A SCHOLAR REFUTES HOW PSALM 22 SUPPOSEDLY PREDICTS JESUS' SUFFERING ON THE CROSS 

From Biblical Errancy Magazine by Dennis McKinsey

Messianic Prophecy (Psalm 22)

Another part of the OT often viewed as a prophetic commentary on Jesus is the 22nd Psalm. But as in the case of Isaiah 7, many aspects thereof refute this thesis:

(a) "my God, my God why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring" (Psalm 22:1). Asserting that comparable statements by Jesus in Matt. 27:46 and Mark 15:34 are prophetic creates problems. First, Jesus would be contradicting Psalm 46:1, which says, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Second, was Jesus praying for salvation of his flesh or of his divinity? If his flesh, then his prayers were unanswered. If his divinity, the divine needs no salvation.

(b) "I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent" (Psalm 22:2). This verse contradicts Isa. 42:2 ("He shall not cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the street"), which is also applied to Jesus. Moreover, the sufferings of the speaker in Psalm 22:2 continued for a time. He cried in vain to God for help by day and night, whereas Jesus cried for a short period.

(c) "But I am a worm (a "maggot" according to Strong's Concordance)..." (Psalm 22:6). Would Jesus call himself a worm or maggot?

(d) "Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help" (Psalm 22:11). This indicates that if there were someone to help, he (Jesus) would gladly agree to be saved, which would have meant his death occurred against his will. How then can Christians say he willed it?

(e) "...my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels" (Psalm 22:14). Why was Jesus afraid, since events were allegedly moving as he desired? Some critics have facetiously contended Jesus again failed as a scientist, since he apparently didn't know there was a diaphram.

(f) "...they pierced my hands and feet" (Psalm 22:16). Nowhere in the gospels does it say the feet of Jesus were pierced or nailed to the cross. According to some authorities, crucified persons did not have their feet nailed to the cross. Moreover, some scholars claim this verse should have been translated, "They cling like a lion to my hands and feet." What group clung to the hands and feet of Jesus? The Jewish (Hebrew) Masoretic text translates the verse as: "Like a lion they are at my hands and feet" (Psalm 22:17).

(g) "They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture" (Psalm 22:18). "Part" and "cast" are present tense verbs that couldn't apply to Jesus. "Vesture" does not always mean clothing of any kind or property. As used here it appears to represent property, which Jesus did not have, according to Matt. 8:20.

(h) "Deliver my soul from the sword;...." (Psalm 22:20). The description of his distress in the prospect of deadly peril, his worry in prayer, and his desire to be delivered from death and saved alive are unsuitable to Christ, who supposedly gave himself up to death freely. In addition, technically speaking, when was Jesus threatened with the sword? He was threatened with cross and crucifixion.

Micah 5, Isaiah 7, and Psalm 22 are only three OT chapters out of scores that are improperly applied to Jesus by apologists. Thomas Paine and Robert Ingersoll analyzed the situation with their usual acuity: "In the following treaties I have examined all the passages in the NT quoted from the Old, and so-called prophecies concerning Jesus Chris, and I find no such thing as a prophecy of any such person, and I deny there are any.... I have given chapter and verse for everything I have said, and have not gone out of the books of the Old and New Testament for evidence that the passages are not prophecies of the person called Jesus Christ" (The Life and Works of Paine, Vol. 9, p. 206). "The practice which the writers of the books (gospels--Ed.) employ is not more false than it is absurd. They state some trifling case of the person they call Jesus Christ, and then cut out a sentence from some passage of the OT and call it a prophecy of that case. But when the words thus cut out are restored to the places they are taken from, and read with words before and after them, they give the lie to the NT" (Ibid. p. 269). "There is no prophecy in the OT foretelling the coming of Jesus Christ. There is not one word in the OT referring to him in any way--not one word. The only way to prove this is to take your Bible, and whenever you find the words: 'That it might be fulfilled' and 'which was spoken' turn to the OT and find what was written, and you will see that it had not the slightest possible reference to the thing recounted in the NT--not the slightest" (Ingersoll's Works, Vol. 5, p. 277). Many additional examples of the misapplication of OT verses to Jesus will be discussed in future issues of BE.

MY COMMENT: A lion when attacking you will go at your hands and feet for you will be hitting and kicking at it.  Jesus is not even imagined in this text.



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