:1 | David calls the king ‘my Lord’ | No father called his son ‘lord’ | Jesus (Matthew 22:44) |
| Psalm 110:4 | The king is ‘a priest forever’ | Kings were not allowed to be priests | Jesus, our great High Priest (Hebrews 5–7) |
That last row matters. In Israel, kings and priests were kept apart. When King Uzziah tried to act as a priest, God struck him with leprosy (2 Chronicles 26:16–21). The only king-priest in the Old Testament was Melchizedek, who blessed Abraham (Genesis 14:18). No son of David ever held both jobs. Jesus holds both today.
The Shape of the Book: A Story Waiting for a King
The Psalms aren’t a random pile of songs. They’re arranged in 5 books, like the 5 books of Moses, and the order tells a story. Gerald H Wilson showed this in The Editing of the Hebrew Psalter (1985), and O Palmer Robertson traces the same storyline in The Flow of the Psalms (2015).
Timeline: the storyline of the five books
- Psalms 1–2 (the front door): A blessed man who loves God’s law, and a King whom God calls ‘my Son’. Both psalms are framed by the word ‘Blessed’, so they belong together.
- Books I–II (Psalms 3–72): David’s troubles, prayers and victories.
- Book III (Psalms 73–89): Darkness falls. Psalm 89 ends in crisis. God seems to have broken His promise: ‘You have renounced the covenant with your servant’ (89:39).
- Book IV (Psalms 90–106): The answer comes: ‘The LORD reigns’ (93:1). When human kings fail, God is still King.
- Book V (Psalms 107–150): The King returns to view—the priest-king of Psalm 110, the rejected stone of Psalm 118 and the promise of Psalm 132:17: ‘There I will make a horn to sprout for David.’
The Psalter took its final shape after the Jews returned from exile in Babylon. By then, no son of David sat on any throne. Yet the editors kept the royal psalms and placed them at turning points in the book. Why sing about a king you don’t have? Because you’re waiting for one.
Bruce K Waltke argued (1981) that as these songs were gathered into Scripture, their royal language came to point beyond Israel’s past kings to the perfect King still to come. Reading the Psalms with Christ in view isn’t forcing something onto the book. It’s where the book was heading all along.
Jesus the King
Psalm 2 shows the nations plotting against ‘the LORD and against his Anointed’. God laughs. He sets His King on Zion and says, ‘You are my Son; today I have begotten you’ (2:7). Paul says God fulfilled this by raising Jesus from the dead (Acts 13:33). ‘Begotten’ here doesn’t mean the Son began to exist. It means the King was publicly declared and crowned as God’s Son (Romans 1:4).
The psalm ends: ‘Kiss the Son … Blessed are all who take refuge in him’ (2:12). Yet elsewhere the Bible says, ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man’ (Jeremiah 17:5). So this Son can’t be a mere man. We may trust Him fully because He’s God.
Psalm 45 is a royal wedding song. In the middle of it, the king is spoken to as God: ‘Your throne, O God, is forever and ever.’ Hebrews 1:8 says these words are spoken ‘of the Son’. And the bride is His church (Ephesians 5:25–27).
Psalm 110 is the Old Testament passage the New Testament quotes and echoes more than any other. It shows Jesus seated at God’s right hand, ruling until every enemy is defeated (Acts 2:34–35; 1 Corinthians 15:25). He’s not waiting to become King. He’s King now.
Jesus the Sufferer
The same Psalms that crown the King also show Him suffering. The disciples expected a Messiah who’d win, not one who’d bleed. But Jesus asked them, ‘Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?’ (Luke 24:26).
No psalm shows this more clearly than Psalm 22. Charles Haddon Spurgeon wrote in The Treasury of David: ‘This is beyond all others the Psalm of the Cross.’
Table 2: Psalm 22 side by side with the crucifixion
| PSALM 22 SAYS | WHAT HAPPENED TO JESUS |
|---|---|
| ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ (v. 1) | Jesus cried these exact words from the cross (Matthew 27:46) |
| People mock, ‘wag their heads’ and say, ‘He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him’ (vv. 7–8) | The crowd shook their heads and said almost the same words (Matthew 27:39–43) |
| ‘My tongue sticks to my jaws’ (v. 15) | Jesus said, ‘I thirst’ (John 19:28) |
| ‘They have pierced my hands and feet’ (v. 16) | Nails were driven through Him (John 20:25) |
| ‘They divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots’ (v. 18) | Soldiers did exactly this (John 19:23–24) |
| Praise among ‘my brothers’; ‘all the ends of the earth’ turn to God (vv. 22–31) | The risen Jesus sends His followers to all nations (Hebrews 2:12; Matthew 28:19) |
David never died like this. Crucifixion didn’t even exist in his time; it came centuries later. The psalm even ends with the words ‘he has done it’ (22:31). Many Bible teachers hear an echo of Jesus’ final cry, ‘It is finished’ (John 19:30).
