Providence. I had no father upon earth, and my mother was poor and
helpless.—_Matthew Poole._
_Verse 11.—“Be not far from me; for trouble is near;”_ and so it is high
time for thee to put forth a helping hand. _Hominibus profanis mirabilis
videtur hæc ratio_, to profane persons, this seemeth to be a strange
reason, saith an interpreter; but it is a very good one, as this prophet
knew, who therefore makes it his plea.—_John Trapp._
_Verse 12.—“Strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.”_ These animals
are remarkable for the proud, fierce, and sullen manner in which they
exercise their great strength. Such were the persecutors who now beset
our Lord. These were first, human, and secondly, spiritual foes; and
both were alike distinguished by the proud, fierce, and sullen manner in
which they assaulted him.—_John Stevenson._
_Verses 12, 13._—“Bashan” was a fertile country (Numb. xxxii. 4), and
the cattle there fed were fat and “strong.” Deut. xxxii. 14. Like them,
the Jews in that good land “waxed fat and kicked,” grew proud and
rebelled; forsook God “that made them, and lightly esteemed the rock of
their salvation.”—_George Horne._
_Verse 13._—A helpless infant, or a harmless lamb, surrounded by furious
bulls and hungry lions, aptly represented the Saviour encompassed by his
insulting and bloody persecutors.—_Thomas Scott, 1747-1881._
_Verse 14.—“I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of
joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.”_
He was faint. _Such_ a feeling of languor and faintness supervened that
language fails to express it, and the emblem of “water poured out” is
employed to represent it. As the water falls from the vessel to the
earth, see how its particles separate farther and farther from each
other. Its velocity increases as it falls. It has no power to stay
itself midway, much less to return to its place. It is the very picture
of utter weakness. So did our Lord feel himself to be when hanging on
the cross. He was faint with weakness. The sensations experienced when
about to faint away are very overpowering. We appear to our own
consciousness to be nothing but weakness, as water poured out. All our
bones feel relaxed and out of joint; we seem as though we had none. The
strength of bone is gone, the knitting of the joints is loosened, and
the muscular vigour fled. A sickly giddiness overcomes us. We have no
power to bear up. All heart is lost. Our strength disappears like that
of wax, of melting wax, which drops upon surrounding objects, and is
lost. Daniel thus describes his sensations on beholding the great
vision, “There remained no strength in me: for my vigour was turned into
corruption, and I retained no strength.” Dan. x. 8. In regard, however,
to the faintness which our Lord experienced, we ought to notice this
additional and remarkable circumstance, that he did not altogether faint
away. The relief of insensibility he refused to take. When consciousness
ceases, all perception of pain is necessarily and instantly terminated.
But our Lord retained his full consciousness throughout this awful
scene; and patiently endured for a considerable period, those, to us,
insupportable sensations which precede the actual swoon.—_John
Stevenson._
_Verse 14.—“I am poured out like water:”_ that is, in the thought of my
enemies I am utterly destroyed. “For we must needs die, and are as water
spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again.” 2 Sam. xiv. 14.
