Short answer: Matthew 27:45–46 reports darkness over the land and Jesus crying out at the ninth hour, asking why God had forsaken him. Matthew offers no explanation of the inner mechanics, so the text itself does not tell us why in so many words. Read within the Gospel, the forsaking belongs to the cross where the sinless one was treated as the guilty are treated, bearing sin for others. The passage also shows that even in abandonment Jesus still addressed God as his God.
Darkness, a cry, and the Psalm the mockers quoted
Matthew places these verses at the center of a scene he has slowed down. The setting is Passover in Jerusalem, and Jesus is dying under Roman execution outside the city. Just before this, onlookers taunt him with the words of Psalm 22:8, saying God should rescue him if he delights in him, and the robbers crucified beside him take up the same reproach. Matthew 27:44 records that they cast on him the same reproach. Then comes a time stamp: from the sixth hour to the ninth hour, darkness over all the land. The narrative is spare, almost bare, and every detail is made to count.
The shape of the passage is deliberate. Matthew gives the hours, then the darkness, then a single loud cry, quoted first in its original words and then translated for his readers. He does not describe Jesus' face or the soldiers' reactions or the crowd's mood. He lets the cry stand nearly alone, framed by darkness above and by misunderstanding below. Matthew 27:46 gives the words: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” The cry is not explained or softened. Matthew simply sets it in the dark and moves on to the bystanders, who hear Elijah instead.
That misunderstanding matters. Some who hear the cry say he is calling Elijah, and one runs to offer a sponge of vinegar on a reed. But the mockers had quoted Psalm 22, and Jesus answers with that psalm's opening line. Matthew does not say he recited the whole psalm, yet readers who know it will hear where it goes: from abandonment toward vindication and praise among the nations. The taunt and the cry belong together. The mockers say God should deliver him; Jesus answers in the words of the prayer they borrowed.
Darkness at noon and the cry of forsakenness
Matthew keeps time the way his readers counted hours, from sunrise. So the sixth hour is noon, and the ninth hour is mid-afternoon. The darkness begins at midday and holds until three, covering the hours when the sun should be at its strongest. He says it lay over all the land and then says nothing more about it. No explanation, no interpretation, no crowd reaction. The gospel simply reports it and moves on. That restraint is worth noticing. Matthew does not tell us what the darkness meant, only that it came, and the reader is left standing in it with the witnesses at the cross.
Then, near the end of those three hours, Jesus cries out with a loud voice. Matthew gives the words first as they sounded and then supplies the translation, so the reader who did not know the language could still hear what was said. The translated sentence is a question, and it is addressed to God, not spoken about him. Jesus does not describe his situation to the crowd; he asks God directly. Whatever else is happening in the darkness, the cry is still a prayer, and it is still aimed at the One he calls my God, twice over, even as he asks why.
The word forsaken means to be left behind, abandoned, handed over. It is a strong word, and Jesus does not soften it. He does not say he feels distant or that God seems far off; he asks why God has forsaken him. Yet he asks God, which means the relationship he is questioning is the relationship he is still speaking into. Many readers have known something of that cry from their own side of it. This text does not promise that every darkness lifts on schedule. It shows us that the Son himself prayed from inside the dark, and that his prayer was heard by the God he addressed.
The word forsaken means to be left behind, abandoned, handed over. It is a strong word, and Jesus does not soften it. He does not say he feels distant or that God seems far off; he asks why God has forsaken him. Yet he asks God, which means the relationship he is questioning is the relationship he is still speaking into. Many readers have known something of that cry from their own side of it. This text does not promise that every darkness lifts on schedule. It shows us that the Son himself prayed from inside the dark, and that his prayer was heard by the God he addressed.
The cry of abandonment at the ninth hour
Matthew 27:45 records that darkness covered the land from noon until three, and then, at the ninth hour, Jesus cried out with a loud voice. The cry is not a whisper of doubt but a public appeal to God. Matthew gives the Aramaic words and then their meaning: Jesus asks why God has forsaken him. The verse is the opening line of Psalm 22, a prayer of a righteous sufferer. Matthew does not explain what happened between the Father and the Son. He simply places the cry in the darkness, after hours of mockery, and lets it stand as the deepest word spoken at the cross.
