1.10. Appendix Note 3

NOTE 3

Psalms 22:1-31 Are Christians right in interpreting this psalm as a prediction of Christ? to which I venture to reply that, beside New Testament authority for doing so (Matthew 27:46; John 19:24; Hebrews 2:12), it is the only interpretation which accords with common sense. In substance, the contents of this psalm are the same as in that other remarkable prediction (Isaiah 52:13-15, Isaiah 53:1-12) delivered by Isaiah some three hundred years later. In both cases we have the perfectly innocent suffering. Isaiah tells distinctly, “He had done no violence, nor was deceit found in His mouth;” and in this psalm, the only charge laid against Him is, “He trusted in the Lord.” In both cases also the sufferings of this innocent One bring salvation to others—the guilty. Isaiah says, “By His sufferings shall the many be made righteous;” and here in our psalm the remembrance of them will cause the ends of the earth to turn unto the Lord, and the hearts of those who seek Him to live. As in Isaiah 53, so also here, the Sufferer is brought to “the dust of death,” but subsequent to it (which surely implies that He must rise from the dead), He attains to high honour and glory, and has a numerous “seed,”¹ or followers, “who serve Him.” All this can only apply to Christ.

¹ See latter part of chapter on Isaiah 53. The most plausible interpretation of this psalm offered by our opponents is that it refers “to the whole congregation of Israel” (Rashi); but this cannot be, for the following reasons:—

1. The subject is despised by the people (Psalms 22:6); עָֽם, “people,” is used here in opposition to אָדָם, “mankind,” and must mean Israel; and as the despised and despisers are generally not the same, the subject of this psalm cannot be the Jewish nation.

2. Psalms 22:10 and Psalms 22:11, and the minuteness of detail concerning this subject throughout the Psalm, extending even to his garment and vesture, can only refer to an individual.

3. Psalms 22:22 reads, “I will declare Thy Name unto my brethren in the midst of the congregation;” Psalms 22:25, “Of Thee is my praise in the great congregation.” The subject of this psalm cannot, therefore, be the congregation itself.

4. The subject of this psalm is not only a sufferer, but his sufferings end in death, the very manner of which is described. He was not only to be brought to “the dust of death,” but he was to be brought so by having his hands and feet pierced, which well describes crucifixion. Now this is certainly not true of the Jewish nation, as I have shown in my remarks on Isaiah 53.

5. On account of the subject of this psalm, the ends of the earth are to turn unto the Lord; and this, as I have already shown, was only to be brought about by the Messiah, Whom the peoples or nations should obey.

Jesus of Nazareth is the only individual in the history of the Jewish nation in Whom all these characteristics are to be found.

Modern Jews, in order to get rid of this remarkable prediction of a crucified Messiah, which is not exactly according to their taste, attempt to translate Psalms 22:16, וְרַגְלָֽי יָדַ֥י כָּ֝אֲרִׄי “As a lion my hands and my feet,” instead of “They pierced my hands and my feet,” which is the rendering, not only in the English versions, but of the Septuagint (a translation made by Jews long before its alleged fulfilment), also the Vulgate and Syriac; or, instead of another rendering on the authority of Gesenius and others, who make כָּ֝אֲרִׄי a participle either from כּוּר or כָּרָה, to dig, to pierce, which would make the whole verse read thus, “The assembly of evil-doers surrounded me, digging or piercing my hands and my feet.” Our reply is that supposing the word כָּ֝אֲרִׄי, as here punctuated, could by effort be made to signify, “as a lion,” this could not be its signification here, for the simple reason that it would give a senseless reading to the whole passage, and would not be in harmony with the context. The word, according to this rendering, would be either in the nominative or accusative. One would read, “The assembly of the wicked doers like a lion have surrounded me, my hands and my feet;” and the other, “The assembly of wicked doers have surrounded me like a lion, my hands and my feet.” The figure employed in both would be equally absurd, for what could be meant by a lion surrounding a man, or an assembly surrounding a man’s hands and feet? But we have proof that the ancient Jews did not favour the rendering of כָּ֝אֲרִׄי in this passage, “as a lion;” for the little Massora says that “the word כָּ֝אֲרִׄי, occurs twice in the Bible with Kametz under the כּ in different senses.”² As the only other place where it occurs is Isaiah 38:13, and there it must mean, “as a lion,” it must therefore have another meaning in our passage, and this on the authority of the Jewish Massora.

² On this point see Delitzsch’s Commentary on the Psalms, English translation, vol. 1. p. 317.