Daniel Lee
It is true that the early Christian community, from at least as early as the writing of the Gospels, has identified Psalm 22 as in some way indicative of Jesus. In the previous two articles in this series, we have examined the reasons why that would be the case. I examined Psalm 22 itself, and the emotional intensity to which that psalm gives voice, and then inspected the way Matthew’s crucifixion narrative utilizes this psalm and its poetic world to bring deep literary and theological significance to Jesus’ death and resurrection.
To properly conclude this project, it is only fitting that I present a few conclusions about the nature of biblical intertextuality, the way it functions to create meaning, and how we as readers of the Bible can best approach this reality in our sacred text. In this work, I undertake to define some of these terms and examine what implications we can draw from the relationship between the suffering psalmist and Jesus.
Recognizing Intertextuality
The similar valences of meaning between our two test texts are highlighted in Matthew’s crucifixion narrative by its varied use of multiple sections of Psalm 22. Connection between texts can be explicit or subtle and, as we have seen, the connection between Psalm 22 and Matthew’s account of the crucifixion is drawn explicitly by the Gospel’s author in some instances and more subtly in other instances within the same passage. Many other texts rely on differing degrees of subtlety to make similar connections. It is also possible that we as readers may perceive connections between texts where no explicit line is drawn, simply by witnessing what is natural and inherent in the texts and connecting them together. Great care must be taken when attempting this kind of work to witness to what the texts themselves testify about their resonances with other texts.
An intertextually informed hermeneutic observes the flow of meaning in the interplay between intertexts, and this occurs in several different ways and to differing degrees. “We can roughly categorize the scriptural intertextual references in the Gospels by employing the terms ‘quotation,’ ‘allusion,’ and ‘echo.’ These terms are approximate markers on the spectrum of intertextual linkage, moving from the most to the least explicit forms of reference.”1 It is important to keep these distinctions in mind, as it will help us to recognize the different ways that texts may play off each other. Even within these categories, intertextual references are far from uniform and thus can be difficult to recognize.
By far the easiest form of intertextual interaction to notice is the quotation of one text by another. This is because it often is introduced by a citation phrase such as “as it is written” or reproduces a long section of text with a high degree of precision.2 This draws lines explicitly between one text and another. It demonstrates the author’s clear intention to draw the reader’s mind directly from the current text to a previous text and often carries forward significant meaning-ridden implications from the previous text to the latter. We observed an instance of this in Jesus’ quotation of the opening line of Psalm 22. In this case, it is explicit and abundantly evident that both Jesus and the Gospel writer want the bystanders/readers to be reminded of Psalm 22.
The second most explicit form of intertextual link is an allusion, which deploys several keywords from a previous text to alert the reader of the connection.2 In this form of intertextual relationship, the line between texts is still easily discernable by the familiar reader and intentionally drawn by the author, but it is left more subtly in the background. Examples of this occurring in Matthew are the division of Jesus’ clothes and the mocking words of the observers of the crucifixion that are very closely taken from Psalm 22 yet lack any citation phrase and are generally short in length.
The third type of intertextual reference is generally referred to as an echo. An echo is the most difficult link to perceive, and it is the most difficult to conclusively demonstrate is present in the text. It is also the easiest to mistakenly construct or misread into the text.2 Echoes occur whenever there is a similar resonance between two texts, but a definitive link between them may prove challenging to substantiate. However, even if unintended by the author, the intuition of an echo can represent a valid valence of meaning the reader brings to the text that the author may not have been aware of in the process of writing. It can also represent a typological correspondence of concept intended by the author even when a specific text was not in mind. We encountered a potential echo in our test texts when considering the ambiguity of both Psalm 22 and Jesus’ cry from the cross and the presence of poisonous speech in both cases.
Intertextual Method
A common struggle some Christian readers have with intertextual reading of the Bible is that it seems to assume the existence of intentionally hidden knowledge beneath the surface of the text, placing barriers of entry to the knowledge the Scriptures offer. Though some intertextual links do obscure meaning, none of them function to bury or hide meaning in the text in a deceptive way.
Intertextuality is not designed to gate-keep knowledge so that it may only be gained by an enlightened few. Such references function to deepen the meaning of a text for meditation and interpretation by intentional readers. They enrich a sacred text by incorporating it into the broader literary landscape of the author and implied readers. “Readers who hear the echo will discern some semantic nuance that carries a surplus of significance beyond the literal sense of the text in which the echo occurs; ordinarily, however, the surface meaning of the text would be intelligible to readers who fail to hear the echoed language.”2 The basic meaning of the text, even if not illuminated by these intertextual references, is usually discernable, and these references should function to deepen, broaden, and paint in full color the picture outlined by the surface-level reading of the text.
Though these links do not function to gate-keep knowledge, all of these techniques of intertextual interplay require work and presumed knowledge on the part of the reader. This phenomenon of intertextual meaning-making is known as metalepsis.