“What marvel,” asks St. Bernard, “that the name of the Bridegroom should
be as ointment poured forth, when he himself, for the greatness of his
love, was poured forth like water!”—_J. M. Neale._
_Verse 14.—“I am poured out like water,”_ _i.e._, I am almost past all
recovery, as water spilt upon the ground.—_John Trapp._
_Verse 14.—“All my bones are out of joint.”_ The _rack_ is devised as a
most exquisite pain, even for terror. And the _cross_ is a _rack_,
whereon he was stretched till, saith the Psalm, “_all his bones were out
of joint_.” But even to _stand_, as he _hung_, three long hours
together, holding up but the arms at length, I have heard it avowed of
some that have felt it, to be a pain scarce credible. But the hands and
the feet being so cruelly _nailed_ (part, of all other, most sensible,
by reason of the texture of sinews there in them most) it could not but
make his pain out of measure painful. It was not for nothing, that
_dolores acerrimi dicuntur cruciatus_ (saith the heathen man), that the
most sharp and bitter pains of all other have their name from hence, and
are called _cruciatus_—pains like those of the _cross_. It had a
meaning, that _they gave him_, that he had (for his _welcome_ to the
cross) a cup mixed with gall or myrrh; and (for his _farewell_) _a
sponge of vinegar_; to show by the one the _bitterness_, and by the
other the _sharpness_ of the pains of this painful death.—_Lancelot
Andrewes._
_Verse 14.—“All my bones are out of joint.”_ We know that the greatest
and most intolerable pain that the body can endure, is that arising from
a bone out of its place, or dislocated joint. Now when the Lord was
raised up upon the cross, and his sacred body hung in the air from the
nails, all the joints began to give, so that the bones were parted the
one from the other so visibly that, in very truth (as David had
prophesied) _they might tell all his bones_, and thus, throughout his
whole body, he endured acute torture. Whilst our Lord suffered these
torments, his enemies, who had so earnestly desired to see him
crucified, far from pitying him, were filled with delight, as though
celebrating a victory.—_Fra Thomè de Jesu._
_Verse 15.—“My strength is dried up,”_ etc. Inflammation must have
commenced early and violently in the wounded parts—then been quickly
imparted to those that were strained, and have terminated in a _high
degree of feverish burning over the whole body_. The animal juices would
be thus dried up, and the watery particles of the blood absorbed. The
skin parched by the scorching sun till midday would be unable to supply
or to imbibe any moisture. The loss of blood at the hands and feet would
hasten the desiccation. Hence our Lord says, “My strength is dried up
like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws.” The fever would
devour his small remaining strength. And THIRST, that most intolerable
of all bodily privations, must have been overpowering. His body appeared
to his feeling like a potsherd that had been charred in the potter’s
kiln. It seemed to have neither strength nor substance left in it. So
feeble had he become, so parched and dried up that CLAMMINESS OF THE
MOUTH, one of the forerunners of immediate dissolution, had already
seized him; “My tongue cleaveth to my jaws, and thou hast brought me
into the dust of death.”—_John Stevenson._
_Verse 15.—“My strength is dried up;”_ not as in the trial of gold and
silver, but “_like a potsherd_,” as the earthen vessel dried up by the
heat, spoken in humiliation.—_Isaac Williams, in loc._
_Verse 15.—“A potsherd.”_ חֶרֶשׂ, rendered _potsherd_, is a word which
denotes a piece of earthenware, frequently in a broken state. As
employed in the verse under consideration, it seems to derive
considerable illustration from the corresponding word in ARABIC, which
expresses roughness of skin, and might well convey to the mind an idea
of the bodily appearance of one in whom the moisture of the fluids had
been dried up by the excess of grief.—_John Morison._
_Verse 15._—That hour what his feelings were it is dangerous to define:
we know them not; we may be too bold to determine of them. To very good
purpose it was that the ancient Fathers of the Greek church in their
liturgy, after they had recounted all the particular pains, as they are
set down in his passion, and by all and by everyone of them called for
mercy, do, after all, shut up with this Δι’ αγνωστων κοπῶν καὶ βασάνων
ελέησον καὶ σῶσον ἡμᾰς. By thine unknown sorrows and sufferings, felt by
thee, but not distinctly known by us, have mercy upon us and save
us.—_Lancelot Andrewes._
_Verse 16.—“Dogs have compassed me.”_ So great and varied was the
malignity exhibited by the enemies of our Lord, that the combined
characteristics of two species of ferocious animals were not adequate to
its representation. Another emblematical figure is therefore introduced.
The assembly of the wicked is compared to that of “dogs” who haunt about
the cities, prowl in every corner, snarl over the carrion, and devour it
all with greediness—like “dogs,” with their wild cry in full pursuit,
with unfailing scent tracking their victim, with vigilant eye on all its
movements, and with a determination which nothing can falter, they run
it on to death. The Oriental mode of hunting, both in ancient and modern
times, is murderous and merciless in the extreme. A circle of several
miles in circumference is beat round; and the men, driving all before
them, and narrowing as they advance, inclose the prey on every side.
