the Week of Christ the King / Proper 29 / Ordinary 34
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King James Version
Psalms 22:16
Bible Study Resources
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My enemies surround me like a pack of dogs; an evil gang closes in on me. They have pierced my hands and feet.
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of evil-doers have enclosed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs have compassed me: A company of evil-doers have enclosed me; They surrounded me like a lion [threatening] to tear me to pieces.
Evil people have surrounded me; like dogs they have trapped me. They have bitten my arms and legs.
Yes, wild dogs surround me— a gang of evil men crowd around me; like a lion they pin my hands and feet.
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.
For [a pack of] dogs have surrounded me; A gang of evildoers has encircled me, They pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—
For many doggis cumpassiden me; the counsel of wickid men bisegide me. Thei delueden myn hondis and my feet;
For dogs surround me; a band of evil men encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet.
Brutal enemies attack me like a pack of dogs, tearing at my hands and my feet.
For dogs have compassed me: A company of evil-doers have inclosed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.
Dogs have come round me: I am shut in by the band of evil-doers; they made wounds in my hands and feet.
my mouth is as dry as a fragment of a pot, my tongue sticks to my palate; you lay me down in the dust of death.
For dogs have encompassed me; an assembly of evil-doers have surrounded me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
The "dogs" are all around me— a pack of evil people has trapped me. They have pierced my hands and feet.
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my throat; and Thou layest me in the dust of death.
For dogges haue compassed me: the assembly of the wicked haue inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feete.
For dogs have gathered around me. A group of sinful men stand around me. They have cut through my hands and feet.
For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled;
For dogges haue compassed me, and the assemblie of the wicked haue inclosed me: they perced mine hands and my feete.
For the vicious have surrounded me; the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me; they have pierced my hands and my feet.
An evil gang is around me; like a pack of dogs they close in on me; they tear at my hands and feet.
For dogs have surrounded me, - An assembly of evil doers, have encircled me, They have pierced my hands and my feet,
(21-17) For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet.
Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet--
For dogges are come about me, the assemble of the wicked lay siege agaynst me: they haue pearced my handes and my feete,
For many dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked doers has beset me round: they pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs have surrounded me;a gang of evildoers has closed in on me;they pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.
Because dogs have surrounded me; a gang of evildoers has encircled me. Like the lion they are at my hands and my feet.
and You appoint Me to the dust of death; for dogs have encircled Me; a band of spoilers have hemmed Me in, piercing My hands and My feet.
And to the dust of death thou appointest me, For surrounded me have dogs, A company of evil doers have compassed me, Piercing my hands and my feet.
For dogges are come aboute me, the coucell of ye wicked hath layed sege agaynst me.
Now packs of wild dogs come at me; thugs gang up on me. They pin me down hand and foot, and lock me in a cage—a bag Of bones in a cage, stared at by every passerby. They take my wallet and the shirt off my back, and then throw dice for my clothes.
For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs have surrounded Me;The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me.They pierced [fn] My hands and My feet;
For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.
For dogs have surrounded me;A band of evildoers has encompassed me;They pierced my hands and my feet.
Contextual Overview
Bible Verse Review
from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge
dogs: Psalms 22:1, *title Psalms 22:20, Psalms 59:6, Psalms 59:14, Matthew 7:6, Philippians 3:2, Revelation 22:15
compassed: Luke 11:53, Luke 11:54
assembly: Psalms 86:14, Jeremiah 12:6, Matthew 26:57, Mark 15:16-20, Luke 22:63-71, Luke 23:4, Luke 23:5, Luke 23:10, Luke 23:11, Luke 23:23
they pierced: The textual reading is kaari, "as a lion my hands and feet;" but several manuscripts, read karoo, and others karoo in the margin, which affords the reading adopted by our translators. So the LXX שסץמבם קויסבע לןץ ךבי נןהבע, so also the Vulgate, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic; and as all the Evangelists so quote the passage, and apply it to the crucifixion of Christ, there seems scarcely the shadow of a doubt that this is the genuine reading; especially when it is considered, that the other contains no sense at all. The whole difference lies between ו, wav and י, yood, which might easily be mistaken for each other. Zechariah 12:10, Matthew 27:35, Mark 15:24, Luke 23:33, John 19:23, John 19:37, John 20:25, John 20:27
Reciprocal: Deuteronomy 23:18 - dog 1 Samuel 23:26 - away 2 Kings 8:13 - a dog Job 16:10 - gaped Psalms 18:4 - floods Psalms 27:2 - wicked Psalms 35:15 - the abjects Psalms 49:5 - heels Psalms 54:3 - oppressors Psalms 88:17 - They Psalms 94:21 - gather Psalms 119:150 - draw nigh Psalms 119:157 - Many Psalms 124:2 - when men Habakkuk 1:4 - for Zechariah 13:6 - I was Mark 15:31 - also John 3:14 - even John 12:32 - if John 18:32 - what John 19:18 - General Philippians 2:8 - the death Revelation 1:7 - and they
Cross-References
And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
And Abraham called the name of that place Jehovahjireh: as it is said to this day, In the mount of the Lord it shall be seen.
