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Psalm 22:14
Descriptions of Roman crucifixion bear this out, and Christ's execution was no exception, apart from its brevity. Jesus was utterly exhausted, not just from lack of sleep, but also from the scourgings and beatings He had received (see Matthew 26:67; 27:26, 30; Luke 23:11). Having no strength to carry His cross, as was customary, another man, Simon of Cyrene, was compelled to do it for Him (Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26).
In addition, crucifixion often pulled its victims' bones out of joint, either from the jarring jolt of the stake plunging into its rocky posthole or from the full weight of the sagging body hanging from the cruelly driven nails in the hands and feet (or often in the wrists and ankles). That His heart was like melted wax, explains the Keil and Delitzsch Commentary, "recalls His burning anguish, the inflammation of the wounds, and the pressure of blood on the head and heart, the characteristic cause of death by crucifixion." Jesus, however, died, not of a broken or failed heart, but by exsanguination, that is, He bled to death, "as a lamb led to the slaughter . . . He poured out His soul unto death" (Isaiah 53:7, 12).
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
David the ProphetRelated Topics: Crucifixion | Crucifixion of Jesus Christ | David as Prophet | David the Prophet | David's Prophecies of Christ's Crucifixion | Exsanguination | Jesus Bled to Death | Jesus Christ as Lamb of God | Jesus Christ as Sacrificial Lamb
Psalm 22:14-15
This is a prophecy of Christ is hanging on the stake. Remember that He asked for water (John 19:28)?
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Christ's Death, Resurrection, and AscensionRelated Topics: Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Death | Poured out like water | Prophecies of Jesus Christ | Prophecies of Jesus Christ's Death
Psalm 22:1-31
Perhaps the easiest way to see David as a prophet is to survey one of his most clearly prophetic psalms, Psalm 22. Anyone familiar with the scourging and crucifixion of Jesus Christ can see the obvious parallels, and the writers of the gospel accounts—especially Matthew—bring them out through direct quotations of this psalm. Henry Halley, author of Halley's Bible Handbook, writes of this psalm, "[T]hough written a thousand years before Jesus, it is so vivid a description of the crucifixion of Jesus that one would think of the writer as being personally present at the Cross" (p. 254).
No one knows what event of David's life, if any, provides the background to his plaintive song, but it must have been the nadir of his sufferings, the most likely guess being sometime during Saul's pursuit of him. However, even if it is based on David's experience of persecution, Psalm 22 is so specific and detailed in its descriptions of Christ's crucifixion that it can in reality only be a divinely inspired prophecy of the execution of the Son of God—a full millennium before the events took place in Roman Jerusalem.
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
David the ProphetRelated Topics: Crucifixion of Jesus Christ | David as Greatest of Old Testament Prophets | David as Prophet | David's Plaintive Songs | David's Prophecies of Christ's Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Prophecies of Christ's Suffering | Prophecies of Jesus Christ | Prophecies of Jesus Christ's Death | Prophetic Psalms | Psalm 22
Psalm 22:14-15
Christ was ground in body and spirit. In this case, He was bruised so badly He was barely recognizable as a man (Isaiah 52:14) and was so sapped of strength that He could not bear His cross of crucifixion alone. Another was compelled to bear it for Him because Jesus was already figuratively ground and ready to be put on the altar.
The lesson for us is that service to our fellow man is self-surrender and self-sacrifice. The nearer our service approaches His degree of self-sacrificing service the more we will resemble what happened to Him. We, too, will find ourselves bruised.
John W. Ritenbaugh
The Offerings of Leviticus (Part Three): The Meal OfferingRelated Topics: Jesus Christ's Agony | Jesus Christ's Crucifixion | Jesus Christ's Death | Jesus Christ's Death as Voluntary | Sacrifice of Christ | Sacrifice of the Self | Self Sacrifice | Self Surrender | Service
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