Having thus made them prisoners, the cruel hunters proceed to slaughter
at their own convenience. So did the enemies of our Lord: long before
his crucifixion it is recorded that they used the most treacherous plans
to get him into their power.—_John Stevenson._
_Verse 16.—“Dogs have compassed me.”_ At the hunting of the lion, a
whole district is summoned to appear, who, forming themselves first into
a circle, enclose a space of four or five miles in compass, according to
the number of the people and the quality of the ground which is pitched
upon for the scene of action. The footmen advance first, rushing into
the thickets with their dogs and spears, to put up the game; while the
horsemen, keeping a little behind, are always ready to charge upon the
first sally of the wild beast. In this manner they proceed, still
contracting their circle, till they all at last close in together, or
meet with some other game to divert them.—_Dr. Shaw’s Travels, quoted in
Paxton’s “Illustrations of Scripture.”_
_Verse 16.—“They pierced my hands and my feet;”_ namely, when they
nailed Christ to the cross. Matt. xxvii. 35; John xx. 25. Where let me
simulate, saith a learned man, the orator’s gradation, _Facinus vincire
civem Romanum_, etc. It was much for the Son of God to be bound, more to
be beaten, most of all to be slain; _Quid dicam in crucem tolle?_ but
what shall I say to this, that he was crucified? That was the most vile
and ignominious; it was also a cruel and cursed kind of death, which yet
he refused not; and here we have a clear testimony for his cross.—_John
Trapp._
_Verse 16.—“They pierced my hands and my feet.”_ Of all sanguinary
punishments, that of crucifixion is one of the most dreadful—no vital
part is immediately affected by it. The hands and feet which are
furnished with the most numerous and sensitive organs, are perforated
with nails, which must necessarily be of some size to suit their
intended purpose. The tearing asunder of the tender fibres of the hands
and feet, the lacerating of so many nerves, and bursting so many
blood-vessels, must be productive of intense agony. The nerves of the
hand and foot are intimately connected, through the arm and leg, with
the nerves of the whole body; their laceration therefore must be felt
over the entire frame. Witness the melancholy result of even a needle’s
puncture in even one of the remotest nerves. A spasm is not unfrequently
produced by it in the muscles of the face, which locks the jaws
inseparably. When, therefore the hands and feet of our blessed Lord were
transfixed with nails, he must have felt the sharpest pangs shoot
through every part of his body. Supported only by his lacerated limbs,
and suspended from his pierced hands, our Lord had nearly six hours’
torment to endure.—_John Stevenson._
_Verse 16.—“They pierced my hands and my feet.”_ That evangelical
prophet testifies it, “Behold I have graven thee upon the palms of my
hands.” Isaiah xlix. 16. Were we not engraven there when his hands were
pierced for us? “They digged my hands and my feet.” And they digged them
so deep, that the very prints remained after his resurrection, and their
fingers were thrust into them for evidence sake. Some have thought that
those scars remain still in his glorious body, to be showed at his
second appearing: “They shall see him whom they have pierced.” That is
improbable, but this is certain; there remains still an impression upon
Christ’s hands and his heart, the sealing and wearing of the elect
there, as precious jewels.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 17.—“I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.”_ The
skin and flesh were distended by the posture of the body on the cross,
that the bones, as through a thin veil, became visible, and might be
counted.—_George Horne._
_Verse 17.—“I may tell all my bones.”_ For, as the first Adam by his
fall, lost the robe of innocence, and thence forth needed other
garments, so the second Adam vouchsafed to be stripped of his earthly
vestments, to the end it might hereafter be said to us, “Bring forth the
first robe, and put it on him.” Luke xv. 22.—_Gerhohus, quoted by J. M.
Neale._
_Verse 17.—“They look and stare upon me.”_ Sensitively conscious of his
condition upon the cross, the delicate feelings of the holy Saviour were
sorely pained by the gaze of the multitude. With impudent face they
looked upon him. To view him better they halted as they walked. With
deliberate insolence they collected in groups, and made their remarks to
each other on his conduct and appearance. Mocking his naked, emaciated,
and quivering body, they “looked and stared upon him.”—_John Stevenson._
_Verse 17.—“They look and stare upon me.”_ Oh, how different is that
look which the awakened sinner directs to Calvary, when faith lifts up
her eye to him who agonised, and bled, and died, for the guilty! And
what gratitude should perishing men feel, that from him that hangs upon
the accursed tree there is heard proceeding the inviting sound, “Look
unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth, for I am God, and
besides me there is none else.”—_John Morison._
_Verse 18.—“They part my garments,”_ etc. Perfectly naked did the
cruciarii hang upon the cross, and the executioners received their
clothes. There is nothing to show that there was a cloth even round the
loins. The clothes became the property of the soldiers, after Roman
usage. The outer garment was divided probably into four, by ripping up
the seams. Four soldiers were counted off as a guard, by the Roman code.