Metalepsis is a literary technique of citing or echoing a small bit of precursor text in such a way that the reader can grasp the significance of the echo only by recalling or recovering the original context from which the fragmentary echo came and then reading the two texts in dialogical juxtaposition. The figurative effect of such an intertextual linkage lies in the unstated or suppressed points of correspondence between the two texts.3
When reading the New Testament with an intertextually informed hermeneutic, we should expect to see metalepsis occur and recognize that this occurrence affords us as readers the responsibility to ground our interpretation in the interplay between these texts. This in an opportunity to be taken deeper into both texts simultaneously as they work together to produce more than could have been achieved if they were merely read separately. The “dialogical juxtaposition” functions to highlight an unstated, or at least not explicitly stated, similarity between the two texts and thus expand the reader’s experience of and understanding gained from both.
In Matthew, I have taken Jesus’ quotation of the opening line of Psalm 22 as his invitation for us as readers, and those witnessing his crucifixion, to remember the injustice of the psalmist’s suffering and to compare that situation to Jesus’ crucifixion. It was not just the opening words about God’s apparent abandonment that were significant but the totality of the psalm, including its powerfully redemptive ending, that Jesus and Matthew both want us as readers to understand. The heavily implied yet unstated correspondence is critically important to seeing both texts in their fullness and is a wonderful example of metalepsis.
Yet, interpretation is still a more demanding task. Considering the variety of ways an author can deploy metalepsis—through quotation, allusion, or echo—it can be difficult to discern how these metaleptic links function within a text, and many pitfalls exist in interpreting such texts.
A method for approaching the use of scripture by New Testament authors, and likewise the use of the Psalms, is to treat each reference carefully and independently based on the literary context of the reference in the particular New Testament book and on the context of the scriptural text referred to by the author. This painstaking work avoids the assumption that a New Testament author uses all of scripture or a certain book of scripture in a consistent way. Detailed and independent analysis of each reference is the only way to respect the author’s usage and discover the range of possible meanings of that reference in the greater context of the book.4
This raises a few points for consideration. On the one hand, in the case of each metaleptic reference in the New Testament, work needs to be done to understand the significance of that reference fully. In our examination, we took each reference to Psalm 22 in turn to let it speak for itself. On the other hand, we also need to be careful, as we can err on the side of atomizing the metaleptic references within a given book or passage and risk missing the continuity that the author of any given New Testament text is assuming and weaving into his references. When analyzing such references, we must pay careful attention to the way each reference is deployed in the context of the quoting passage, the meaning of the reference in the context from which it came, and how the matrix of references plays off each other to create a new complex of meaning. We should not assume authors will use references in a consistent way, but neither should we be surprised to find that they do when the analysis is complete. This is indeed what we found with Psalm 22’s presence in Matthew.
Typology and Predictive Prophecy
Some claim that Psalm 22 is a prophecy, predictively detailing the material and physical events of Christ’s crucifixion, but I see the relationship functioning a bit differently. I believe Psalm 22 functions as an instance of typology. “Typology in this context means the interpretation of certain persons, events, and things (such as Moses, the crossing of the Red Sea, the Passover lamb) as prophetic indications of [deeper realities, such as] the Messiah.”5 Though I do think that the typology of Moses, the Red Sea, and Passover correspond to Jesus’ portrayal in the Gospels, it is wrong to conceive of typology as strictly predictive in the same way as future-oriented prophetic declarations. This gets at the difference between prefiguration and prediction. “Figural reading of the Bible need not presume that the Old Testament authors—or the characters they narrate—were conscious of predicting or anticipating Christ. Rather, the discernment of a figural correspondence is necessarily retrospective rather than prospective.”6
Psalm 22 first and foremost reflects the life situation of the psalmist but simultaneously taps into a deeper reality that is archetypally reflected in the crucifixion of Jesus. The psalm is full of symbolic and sacramental reality, just as the crucifixion is symbolic and sacramental.7 This typological construction sees the textual witnesses of the Hebrew Bible as operating figurally. “Figural interpretation establishes a connection between two events or persons in such a way that the first signifies not only itself but also the second, while the second involves or fulfills the first.”8 When the future event occurs, its observers can clearly see the link between their situation and the situation from the past, but the first—Psalm 22 in our test case—did not simply exist to indicate the second, the crucifixion. In other words, the psalmist did not have a premonition of Jesus’ crucifixion and then write Psalm 22. Instead, the psalmist noticed something about God-ordered reality and human suffering and wrote about that, which then later gets fleshed out—or fulfilled—by Jesus. Then, we can look back at both cases and find the correspondence of meaning between them.