Other psalms fill in the picture:
- Hated for no reason: ‘those who hate me without cause’ (Psalm 69:4; John 15:25).
- Burning love for God’s house: ‘zeal for your house has consumed me’ (Psalm 69:9; John 2:17).
- No bone broken: ‘not one of them is broken’ (Psalm 34:20; John 19:36).
- Rejected, then honoured: ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’ (Psalm 118:22; Matthew 21:42).
Yet the suffering doesn’t have the last word. Psalm 16 promises resurrection, and Psalm 68:18 pictures the King going up ‘on high’, which Paul applies to Jesus’ ascension (Ephesians 4:8).
Jesus the Song—and the Singer
Jesus isn’t only the one the Psalms sing about. He also sings them.
- He sings Psalm 22: Hebrews 2:12 puts its words on Jesus’ lips: ‘I will tell of your name to my brothers.’
- He sings Psalm 40: Hebrews 10:5–7 puts these words on His lips at His birth: ‘Behold, I have come … to do your will.’
- He prayed the Psalms as He died: Psalm 22:1, and then Psalm 31:5, ‘Into your hand I commit my spirit’ (Luke 23:46).
Augustine of Hippo, the great early church teacher, summed it up beautifully. He said Christ ‘prays for us as our priest, prays in us as our head, and is prayed to by us as our God’. When the church sings the Psalms, it sings with Christ, in Christ and to Christ.
John Calvin called the Psalms ‘an anatomy of all the parts of the soul’. Every feeling in them Jesus felt too, ‘yet without sin’ (Hebrews 4:15). So when you pray a sad psalm, you’re praying with a Saviour who has been there before you. It’s no surprise that Timothy Keller named his devotional on the Psalms The Songs of Jesus (2015).
Didn’t Christians Just Invent This?
The evidence says no.
JEWS SAW THE MESSIAH IN THE PSALMS LONG BEFORE CHRISTIANS DID
- The Dead Sea Scrolls: a scroll called 4Q174 links Psalm 2 with God’s promise to David in 2 Samuel 7 and applies both to the last days.
- The Psalms of Solomon 17 (first century BC): uses Psalm 2’s picture of a ‘rod of iron’ for the coming Son of David.
- The Targum: an ancient Aramaic paraphrase (loose translation) of the Psalms that names the ‘King Messiah’ in Psalm 72:1.
- The Talmud (Sukkah 52a): a collection of rabbinic teaching that applies Psalm 2:7–8 to the Messiah, son of David.
Seeing the Messiah in the Psalms is Jewish before it is Christian. The apostles simply gave Him His name: Jesus.
Answering the Hard Objections
- ‘Psalm 22:16 really says “like a lion”, not “pierced”.’ The standard Hebrew text is unclear here. But the Septuagint (the Greek translation made before Jesus was born) reads ‘dug’ or ‘pierced’, and a Dead Sea manuscript from Nahal Hever also spells the word as a verb. So ‘pierced’ has ancient Jewish support.
- ‘The New Testament writers took verses out of context.’ In fact, they pointed to the whole psalm. When Jesus cried the first line of Psalm 22, His hearers knew how the psalm ends: with rescue and worldwide praise.
- ‘Psalm 45:6 just means “your divine throne”.’ But the Septuagint and Hebrews 1:8 both read it as speaking directly to God—the most natural reading of the Hebrew.
- ‘The angry psalms don’t sound like Jesus.’ Peter applies Psalms 69 and 109 to Judas (Acts 1:20). These psalms cry out for justice, and Jesus is the Judge who will bring it (John 5:22).
- ‘But the psalmist confesses sin, and Jesus had no sin.’ True. Not every line is about Jesus, so we need clear rules.
HOW TO TELL A REAL PICTURE OF JESUS FROM A GUESS
- It is real history: David really lived, reigned and suffered.
- God designed the pattern: the New Testament confirms the link, or the psalm’s own words demand it.
- The fulfilment is bigger: Jesus does not just repeat David’s story. He completes it.
