Psalms 22:13

_THEY GAPED UPON ME WITH THEIR MOUTHS, AS A RAVENING AND A ROARING LION._ A ravening ... lion - i:e., a tearing lion: one tearing his victim in pieces, and "roaring" (note, Psalms 22:1) in exultation over his prey (Amos 3:4)....

11-21 In these verses we have Christ suffering, and Christ praying; by which we are directed to look for crosses, and to look up to God under them. The very manner of Christ's death is described, though not in use among the Jews. They pierced his hands and his feet, which were nailed to the accursed tree, and his whole body was left so to hang as to suffer the most severe pain and torture. His natural force failed, being wasted by the fire of Divine wrath preying upon his spirits. Who then can stand before God's anger? or who knows the power of it? The life of the sinner was forfeited, and the life of the Sacrifice must be the ransom for it. Our Lord Jesus was stripped, when he was crucified, that he might clothe us with the robe of his righteousness. Thus it was written, therefore thus it behoved Christ to suffer. Let all this confirm our faith in him as the true Messiah, and excite ou...

Verse Psalms 22:13. _THEY GAPED UPON ME_] They were fiercely and madly beat on my destruction....

THEY GAPED UPON ME WITH THEIR MOUTHS - Margin, as in Hebrew, “opened their mouths against me.” That is, they opened their mouths wide as if they would devour me, as a lion does when he seizes upon his prey. In Psalms 22:7 they are represented as “opening” the mouth for another purpose - that of derision or scorn; here they are described as if they were fierce and wild beasts ready to fall upon their prey. AS A RAVENING AND ROARING LION - The word “ravening” means “voraciously devouring,” and the allusion in the Hebrew word is to the lion as he tears his prey - טרף _ṭâraph_ - rending it in pieces to devour it. All this is designed to denote the greediness with which the enemies of the Redeemer sought his life....

EXPOSITION THERE is no psalm which has raised so much controversy as this. Admitted to be Messianic by the early Hebrew commentators, it is by some understood wholly of David; by others, applied to the Israelite people, or to the pious part of it; by others again, regarded as an ideal representation of the sufferings of the righteous man, and the effects of them; and by one or two eccentric critics, explained as referring to Hezekiah or Jeremiah. Against the view that David means to describe in the psalm his own dangers, sufferings, and deliverance, it is reasonably urged that David was at no time in the circumstances here described—he was never without a helper (Psalms 22:11); never "despised of the people" (Psalms 22:6); never stripped of his clothes ...

THEY GAPED UPON ME [WITH] THEIR MOUTHS,.... Either by way of derision and contempt, Job 16:10; or belching out blasphemy against him, or rather, with the greatest vehemency, crying out "Crucify him, crucify him", Luke 23:21; and this they did [AS] A RAVENING AND ROARING LION, when it has got its prey and rejoices, Amos 3:4; and being in such hands, and encompassed about with such enemies, as Christ was in the garden, in the high priest's hall, and in Pilate's judgment hall, is a third reason or argument used by him with God his Father, to be near to him and not far from him....

You will not need any comment on this Psalm if, while we read it, you see Christ on the cross, and you think that you hear him uttering these sacred words. This Psalm is dedicated» to the Chief Musician upon Aijeleth Shahar, or, the hind of the morning,» for Jesus brings the morning with him whenever he comes. Psalms 22:1. _MY God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?_ It was not morning with Jesus when he uttered these words; it was midnight, but his midnight is our morning. Psalms 22:1. _Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?_ The prayer had come to be almost inarticulate, like the dying moan of a wounded beast in the forest. Psalms 22:2

Psalms 22 The Sufferings of Christ and the Glory That Follows _ 1. The suffering (Psalms 22:1)_ 2. The glory (Psalms 22:22) Psalms 22:1. In many respects this Psalm is the most remarkable in the entire book and one of the sublimest prophecies in the whole Bible. The sufferings of Christ and the glory that should follow are here wonderfully foretold. The inscription mentions A yeleth Shahar, which means “the hind of the morning.” Jewish tradition identifies this hind with the early morning light, when the day dawns and the rays of the rising sun appear like the horns of the hind. The eminent Hebraist Professor Deli

XXII. This Ps. (p. 372) consists of two parts. In Psalms 22:1 a godly man in deep and manifold distress complains that the God of his fathers, the God who has been with him from the beginning, has deserted him (see p. 372). Psalms 22:22 is a liturgical addition: it expresses the pious Israelite's gratitude for Israel's glory, which is to be acknowledged even by the heathen. No attempt is made to bridge the gulf between the despair of Psalms 22:1 and the confidence of the added verses, which depict Israel's prosperity as already come. PSALMS 22:3. The LXX read, Thou dwellest in the holy place, O thou that art Israel's praise,

The Psalmist pleads for help with intenser earnestness. The virulence of his foes increases. Strength and endurance are exhausted....