I do not know if Psalm 24 has a setting in any event we know of from the Old Testament. But if there is an historical setting, I suppose it is the occasion on which David brought the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem from its temporary resting place in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite (2 Sam. 6). In symbolism, the God of Israel was understood to dwell between the outstretched wings of the two cherubim mounted on the lid of the Ark. So when the Ark was brought to Jerusalem for the first time, it would have been appropriate to have composed a hymn such as Psalm 24 for the occasion. The title of Psalm 24 identifies it as a psalm “Of David.” So David may have composed it himself for the ceremony.
But if Jesus has done what is needed for our salvation, and that our good works do not in any way contribute to it, someone might ask, "What, then, is left for us to do?” Nothing, except to believe in God's word and trust Jesus. Jesus himself said this. When some of the Galileans asked him on the occasion of his multiplication of the loaves and fish, “What must we do to do the works God requires?" Jesus replied, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent” (John 6:28, 29).
The last verse of the psalm contains the words "he has done it" or, as Jesus seems to have understood the sentence in his quotation of these words from the cross, "it is finished" (John 19:30). In Psalm 22 the words are linked to the proclamation of "his [that is, God's] righteousness to a people yet unborn," so we know they concern the gospel. What is finished is the atonement by which the righteous demands of God for sin's punishment have been fully satisfied and the righteousness of God is now freely offered to all who will believe on Jesus.
The second half of Psalm 22 is a throbbing, soaring anticipation of the expanding proclamation of the gospel and of the growing church. It is represented in three phases.
But it is not only by a process of reasoning that we must identify Psalm 22 as a prophecy of Jesus' death and resurrection. As we study the New Testament, we also find that this is its explicit teaching.
