Psalms 22:16 - Exposition

For dogs have compassed me. "Dogs" now encompass the Sufferer, perhaps the subordinate agents in the cruelties—the rude Roman soldiery, who laid rough hands on the adorable Person ( Matthew 27:27-35 ). Oriental dogs are savage and of unclean habits, whence the term "dog" in the East has always been, and still is, a term of reproach. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me ; or, a band of wicked ones have shut me in. The "band" of Roman soldiers ( Mark 15:16 ) seems foreshadowed. They pierced my hands and my feet. There are no sufficient critical grounds for relinquishing (with Hengstenberg) this interpretation. It has the support of the Septuagint, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate Versions, and is maintained by Ewald, Reinke, Bohl, Moll, Kay, the writer in the 'Speaker's Commentary,' and our Revisers. Whether the true reading be kaaru ( כָאְרַוּ ) or kaari ( כָאֲרִי ), the sense will be the same, kaari being the apocopated participle of the verb, whereof kaaru is the 3rd pers. plu. indic.