The under garment could not be divided, being woven; and this led the
soldiers to the dice-throwing.—_J. P. Lange, D.D., on Matthew xxvii.
35._
_Verse 18.—“They part my garments,”_ etc. Instruments will not be
wanting to crucify Christ, if it were but for his old clothes, and those
but little worth; for these soldiers crucify him, though they got but
his garments for their reward. Christ did submit to suffer naked, hereby
to teach us:—1. That all flesh are really naked before God by reason of
sin (Exodus xxxii. 25; 2 Chron. xxviii. 19), and therefore our Surety
behoved to suffer naked. 2. That he offered himself a real captive in
his sufferings, that so he might fully satisfy justice by being under
the power of his enemies, till he redeemed himself by the strong hand,
having fully paid the price; for therefore did he submit to be stripped
naked, as conquerors use to do with prisoners. 3. That by thus suffering
naked he would expiate our abuse of apparel, and purchase to us a
liberty to make use of suitable raiment, and such as becometh us in our
station. 4. That by this suffering naked he would purchase unto them who
flee to him to be covered with righteousness and glory, and to walk with
him in white for ever, and would point out the nakedness of those who,
not being found clothed with his righteousness, shall not be clothed
upon with immortality and glory. 2 Cor. v. 2, 3. 5. He would also by
this, teach all his followers to resolve on nakedness in their following
of him, as a part of their conformity with their Head (1 John iv. 17;
Rom. viii. 35; Heb. xi. 37), and that therefore they should not dote
much on their apparel when they have it.—_George Hutcheson, 1657._
_Verse 18.—“And cast lots upon my vesture.”_ Trifling as this act of
casting the lot for our Lord’s vesture may appear, it is most
significant. It contains a double lesson. It teaches us how greatly that
seamless shirt was valued; how little he had to whom it belonged. It
seemed to say, this garment is more valuable than its owner. As it was
said of the thirty pieces of silver, “A goodly price at which I was
prized at of them;” so may we say regarding the casting of the lot, “How
cheaply Christ was held!”—_John Stevenson._
_Verse 20.—“My darling”_ had better be rendered “my lonely, or solitary
one.” For he wishes to say that his soul was lonely and forsaken by all,
and that there was no one who sought after him as a friend, or cared for
him, or comforted him: as we have it, Psalm cxlii. 4, “Refuge failed me;
no one cared for my soul; I looked on my right hand, but there was no
one who would know me;” that is, solitude is of itself a certain cross,
and especially so in such great torments, in which it is most grievous
to be immersed without an example and without a companion. And yet, in
such a state, everyone of us must be, in some suffering or other, and
especially in that of death; and we must be brought to cry out with
Psalm xxv. 16, “Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me, for I am
desolate and afflicted.”—_Martin Luther._
_Verse 20.—“The dog.”_ It is scarcely possible for a European to form an
idea of the intolerable nuisance occasioned in the villages and cities
of the East, by the multitude of dogs that infest the streets. The
natives, accustomed from their earliest years to the annoyance, come to
be regardless of it; but to a stranger, these creatures are the greatest
plague to which he is subjected; for as they are never allowed to enter
a house, and do not constitute the property of any particular owner,
they display none of those habits of which the domesticated species
among us are found susceptible, and are destitute of all those social
qualities which often render the dog the trusty and attached friend of
man.... The race seems wholly to degenerate in the warm regions of the
East, and to approximate to the character of beasts of prey, as in
disposition they are ferocious, cunning, bloodthirsty, and possessed of
the most insatiable voracity: and even in their very form there is
something repulsive; their sharp and savage features; their wolf-like
eyes; their long hanging ears; their straight and pointed tails; their
lank and emaciated forms, almost entirely without a belly, give them an
appearance of wretchedness and degradation, that stands in sad contrast
with the general condition and qualities of the breed in Europe....
