That there are difficulties of interpretation or readings in Hebrew, no one doubts. Christianity is in no way concerned in this phrase. It is not quoted in the New Testament. The reason for reading it as it is in the English translation is, that the ancient Jews insist it is so in the old Hebrew. It is no question of rationalism. The most high-church orthodox writers take it as meaning “a lion.” The form is peculiar. There is the same in Isaiah, where it is translated, “as a lion;” but the ancient Jewish writers insist that it is not to be read so here. The LXX (a century and a half, say, before our Lord) translates it, “they pierced my hands and my feet; so the Vulgate; so the Syriac in Walton; Montanus, De Wette, Hengstenberg, and many, “as a lion.” Of the ancients, the Chaldee Targum only has, “as a lion;” and, according to De Rossi-the best authority is of small authority, and founded on bad manuscripts. He insists on the manuscripts of the very learned critic of the Jews, Ben Chaiim, and the Masora, that “they pierced” is right; Rosenmuller prefers, “they bound.” It is a question of reading. Cahari is, “as a lion;” most probably, though not certainly, caharu is, “they pierced;” and the difference in Hebrew is very slight: éøàë, åøàë, Caharu is, “they bound.” Now, as all the ancient translations give, “they pierced,” the Masora confirms, and one of the most critical Jewish doctors approves, pleading his own good Jewish manuscripts. The use of the text by the fathers may have induced the Jews to tamper with the text by a change hardly perceptible; and as the pointing is uncertain, there is nothing so sure in the matter. I avow that I am disposed to think “pierced” is right.
What is the meaning of “the assembly of the wicked surrounded me, as a lion my hands and my feet"? I do not see much sense in it. What is most against “pierced,” though it proves nothing, is, that it is never referred to in the New Testament, whereas other parts of the Psalms are. However, my own conviction is that “they pierced” is right. The difficulties and labor of those who take “as a lion” as the true reading, to make any sense of it, show that it is no natural reading. Its place in the psalm makes it inappropriate. It is not “the strength of bulls and lions” that is here spoken of—that is an earlier stage of the speaker's sorrow—but the “shamelessness of dogs.” It is an interpretation of what is ascribed to the dogs. They “compass” him—so the wicked: then to jump to a lion, who does not compass people at all, is out of place. Next, how “compass his hands and feet?” What does that mean? We have had the lion, but then it was only “gaping with the mouth,” and in place; here he is going on with personal details. All tends, I think, to show the ancient interpreters were right, had they cahari for caharee, or caharu. Venema reads “as a lion,” but connects “my hands and my feet” with, “I can count” —an additional proof of the difficulties of those who reject the ancient versions. That it is the most ancient Hebrew reading is anything but proved; that it is the common modern one is true. The versions have so far more authority in the Old Testament, that no Hebrew manuscript is so old by many centuries as the oldest of the New. In any case, though the apostles have quoted the psalm as a prophecy of Christ, the rationalist is sure they are wrong. “The staring monsters are intended by whom Israel is surrounded and torn.”
Only read the psalm through— “the declaring God's name to his brethren,” and “in the midst of the church will I praise thee;” compare this with John 20, and you will see how impossible it is to apply it to Israel. But the greatness of the scope of divine thought, the moment Christ and redemption are the center, these men seem incapable of. I will give you a little sketch of the Psalms preceding chapter 22, which will lead us to see how specially it applies to Messiah. That the whole book of Psalms is in methodical order I cannot doubt, though we cannot enter on it now. Psa. 1 gives the righteous Jew, the remnant, contrasted with the wicked; Psa. 2, Christ as King in Zion, according to the decree of God, and owned Son; the nations and rulers raging against Him, but warned; then, Christ being rejected of men, the righteous are in trial, instead of the government of God securing their present blessing, as in Psa. 1. But in Psa. 8 Christ has a wider character than in Psa. 2 He is Son of man, not Son of David, and all things are put under Him, and Jehovah's name is excellent in all the earth. Thus the ways of God with earth are shown. Psa. 9; 10 enter into the details of Israel's condition in the land in the last days, and their deliverance. Psa. 11-15 go through this, and the feelings it produces, in various ways; hence they become a comfort in any trial. In Psa. 16 Christ first takes, in the most exquisite and deeply instructive way, His place among the excellent of the earth; shows the path of life through death; and as His trust was in Jehovah, Jehovah's presence was His joy as man. Psa. 17 treats the subject not of confidence, but of righteousness; and here we get glory, and what I may call reward, more than joy.
Psa. 18, I have no doubt, looks at the suffering of Christ as the center of all God's ways, from Egypt to Messiah's kingdom. I now come to the psalms I had immediately in mind. In Psa. 19 we have two testimonies of God—the creation (the heavens) and the law. In Psa. 20 the true and faithful Witness is prophetically viewed as rejected by men, and in sorrows. In Psa. 21, which directly answers to it, having cried for life, He is exalted as man to everlasting glory, and His hand finds out His enemies. This was outward government and dealing. He had suffered from man imagining devices against Him; and when they took the character of enemies, they were judged. But (Psa. 22) Christ did not suffer from man only—bulls did close Him in; heartless, shameless, dogs then surrounded Him, and He looked, not only to man to have compassion on Him, and there was none, not one that could watch one hour; He looked to God, and was forsaken there. But suffering from God was avenging, not to be avenged; hence, when this is passed, all is grace, widening out in blessing. He declares His name to His brethren, as He did in John 20, there first distinctly calling them brethren, and leads the praises of the church He has gathered; He then brings in Israel; then all the ends of the world remember themselves, and turn to Jehovah; and then the seed born in this time of blessing learn the great truth, to chant it with others, that He hath done this.
It is evident to me there is progress in the bulls and the dogs: the first refers to mere violence, leading Him to the cross; the other, to men's conduct when He was there. But the witness of creation, law, and Messiah, rejected of men, and He glorified and judging; and then His being forsaken of God—the result of which was not judgment (for it was bearing it), but grace, unmingled grace—makes the true import of the psalm most clear. Could we dwell upon it, and study the grace of Christ in it, the place He gives us in it—what the declaring the Father's name was (see John 20), and the full import of this consequent on redemption, and the place He then takes in our midst, when redemption is accomplished, to lead our praises as being in, and having placed us in, the same perfect joy—it would show the extraordinary beauty of this psalm as applied to Christ. We may take the words of His lips upon the cross to show us He was not a stranger to it. Now, I can only use the series as marking the place Christ has in it, when God, after all, did not despise nor abhor the affliction of the afflicted, and when atonement was made for sin.