The taunt just before this makes the cry sharper. The passersby quote the words of Psalm 22:8, urging God to rescue him if he delights in him, and the robbers take up the same reproach. The mockers use the psalm to say God should deliver him. Jesus answers with the first line of that same psalm. Matthew does not say he quoted the whole psalm, but readers who know it will hear where it goes: from abandonment toward vindication and praise among the nations. The Gospel does not resolve the tension. It holds the mockery and the prayer side by side.
What the passage claims is that the forsaking was real, and that Jesus still prayed inside it. The one who had trusted God, the Son who called God his Father, was treated as the guilty are treated. This belongs to the sin-bearing of the cross, where the sin of Israel and the world was laid on the servant who represents his people. Matthew gives no inner mechanics, only the fact. That is a comfort to those who feel abandoned, not because every dark season ends in visible relief, but because God himself has entered the darkness in Christ and has not turned away from the one who cries to him.
The bystanders who heard the cry mistook it for a call to Elijah, and one of them offered Jesus vinegar on a reed. The mistake shows how easily the deepest prayer of Scripture can be misheard. Matthew records it without comment, then moves quickly to the loud cry and the death that follow. The reader is left with the darkness, the prayer, and the silence of God, which is exactly where the Gospel wants us to wait.
Where readers differ over the forsaken cry
Careful readers agree on the facts Matthew records. Darkness covers the land from noon until three, then Jesus cries out with a loud voice, asking why God has forsaken him. The quotation comes from Psalm 22, a prayer of a suffering righteous man. What readers dispute is how to describe what happened. Some stress the legal exchange, that God treated the sinless one as sin in our place, and hear the cry as the outcry of that bearing. Others stress relational anguish, that the Son who had known unbroken fellowship with the Father entered a real experience of abandonment. Both confess that Jesus truly bore sin and truly cried out.
The differences matter, and they should be stated fairly. Those who emphasize relational abandonment are cautious about saying the Trinity was divided, because the text never says the Father stopped loving the Son or ceased to be his Father. Those who emphasize the legal exchange are cautious about reducing the cry to a quotation, because Matthew presents it as an actual loud cry of anguish, not a recitation. A third reading treats the words mainly as Jesus identifying with afflicted saints and voicing Psalm 22 on their behalf. Others insist the forsaking was actual, not only representative. Each reading guards something true.
The text itself sets limits. It does not explain the inner life of God, does not tell us what the Father felt, and does not give a theory of the atonement. It gives the darkness, the cry, and the mocking that surrounds them. Notice also whom Jesus addresses: he says, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Forsaken, he still speaks to God as his God. That is where readers across these disagreements stand together. If you have felt abandoned by God, this cry does not promise that every dark season will end in visible relief, but it does show that the Son has prayed from inside the darkness.
Darkness, a forsaken cry, and the Son of God
Matthew marks the hours carefully. From the sixth hour to the ninth, darkness covers the land. This is not evening falling; it is the middle of the day going black while the Son of God hangs on a cross. Earlier, the mockers had taunted that he trusted God and should be delivered if God wanted him. The robbers joined the same reproach. Then, out of the darkness, Jesus cries with a loud voice, asking why God has forsaken him. Matthew gives the cry in its original words and then translates it, so the reader cannot miss what is being said: the one who trusted God now cries to God as abandoned.
Notice who is speaking. This is the same Jesus Matthew has shown healing the sick, forgiving sins, and announcing that the Son of Man came to give his life as a ransom. The taunt at the cross was aimed at his trust, and the darkness and the cry answer it in a way no mocker expected. He does not curse God or climb down. He holds on to God even while crying that God has let go of him. Matthew lets the cry stand without explanation, then keeps writing: the loud cry, the death, the curtain torn, the tomb empty. The forsaken one is also the vindicated one.
The gospel here is not that faithful people never feel abandoned. It is that the abandonment fell on the one who did not deserve it. Jesus stands where the guilty stand, and the darkness and the cry are what our sin deserves, borne by him. Because he was forsaken in the place of sinners, those who deserved to be left can be received. If you are in a dark season, this text does not promise that relief will come quickly or visibly. It promises something better: a Savior who has been in the darkness and who cried to God there.
