Eli, Eli, Lama Sabachthani

Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani (Matthew 27:46) or Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani (Mark 15:34) — My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? — are the words Jesus cried out from the cross in the ninth hour (3 PM), the fourth of the seven words from the cross recorded in the Gospels. The Hebrew form in Matthew and the Aramaic in Mark represent the opening verse of Psalm 22, the great psalm of the righteous sufferer that moves from abandonment to vindication. The entire psalm is remarkably predictive of the crucifixion scene (22:7–8, 16–18), and Jesus's quotation of its opening signals his identification with the psalm's suffering yet ultimately trusting voice.

The theological weight of these words is immense. They represent the darkest moment of the incarnation — the Son's experience of the Father's withdrawal in the bearing of human sin (2 Corinthians 5:21; Galatians 3:13). Bystanders misheard the cry as a call to Elijah. The words are simultaneously a cry of genuine desolation and an act of trust, since to pray Psalm 22 is to affirm that God has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted one (Psalm 22:24). Luther called this the theology of the cross — God present in his hiddenness.