Which covenant he made with Abraham, and his oath unto Isaac;
I have sworn by myself, the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return, That unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.
For I have sworn by myself, saith the Lord , that Bozrah shall become a desolation, a reproach, a waste, and a curse; and all the cities thereof shall be perpetual wastes.
The Lord of hosts hath sworn by himself, saying, Surely I will fill thee with men, as with caterpillers; and they shall lift up a shout against thee.
The Lord God hath sworn by himself, saith the Lord the God of hosts, I abhor the excellency of Jacob, and hate his palaces: therefore will I deliver up the city with all that is therein.
The oath which he sware to our father Abraham,
Gill's Notes on the Bible
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 often compared in Scripture, Matthew 7:6; and it may be the Roman soldiers, who were Gentiles, may be chiefly intended, whom the Jews used to call dogs, Matthew 15:26; these assembled together in Pilate's hall and surrounded Christ, and made sport with him; to these were committed the execution of him, they crucified him, and sat around him watching him while on the cross, as they also did when in the grave: some have thought the dregs of the Jewish people are designed, the common people, such as Job says he would not set with the dogs of his flock,
Job 30:1; who encompassed Christ on the cross, wagging their heads at him; though I see not but that all of them, even the chief among them, the high priest, sanhedrim, Scribes, and Pharisees, may be intended; who are so called because of their impurity in themselves; for their avarice and covetousness, being greedy dogs that could never have enough; and for their impudence, calumnies, malice, and envy, against Christ: the allusion seems to be to hunting dogs, who, when they have got the creature they have been in pursuit of, surround it and fall upon it. Christ, in the title of this psalm, is called Aijeleth Shahar, "the morning hind", who was hunted by the Jews, and at last surrounded and taken by them;
the assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; the Jewish sanhedrim, the chief priests and elders, who assembled together to consult his death, before whom he was brought when taken; and in, the midst of whom he was set and examined, and by them unanimously condemned; and who, notwithstanding all their pretensions to religion, were a set of wicked men: and also the whole congregation of the Jews, the body of the people, who were united in their request for his crucifixion and death; and who in great numbers got together, and in a circle stood around him when on the cross, insulting him;
they pierced my hands and my feet; by nailing them to the cross, which, though not related by the evangelists, is plainly suggested in
John 20:25; and is referred to in other passages of Scripture,
Zechariah 12:10; and clearly points at the kind of death Christ should die; the death, of the cross, a shameful and painful one. In this clause there is a various reading; in some copies in the margin it is, "as a lion my hands and my feet", but in the text, "they have dug" or "pierced my hands and my feet"; both are joined together in the Targum, "biting as a lion my hands and my feet"; as it is by other interpreters c; and Schultens d retains the latter, rendering the preceding clause in connection with it thus,
"the assembly of the wicked have broken me to pieces, as a lion, my hands and my feet.''