What faithful response looks like when you pray in the dark
Read the cry slowly and let it stay what it is. Matthew 27:46 gives us the sinless Son speaking to his Father from genuine anguish, not a template for doubt and not a feeling to go hunting for. He does not drift into vague spirituality; he says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" The address holds even inside the question. So when your own darkness comes, you may come to God as my God, exactly as Jesus did, and you may take the psalms of lament and make their words your own. Faithful prayer is not the absence of the cry. It is the cry aimed at God.
Notice what the passage does not let you conclude. The darkness at the sixth hour and the forsaken cry stand in the same account as the Father's settled purpose, so the two are not opposites. Your sense of abandonment is not a reliable measure of God's love for you. That matters, because feelings of being forsaken can feel like verdicts. They are not. Here the Son who is most loved is the one who cries out most sharply. If you are in that place, do not read your anguish as evidence that God has walked away. Read it as the place where Christ has already stood.
Grace is the ground under all of this: you are accepted because he was forsaken, not because your faith feels strong today. That frees you from demanding emotional relief as proof of anything, and it frees you to repent and keep obeying steadily when no relief comes. Christ has entered the darkest place his people can enter, and he entered it praying. So pray in the dark, use the lament psalms, and keep walking. Do not promise yourself that every dark season will end in visible light. Trust the Father whose purpose held even at the cross, and let that trust shape the next ordinary hour.
Biblical fidelity check
Matthew marks the hours by Jewish reckoning, so the darkness runs from noon to mid-afternoon, covering the middle of the day. He states the darkness plainly and leaves it unexplained, though it echoes prophetic language about a dark day of judgment. The cry comes first in its original wording, then translated, and the translation is a question addressed directly to God, not a statement about him. "Forsaken" means left behind, given over. Jesus speaks it to God, which keeps the cry a prayer even at its darkest. The risk here is reading a whole theory of atonement into one sentence.
Evangelical readers agree Jesus truly bore sin and truly cried out as forsaken, but differ on describing it. Some stress the legal exchange, that God treated the sinless one as sin for us. Others stress relational anguish, while remaining cautious about saying the Trinity was divided. Some hear Jesus voicing Psalm 22 on behalf of afflicted saints; others insist the abandonment was actual, not only representative. The text gives no explanation of God's inner life, no statement that the Father stopped loving the Son. What stays central: Jesus was forsaken for sinners, and he still addressed God as my God.
Related studies for Matthew 27:45-46
The cry of Matthew 27:46 opens Psalm 22, and the darkness and mockery around the cross repay closer reading. For further study, see Matthew 1: Genealogy and Birth of Jesus on the psalm Jesus prayed, Matthew 10: Jesus Sends the Twelve with Authority on the darkness at noon, Matthew 12: Lord of the Sabbath and Sign of Jonah on the mockery of Matthew 27:43, and Matthew 13: Parables of the Kingdom on what the cross accomplishes for sinners.
Frequently asked questions
When Jesus cried out that God had forsaken him, did the Father truly abandon him, or was he simply quoting Psalm 22?
The cry was both a real cry of forsakenness and a quotation of Psalm 22, so the quotation does not soften the abandonment into mere recitation. Matthew surrounds the cry with darkness over the land from noon until three, then records Jesus calling out with a loud voice that God had forsaken him. The forsakenness is genuine anguish, not playacting, yet Jesus still addresses God as his God. Matthew does not explain the mystery here; he lets the darkness and the cry stand together.
When Jesus cried out on the cross, was he still trusting God, and what does that mean for my own dark seasons?
Yes, Jesus was still trusting God when he cried out, because he addressed him as "My God, my God" and hurled the question of abandonment straight at him rather than away from him. Matthew sets the cry inside three hours of darkness over the land, so the forsakenness is real, not a pose. The cry quotes the opening of a psalm of lament, which means trust and anguish can share one breath. Your dark seasons may hold the same shape: honest grief spoken to God, not silence before him.
Why does Matthew mention darkness over the land, and what does it add to the cry?
Matthew places the darkness over the land from noon until three so that the cry comes out of it, framing Jesus' words as the climax of the scene. The darkness is reported as fact, not explained, and it answers the mockery in 27:43–44: the deliverance demanded never comes, and the one who trusted God cries out that he is forsaken. Matthew adds no interpretation, letting the darkness and the cry together carry the weight of the moment.