Look how carefully Jesus does this. Psalm 41:9 says, ‘Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, has lifted his heel against me.’ When Jesus quotes it about Judas, He leaves out ‘in whom I trusted’ (John 13:18). He knew Judas all along. The picture fits, but Jesus respects where it differs.
How to Find Jesus in Any Psalm
We need not force Christ into every verse. But these four questions will help you see Him:
4 QUESTIONS TO ASK OF ANY PSALM
- The King: Does this psalm speak of God’s rule or God’s chosen king? Jesus is that King.
- The Sufferer: Does it show a righteous person in pain? Jesus is the truly righteous Sufferer.
- The Temple: Does it long for God’s house? Jesus is where God lives among His people (John 2:19–21).
- The Nations: Does it call the whole world to praise? Jesus is the one the nations will worship.
Conclusion: The Song Was Always About Him
We began with a song about a man whose hands and feet were pierced, written a 1000 years before He was born. That’s no accident. The Psalms are the songbook of a people waiting for their King.
On the road to Emmaus, 2 disciples said, ‘Did not our hearts burn within us … while he opened to us the Scriptures?’ (Luke 24:32). The same can happen to you. Open the Psalms and look for the King, the Sufferer and the Song. And then do what Psalm 2 invites you to do: take refuge in Him.
Tough Questions, Honest Answers
How many psalms are about Jesus?
There is no single agreed number. The New Testament directly quotes or applies around 15 to 20 psalms to Jesus, including Psalms 2, 8, 16, 22, 40, 41, 45, 69, 110 and 118. In a wider sense, though, the whole Psalter points to Him, because the whole book is the songbook of David’s royal line waiting for its true King. So it is best to say that some psalms speak of Him directly, and all of them find their deepest meaning in Him.
Is Psalm 23 about Jesus?
Yes, in a very rich way. Psalm 23 says, ‘The LORD is my shepherd.’ Later, God promised that He Himself would come and shepherd His people (Ezekiel 34:11–15). Then Jesus stood up and said, ‘I am the good shepherd’ (John 10:11). By taking the LORD’s own role, Jesus was quietly claiming to be God. Hebrews 13:20 even calls Him ‘the great shepherd of the sheep’.
Why did Satan quote Psalm 91 to Jesus?
In the wilderness, Satan quoted Psalm 91:11–12 to tempt Jesus to throw Himself off the temple (Matthew 4:6). But Satan cut out a key phrase: ‘to guard you in all your ways’. God promises protection as we walk in His ways, not when we test Him with foolish stunts. Jesus answered with Deuteronomy 6:16: ‘You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.’ It is a warning that even Scripture can be twisted, which is why we must read it in context.
What hymn did Jesus sing at the Last Supper?
Matthew 26:30 says that after the meal, Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn. At Passover, Jewish families traditionally sang the Hallel, which means ‘praise’. It is made up of Psalms 113–118. This means that on the night before He died, Jesus probably sang Psalm 118:22 about the rejected stone, knowing He was that stone. He walked towards the cross singing.
Did God the Father really forsake Jesus on the cross?
Jesus’ cry from Psalm 22:1 was real, not an act. On the cross He carried the curse our sins deserve (Galatians 3:13; 2 Corinthians 5:21), and He felt the Father’s judgement against sin. But the Trinity was not broken apart, and the Father never stopped loving the Son. Notice that Jesus still prayed ‘My God’, a cry of trust even in the dark. And Psalm 22 itself ends in rescue and victory.
How do Jewish scholars read Psalm 22 today?
Most Jewish scholars today read Psalm 22 as David’s own prayer, or as a picture of the suffering of the Jewish people. They often read verse 16 as ‘like a lion’ rather than ‘pierced’. However, an ancient collection of Jewish sermons called Pesikta Rabbati applies parts of Psalm 22 to a suffering Messiah. Christians should discuss this topic with kindness and respect, pointing to the evidence and to the Messiah the psalm describes.
Should Christians pray the imprecatory psalms?
‘Imprecatory’ psalms are prayers that ask God to judge enemies, like Psalms 69, 109 and 137. Christians may pray them, but through Jesus. They teach us to hand our anger over to God rather than take revenge ourselves (Romans 12:19). We pray against evil while still loving and praying for our enemies (Matthew 5:44). And we remember that Jesus took the curse on Himself for everyone who turns to Him. Even the saints in heaven cry out for God’s justice (Revelation 6:10).