In the Targum, in the king of Spain's Bible, the phrase, "as a lion", is left out. The modern Jews are for retaining the marginal reading, though without any good sense, and are therefore sometimes charged with a wilful and malicious corruption of the text; but without sufficient proof, since the different reading in some copies might be originally occasioned by the similarity of the letters י and ו; and therefore finding it in their copies, or margin, sometimes כארו, and sometimes
כארי, have chose that which best suits their purpose, and is not to be wondered at; however, their "masoretic" notes, continued by them, sufficiently clear them from such an imputation, and direct to the true reading of the words; in the small Masorah on the text it is observed that the word is twice used as here pointed, but in two different senses; this is one of the places; the other is Isaiah 38:13; where the sense requires it should be read "as a lion": wherefore, according to the authors of that note, it must have a different sense here, and not to be understood of a lion; the larger Masorah, in Numbers 24:9; observes the word is to be found in two places, in that place and in Psalms 22:16; and adds to that, it is written כארו, "they pierced"; and Ben Chayim confirms e this reading, and says he found it so written it, some correct copies, and in the margin כארי; and so it is written in several manuscripts; and which is confirmed by the Arabic, Syriac, Ethiopic, Greek, and Vulgate Latin versions; in which it is rendered, "they dug my hands and my feet"; and so took it to be a verb and not a noun: so Apollinarius in his metaphrase; and which is also confirmed by the points; though taking כארי for a participle, as the Targum, that reading may be admitted, as it is by some learned men f, who render it "digging" or "piercing", and so has the same sense, deriving the word either from כאר or כור, which signify to dig, pierce, or make hollow; and there are many instances of plural words which end in י, the מ omitted, being cut off by an apocope; see 2 Samuel 23:8; and either way the words are expressive of the same thing, and manifestly point to the sufferings of Christ, and that kind of death he should die, the death of the cross, and the nailing of his hands and feet to it, whereby they were pierced. This passage is sometimes applied by the Jews g themselves to their Messiah.
c Amamae Antibarb. Bibl. p. 743. d Origin. Heb. l. 1. c. 12. s. 8. Vid. Jacob. Alting. Dissert. Philolog. 5. s. 27-34. e In Maarcath א, fol. 10. 2. ad Calc. Buxtorf. Bibl. f Pocock. Miscell. c. 4. p. 59, 60. Pfeiffer. Exercitat. 8. s. 37. Carpzov. Critic. Sacr. p. 838, 839. Alting. ut supra. (Dissert. Philolog. 5.) s. 48, 49. g Pesikta in Yalkut, par. 2. fol. 56. 4.
Barnes' Notes on the Bible
For dogs have compassed me - Men who resemble dogs; harsh, snarling, fierce, ferocious. See Philippians 3:2, note; and Revelation 22:15, note. No one can doubt that this is applicable to the Redeemer.
The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me - That is, they have surrounded me; they have come around me on all sides so that I might not escape. So they surrounded the Redeemer in the garden of Gethsemane when they arrested him and bound him; so they surrounded him when on his trial before the Sanhedrin and before Pilate; and so they surrounded him on the cross.
They pierced my hands and my feet - This passage is attended with more difficulty than perhaps any other part of the psalm. It is remarkable that it is nowhere quoted or referred to in the New Testament as applicable to the Saviour; and it is no less remarkable that there is no express statement in the actual history of the crucifixion that either the hands or the feet of the Saviour were pierced, or that he was nailed to the cross at all. This was not necessarily implied in the idea of crucifixion, for the hands and the feet were sometimes merely bound to the cross by cords, and the sufferer was allowed to linger on the cross thus suspended until he died from mere exhaustion. There can be no doubt, however, that the common mode of crucifixion was to nail the hands to the transverse beam of the cross, and the feet to the upright part of it. See the description of the crucifixion in the notes at Matthew 27:31-32. Thus, Tertullian, speaking of the sufferings of Christ, and applying this passage to his death, says that “this was the special or proper - ”propria” - severity of the cross.” Adv. Marcionem, iii. 19, ed. Wurtz, I. p. 403. See Hengstenberg’s Christology, 1,139. The great difficulty in this passage is in the word rendered in our version, “they pierced” - כארי kâ'ăriy. It occurs only in one other place, Isaiah 38:13, where it means as a lion. This would undoubtedly be the most natural interpretation of the word here, unless there were good reasons for setting it aside; and not a few have endeavored to show that this is the true rendering. According to this interpretation, the passage would mean, “As lions, they (that is, my enemies) surround (gape upon) my hands and my feet; that is, they threaten to tear my limbs to pieces.” Gesenius, Lexicon. This interpretation is also that of Aben Ezra, Ewald, Paulus, and others. But, whatever may be the true explanation, there are very serious objections to this one.
