Psalms 22:16

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. In Egypt, and the East generally, dogs usually go at large. Having no master to care for them, hunger

makes them ferocious. Their physiognomy is ignoble, and their appearance haggard and disgusting. They were always the synonyme of vileness, contention, and uncleanness. 1Sa 24:14 ; 2 Samuel 9:8; Philippians 3:2; Revelation 22:15.

They pierced my hands and my feet Few passages of Scripture have been more sharply contested. Standing as it does in our English version, it is a wonderful prediction of the manner of Christ’s death. The difficulty lies in the word rendered pierced. On the one hand, כארי , ( kaaree,) which is the form of the word in the common Hebrew text, has been taken as two words, כ , the particle of comparison, ( as, like, or taking Quamets as indicating the article, as the,) and ארי , ( a lion,) which would read: “The congregation of the wicked have enclosed me; as a lion, (or, as the lion,) my hands and my feet;” or, as Hengstenberg: “They beset me, lionlike, on my hands and my feet.” But, though this would seem a natural and easy way to dispose of the grammatical difficulty, and has four examples where the same form occurs, (namely: Numbers 23:24; Numbers 24:9; Isaiah 38:13; Ezekiel 22:25,) yet it involves grave difficulty as to the sense. In the four other cases mentioned the allusion to the lion is perfectly clear, and the sense easy and natural, but in this it completely destroys the sense, leaving the metaphor unexplained, or, rather, contradicted. Dr. Alexander, who adheres to the Messianic application of the passage, suggests an ellipsis, and the reading: “Like a lion [they have wounded] my hands and my feet.”

Professor Stuart, also, by bringing forward from the preceding line the verb הקיפוני , (translated “enclosed me,”) and giving its radical sense to strike, stab, pierce, cut, proposes the rendering: “As a lion [they pierce] my hands and my feet.” But this is not satisfactory. If the reference be to the habit of the lion in attacking his prey, it is not according to fact; if to cutting and tearing his prey, why specify hands and feet, and not rather, as Psalms 7:2: “Lest he tear my soul (that is, tear me) like a lion, rending it in pieces;” or, Isaiah 38:13: “As a lion, so will he break all my bones.” This is lionlike; but, on the hypothesis now under consideration, the allusion to the lion is simply unnatural and absurd. The lion does not seize the hands and feet, but springs upon the victim. It must be further considered that ידי ורגלי , ( my hands and my feet,) are in the accusative, and hence the limbs are not mentioned incidentally, but as the objective point of attack, which still more forcibly shows the unnaturalness of the metaphor as an allusion to the habits of the lion. The language is clearly unique, and the difficulty of explaining it according to the well known habits of the lion is so formidable that the Jews themselves, according to the little Masora, held that כארי ( kaaree) in the two passages (Psalms 22:16, and Isaiah 38:13) is in two different meanings. Evidently, here the prophet outsteps the limit of type and history, and, as in the case of the “Priest-King,” (Psalms 110:4,) ascends to the height of absolute revelation concerning Messiah.

Two other interpretations of the passage in question have obtained. First, כארי has been taken as an irregular form of the plural participle of the root כור , in the sense of כרה , to dig, pierce through, bore, by dropping ם , the regular plural termination, and inserting א . The anomaly, though of extreme rarity, is admissible by the best authority. They then read, “Piercing my hands and my feet:” or, considering the participle as a noun in regimen, “Piercers of my hands and my feet.”

But, secondly, instead of a participle the ancient versions read it as a verb, כארו , ( kaaroo,) which simply changes the yod ( י ) into vauv, ( ו ,) with corresponding vowel points. Thus the Septuagint, they pierced; Vulgate, they pierced, stabbed; Jerome, they fastened; Syriac, they penetrated, perforated. Manuscripts, also, of unquestioned authority have the same. Kennicott mentions four Hebrew manuscripts having כארו in the text and כארי in the margin. It is evident that the Septuagint followed manuscripts which read “ they pierced,” the same as our English version. The lexical and grammatical difficulties which beset the present reading of the text would seem to dictate the necessity of correcting, and taking the word as a verb. But, whether as an irregular participle, or by correcting the text as a verb, the sense will be the same though, as Tregelles remarks, “the latter is preferable.” It is notable that the most natural evidences of crucifixion were laid in the wounded “hands and feet” by the Saviour himself, (Luke 24:39;) “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself.”

The passage in question is not directly quoted in the New Testament, but allusions which belong to the crucifixion occur both in the Old and New Testaments. Isaiah 53:5: “He was pierced [ מהולל from חלל , bore through, perforate, pierce ] for our transgressions.” Zechariah 12:10: “They shall look on me whom they have pierced,” ( דקרו ,) quoted John 19:37; Revelation 1:7