This retrospective realization of meaning deals with what is inherent within the first situation—i.e., the psalm—but “the correspondence [between the two events] can be discerned only after the second event [i.e., the crucifixion] has occurred and imparted a new pattern of significance to the first. But once the pattern of correspondence has been grasped, the semantic significance of the figure flows both ways, as the second event receives deeper significance from the first.”9 Because Psalm 22 and the crucifixion are typologically linked, highlighted by intertextuality, the meaning of the two events can cooperate to bring broader meaning not only to the second event in light of its prefiguration in the first, but also to the first event in light of its embodiment in the second. To embody the symbolism of a prefiguration is to fill up, to flesh out, the prefiguration. Thus, new significance can be found in Psalm 22 in light of this relationship. Intertextuality and typology disclose the deep theological coherence within the biblical narrative.9
Typology occurs when content within a text depicts recurring themes and patterns which remain stable even as they intersect multiple historical or textual situations. An example of a typological abstraction would be the suffering of a righteous one who brings communal redemption, seen in both Psalm 22 and the Matthean crucifixion, as well as other biblical passages.10 These biblical passages stand in their own right and refer to separate physical/material realities while simultaneously indicating a deeper truth at the bedrock of reality that manifests itself in a recurring pattern which underpins many texts within Scripture. This truth is that a voluntary sufferer can bring communal redemption. This pattern is at work in the Passover sacrifice, and it is embodied—made incarnate—in the crucifixion. Even so, “since typology does not nullify the original intent and meaning of a passage, we are also free to use this psalm as an inspiration for our perseverance in praying even when God seems not to be there.”11
The Psalm and Jesus
As we have noted, prefiguration is the best way to conceive of the relationship of Psalm 22 to the crucifixion in Matthew. The psalm does not predict, and indeed “the psalm is not direct prophecy, even though it includes some predictive or anticipatory elements in it.”12 These elements help to create and further a typological structure that brings these two instances into correspondence, a correspondence highlighted by the metaleptic quality of Matthew’s references to the psalm.
When Jesus cries the opening words of the psalm from the cross, he signals its fulfillment not in the sense that the psalm predicted his situation but in the sense that he has fully fleshed out the aspects of reality—the experience—to which the psalm attests. Psalm 22 is strikingly appropriate for describing Jesus’ situation, even when predictive correspondence is not present. The psalm “fits a death by crucifixion very well, and what makes the use of the psalm by Jesus even more fitting is the unique nature of the lament—the psalmist never curses his enemies for their attacks and never confesses sin as the reason for his suffering. There is not a word of remorse or penitent sorrow.”13
Thus, the Gospel deploys the psalm to illuminate aspects of Jesus’ character and nature at the narrative’s most pivotal moment. Through Psalm 22, Matthew is not making a propositional argument but painting a picture of Jesus’s identity and role.14 The Gospel’s employment of the psalm is one piece of the puzzle that, when put into place, helps reveal a truth about Jesus’ identity and the patterns that govern both Scripture and the world. More broadly, the use of the psalm communicates significant aspects of Jesus’ situation—like his innocence, the injustice of his suffering, the coming redemption of that suffering, and the inclusion of the Gentiles through his suffering.
Regarding Psalm 22 itself, the psalm expresses not the future Messiah’s suffering but the suffering of one who is unjustly oppressed by his broader community. Thus, it perfectly aligns with the identity of Jesus, despite the fact that he is not the original referent.15 Discerning the metaleptic function of the Gospel’s references yields a typological framework for associating David and Jesus. This psalm offers the pinnacle of poetic descriptions of suffering at the hands of the community and thus is uniquely suited to serve as an intertext for narrating the events of Jesus’ passion.
Daniel Lee is the Program Manager at Samford University’s Center for Worship and the Arts and holds a Master of Divinity from Wake Forest School of Divinity, where he concentrated in biblical studies and church history. A former youth pastor, Daniel is an aspiring Bible scholar hoping to contribute to the study of Scripture to bridge the gap between scholarship and religious practice.
Image: Pieter de Grebber, King David in Prayer
- Richard B Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2018), 10. Similarly treated by Stephen P. Aheare-Kroll and William P. Brown, “Psalms in the New Testament,” in The Oxford Handbook of the Psalms (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014), 270.[↩]
- Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 10.[↩][↩][↩][↩]
- Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 11.[↩]
- Ahearne-Kroll and Brown, “Psalms in the New Testament,” 270.[↩]
- Catherine Tkacz, “Esther, Jesus, and Psalm 22,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 70, no. 4 (October 2008), 710.[↩]
- Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 2–3.[↩]
- Here I am using the word sacramental in the framework constructed by C.S. Lewis, “Transposition,” in The Weight of Glory (New York: HarperCollins, 2002), 91–115.[↩]
- Erich Auerbach, Mimesis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1968), 73. Cited by Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 2.[↩]
- Hays, Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels, 3.[↩][↩]
- Reading Genesis 15, Exodus 17, and passages concerning the Suffering Servant of Isaiah all depict similar concepts, with the first two demonstrating divine suffering or death.[↩]
- Allen Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel, 2011), 528. See also Tkacz, “Esther, Jesus, and Psalm 22,” 719.[↩]
- Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 527.[↩]
- Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 549.[↩]
- Ahearne-Kroll and Brown, “Psalms in the New Testament,” 275.[↩]
- Goldingay, Psalms, 341.[↩]