(a) It is difficult to make sense of the passage if this is adopted. The preceding word, rendered in our version “enclosed,” can mean only “surrounded” or “encompassed,” and it is difficult to see how it could be said that a lion could “surround” or “encompass” “the hands and the feet.” At all events, such an interpretation would be harsh and unusual.
(b) According to this interpretation the word “me” - “enclosed me” - would be superfluous; since the idea would be, “they enclose or surround my hands and my feet.”
(c) All the ancient interpreters have taken the word here to be a verb, and in all the ancient versions it is rendered as if it were a verb.
Even in the Masorah Parva it is said that the word here is to be taken in a different sense from what it has in Isaiah 38:13, where it plainly means a lion. Gesenius admits that all the ancient interpreters have taken this as a verb, and says that it is “certainly possible” that it may be so. He says that it may be regarded as a participle formed in the Aramaic manner (from כוּר kûr), and in the plural number for כארים kâ'ăriym, and says that in this way it would be properly rendered, “piercing, my hands and my feet;” that is, as he says, “my enemies, who are understood in the dogs.” From such high authority, and from the uniform mode of interpreting the word among the ancients, it may be regarded as morally certain that the word is a verb, and that it is not to be rendered, as in Isaiah 38:13, “as a lion.” The material question is, What does the verb mean? The verb - כוּר kûr - properly means “to dig, to bore through, to pierce.”
Thus used, according to Gesenius, it would mean “piercing;” and if the word used here is a verb, he supposes that it would refer to the enemies of David as wounding him, or piercing him, “with darts and weapons.” He maintains that it is applicable to David literally, and he sees no reason to refer it to the Messiah. But, if so, it is natural to ask why “the hands” and “the feet” are mentioned. Certainly it is not usual for darts and spears thrown by an enemy to injure the hands or the feet particularly; nor is it customary to refer to the hands or the feet when describing the effects produced by the use of those weapons. If the reference were to the enemies of David as wounding him with darts and spears, it would be much more natural to refer to the body in general, without specifying any of the particular members of the body. DeWette renders it “fesseln” - “they bind my hands and my feet.”
He remarks, however, in a note, that according to the ancient versions, and the codices of Kennicott and DeRossi, it means durchbohren - bore through. Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome in five codices, says he, render it bind. The Septuagint renders it ὥρυξαν ōruxan - “they pierced.” The Latin Vulgate the same, “foderunt.” See the Syriac. For these reasons it seems to me that the common rendering is the true one, and that the meaning is, that, in some proper sense, the enemies here referred to “pierced or bored through” the hands and the feet of the sufferer. Evidently this could not be literally applied to David, for there is not the least authority for supposing that this ever happened to him; nor, as has been shown, was such a thing probable. A casual dart, or the stroke of a spear, might indeed strike the hand or the foot; but it would be unusual and remarkable if they should strike those members of the body and leave the other parts uninjured, so as to make this a matter for special notice; and even if they did strike those parts, it would be every way unlikely that they would “pierce them, or bore them through.”
Such an event would be so improbable that we may assume that it did not occur, unless there was the most decisive evidence of the fact. Nor is there the least probability that the enemies of David would pierce his hands and feet deliberately and of design. I say nothing in regard to the fact that they never had him in their possession so that they could do it; it is sufficient to say that this was not a mode of punishing one who was taken captive in war. Conquerors killed their captives; they made them pass under yokes; they put them under saws and harrows of iron (compare 2 Samuel 12:31; 1 Chronicles 20:3); but there is not the slightest evidence that they ever tortured captives in war by piercing the hands and the feet. But, as has been remarked above, there is every reason to believe that this was the ordinary mode of crucifixion. I conclude, therefore, that this must have had original reference to the Messiah. It is no objection to the interpretation that this passage is not expressly referred to as having been fulfilled in the Redeemer, for there are undoubtedly many passages in the prophets which refer to the Messiah, which are not formally applied to him in the New Testament. To make it certain that the prophecy referred to him, and was fulfilled in him, it is not necessary that we should find on record an actual application of the passage to him. All that is necessary in the case is, that it should be a prophecy; that it should have been spoken before the event; and that to him it should be fairly applicable.
Clarke's Notes on the Bible
Verse Psalms 22:16. 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.
