Psalms 22:16

For dogs have compassed me,.... By whom are meant wicked men, as the following clause shows; and so the Chaldee paraphrase renders it, "the wicked who are like to many dogs"; and to these such are

For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet. Dogs have compassed me.

He calls his enemies dogs for their vileness and filthiness, for their insatiable greediness and implacable fury and fierceness against him. He explains what he means by dogs, even wicked men, who are oft so called, not some few of them singly, but the whole company or congregation of them; whereby may be noted either their great numbers, or their consulting and conspiring together, as it were, in a lawful assembly; which was most literally and eminently fulfilled in Christ. They pierced my hands and my feet: these words cannot with any probability be applied to David, nor to the attempts of his enemies upon him; for their design was not to torment his hands or feet, but to take away his life. And if it be pretended that it is to be understood of him in a metaphorical sense, it must be considered, that it is so uncouth and unusual a metaphor, that those who are of this mind cannot produce any one example of this metaphor, either in Scripture or in other authors; nor are they able to make any tolerable sense of it, but are forced to wrest and strain the words. But what need is there of such forced metaphors, when this was most properly and literally verified in Christ, whose hands and feet were really pierced and nailed to the cross, according to the manner of the Roman crucifixions, to whom therefore this is applied in the New Testament. See ,23,37.

Psalms 22:16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.Ver. 16. For dogs have compassed me] That is, men of mean rank; opposed to bulls and lions, i.e. great ones, and interpreted in the next words, the assembly of the wicked, the rude rabble, and of rancorous disposition, Job 30:1 Proverbs 26:11 Matthew 7:6 Philippians 3:2 Psalms 59:7; Psalms 59:15. A.D. 1556, at Wessensten, in Germany, a Jew for theft was in this cruel manner to be executed. He was hanged by the feet with his head downward, between two dogs, which constantly snatched and bit at him (Melch. Adam in Vit. Jac. And.). They pierced my hands and my feet] sc. When they nailed Christ to the cross, Matthew 27:35 John 20:25. Where let me similate, saith a learned man, the orator’ s gradation, Facinus vincire civem Romanum, &c. It was much for the Son of God to be bound, more to be beaten, most of all to be slain; Quid dicam in crucem tolli? but what shall I say to this, that he was crucified? that was the most vile and ignominious of all punishments; it was also a cruel and cursed kind of death; which yet he refused not: and here we have a clear testimony for his cross, which the devil would fain wring from us by his agents, the Jews, with their Keri and Chetib. See Galatin. l. 8, c. 17; l. 1, c. 8; Mercer in Job 7:20.

(16) Dogs.—Literally, barkers. (For the wild scavenger dogs of the East, comp. 1 Kings 12:19, &c) Symmachus and Theodotion render, “hunting dogs.” The assembly of the wicked denotes the factious nature of the attacks on the sufferer. His enemies have combined, as savage animals, to hunt in packs. Comp. Virgil, Æn. ii. 351:— ——“lupi ceu Raptores atra in nebula.” They pierced.—The word thus rendered has formed a battle-ground for controversy. As the Hebrew text at present stands the word reads kâarî (like a lion). (Comp. Isaiah 38:13.) But no intelligible meaning can be got out of “like a lion my hands and my feet.” Nor does the plan commend itself of dividing the verses differently, and reading, “The congregation of wicked men have gathered round me like a lion. On my hands and my feet I can tell all my bones.” The punctuation of the text must therefore be given up, and a meaning sought by changing the reading. The necessity of a change is supported both by the ancient versions and by some MSS., and also by the Masora; though considerable difference exists as to what the word should be read. If the authority of the ancient versions alone were to decide, some verb in the past tense must be read, but the most reasonable course is to accept the present text, but with a different vowel, treating it as a participle, with suffix, of kûr, whose root-idea, according to Ewald, is “to bind;” but according to most other scholars is “to dig.” It is, however, so doubtful whether it can mean to dig through—i.e., to pierce—that it is better to understand here a binding of the limbs so tightly as to dig into them, and wound them. Render: “The band of villains [literally, breakers] surrounded me, binding my hands and feet so as to cut them.”

Verse 16. For dogs have compassed me] This may refer to the Gentiles, the Roman soldiers, and others by whom our Lord was surrounded in his trial, and at his cross. They pierced my hands and my feet] The other sufferings David, as a type of our Lord, might pass through; but the piercing of the hands and feet was peculiar to our Lord; therefore, this verse may pass for a direct revelation. Our Lord's hands and feet were pierced when he was nailed to the cross, David's never were pierced. But there is a various reading here which is of great importance. Instead of כארו caaru, they pierced, which is what is called the kethib, or marginal reading, and which our translators have followed; the keri or textual reading is כארי caari, as a lion. In support of each reading there are both MSS. and eminent critics. The Chaldee has, "Biting as a lion my hands and my feet;" but the Syriac, Vulgate, Septuagint, AEthiopic, and Arabic read, "they pierced or digged;" and in the Anglo-Saxon the words are, [Anglo-Saxon]: "They dalve (digged) hands mine, and feet mine." The Complutensian Polyglot has כארו caaru, they digged or pierced, in the text; for which it gives כרה carah, to cut, dig, or penetrate, in the margin, as the root whence כארו is derived. But the Polyglots of Potken, Antwerp, Paris, and London, have כארי caari in the text; and כארו caaru is referred to in the margin; and this is the case with the most correct Hebrew Bibles. The whole difference here lies between yod and vau, which might easily be mistaken for each other; the former making like a lion; the latter, they pierced. The latter is to me most evidently the true reading.

16. A fresh description of his foes. An unclean, cowardly, worrying rabble, like the troops of hungry and half-savage dogs with which every oriental city and village still abounds (Tristram, Nat. Hist. p. 79), come thronging round him: a gang of miscreants have hemmed him in. They pierced my hands and my feet] The figure of the savage dogs is still continued. They fly at his feet and hands, and maim them. The A.V. here rightly deserts the Massoretic text in favour of the reading represented by the LXX, Vulg., and Syr., which have, they dug, or, pierced. Another group of ancient Versions (Aq. Symm. Jer.) gives they bound. (Fixerunt in some editions of Jerome is a corruption for the true reading vinxerunt.) The Massoretic text has, like a lion my hands and my feet. A verb did they mangle must be supplied, but the construction is harsh and the sense unsatisfactory. It seems certain that a somewhat rare verb form λΰψε (kβ’γrϋ), ‘they pierced,’ has been corrupted into the similar word λΰψι (kβ’γrξ), ‘like a lion.’ The Targum perhaps preserves a trace of the transition in its conflate rendering, biting like a lion. The literal fulfilment in the Crucifixion is obvious. But it is nowhere referred to in the N.T.

For dogs have compassed me - Men who resemble dogs; harsh, snarling, fierce, ferocious. See Phi 3:2, note; and Revelation 22:15, note. No one can doubt that this is applicable to the Redeemer.

16. Dogs—Called “assembly of the wicked” in next line, the only bitter comparison in the psalm. The wild dogs of the East are meant, a figure at once of impurity, baseness, and cruelty.