These hideous creatures, dreaded by the people for their ferocity, or
avoided by them as useless and unclean, are obliged to prowl about
everywhere in search of a precarious existence.... They generally run in
bands, and their natural ferocity, inflamed by hunger, and the
consciousness of strength, makes them the most troublesome and dangerous
visitors to the stranger who unexpectedly finds himself in their
neighbourhood, as they will not scruple to seize whatever he may have
about him, and even, in the event of his falling, and being otherwise
defenceless, to attack and devour him.... These animals, driven by
hunger, greedily devour everything that comes in their way; they glut
themselves with the most putrid and loathsome substances that are thrown
about the cities, and of nothing are they so fond as of human flesh, a
repast, with which the barbarity of the despotic countries of Asia
frequently supplies them, as the bodies of criminals slain for murder,
treason, or violence, are seldom buried, and lie exposed till the
mangled fragments are carried off by the dogs.—_From “Illustrations of
Scripture, by the late Professor George Paxton, D.D., revised and
enlarged by Robert Jamieson,” 1843._
_Verse 21.—“Save me from the lion’s mouth.”_ Satan is called a lion, and
that fitly; for he hath all the properties of the lion: as bold as a
lion, as strong as a lion, as furious as a lion, as terrible as the
roaring of a lion. Yea, worse: the lion wants subtlety and suspicion;
herein the devil is beyond the lion. The lion will spare the prostrate,
the devil spares none. The lion is full and forbears, the devil is full
and devours. He seeks all; let not the simple say, He will take no
notice of me; nor the subtle, He cannot overreach me; nor the noble say,
He will not presume to meddle with me; nor the rich, He dares not
contest with me; for he seeks to devour all. He is our common adversary,
therefore let us cease all quarrels amongst ourselves, and fight with
him.—_Thomas Adams._
_Verse 21.—“Save me ... from the horns of the unicorns.”_ Those who are
in great trouble from the power or cruelty of others, often cry out to
their gods, “Ah! save me from the tusk of the elephant, from the mouth
of the tiger and the tusks of the boar, deliver me, deliver me!” “Who
will save me from the horn of the _Kāndam_?” This animal is now extinct
in these regions, and it is not easy to determine what it was; the word
in the Sathur—_Agarāthe_—is rendered “jungle cow.”—_Joseph Roberts._
_Verse 21.—“The horns of the unicorns.”_ On turning to the Jewish Bible
we find that the word רְאֵם is translated as buffalo, and there is no
doubt that this rendering is nearly the correct one, and at the present
day naturalists are nearly agreed that the reêm of the Old Testament
must have been now the extinct urus.... The presence of these horns
affords a remarkable confirmation to a well-known passage in Julius
Cæsar’s familar “Commentaries.” “The uri are little inferior to
elephants in size” (“_magnitudine paulo infra elephantos_;”) “but are
bulls in their nature, colour, and figure. Great is their strength, and
great their swiftness; nor do they spare man or beast when they have
caught sight of them.”—_J. G. Wood, M.A., F.L.S., in “Bible Animals,”
1869._
_Verse 22.—“I will declare thy name unto my brethren.”_ Having thus
obtained relief from the oppressive darkness, and regained conscious
possession of the joy and light of his Father’s countenance, the
thoughts and desires of the Redeemer flow into their accustomed channel.
The glory of God in the salvation of his church.—_John Stevenson._
_Verse 22.—“My brethren.”_ This gives evidence of the low condescension
of the Son of God, and also of the high exaltation of sons of men; for
the Son of God to be a brother to sons of men is a great degree of
humiliation, and for sons of men to be made brethren with the Son of God
is a high degree of exaltation; for Christ’s brethren are in that
respect sons of God, heirs of heaven, or kings, not earthly, but
heavenly; not temporary, but everlasting kings.... This respect of
Christ to his brethren is a great encouragement and comfort to such as
are despised and scorned by men of this world for Christ’s professing of
them.—_William Gouge._