Mazmur 22:11-13

22:11 Do not remain far away from me,

for trouble is near and I have no one to help me. ¹ 

22:12 Many bulls ²  surround me;

powerful bulls of Bashan ³  hem me in.

22:13 They ⁴  open their mouths to devour me ⁵ 

like a roaring lion that rips its prey. ⁶ 

Mazmur 22:16

22:16 Yes, ⁷  wild dogs surround me –

a gang of evil men crowd around me;

like a lion they pin my hands and feet. ⁸ 

Mazmur 27:2

27:2 When evil men attack me ⁹ 

to devour my flesh, ¹⁰ 

when my adversaries and enemies attack me, ¹¹ 

they stumble and fall. ¹² 

[22:11]  ¹ tn Heb “and there is no helper.”

[22:12]  ² sn The psalmist figuratively compares his enemies to dangerous bulls.

[22:12]  ³ sn Bashan, located east of the Jordan River, was well-known for its cattle. See Ezek 39:18; Amos 4:1.

[22:13]  ⁴ tn “They” refers to the psalmist’s enemies, who in the previous verse are described as “powerful bulls.”

[22:13]  ⁵ tn Heb “they open against me their mouth[s].” To “open the mouth against” is a Hebrew idiom associated with eating and swallowing (see Ezek 2:8; Lam 2:16).

[22:13]  ⁶ tn Heb “a lion ripping and roaring.”

[22:16]  ⁷ tn Or “for.”

[22:16]  ⁸ tn Heb “like a lion, my hands and my feet.” This reading is often emended because it is grammatically awkward, but perhaps its awkwardness is by rhetorical design. Its broken syntax may be intended to convey the panic and terror felt by the psalmist. The psalmist may envision a lion pinning the hands and feet of its victim to the ground with its paws (a scene depicted in ancient Near Eastern art), or a lion biting the hands and feet. The line has been traditionally translated, “they pierce my hands and feet,” and then taken as foreshadowing the crucifixion of Christ. Though Jesus does appropriate the language of this psalm while on the cross (compare v. 1 with Matt 27:46 and Mark 15:34), the NT does not cite this verse in describing the death of Jesus. (It does refer to vv. 7-8 and 18, however. See Matt 27:35, 39, 43; Mark 15:24, 29; Luke 23:34; John 19:23-24.) If one were to insist on an emendation of כָּאֲרִי (ka’ariy, “like a lion”) to a verb, the most likely verbal root would be כָּרָה (karah, “dig”; see the LXX). In this context this verb could refer to the gnawing and tearing of wild dogs (cf. NCV, TEV, CEV). The ancient Greek version produced by Symmachus reads “bind” here, perhaps understanding a verbal root כרך, which is attested in later Hebrew and Aramaic and means “to encircle, entwine, embrace” (see HALOT 497-98 s.v. כרך and Jastrow 668 s.v. כָּרַךְ). Neither one of these proposed verbs can yield a meaning “bore, pierce.”

[27:2]  ⁹ tn Heb “draw near to me.”

[27:2]  ¹⁰ sn To devour my flesh. The psalmist compares his enemies to dangerous, hungry predators (see 2 Kgs 9:36; Ezek 39:17).

[27:2]  ¹¹ tn Heb “my adversaries and my enemies against me.” The verb “draw near” (that is, “attack”) is understood by ellipsis; see the previous line.

[27:2]  ¹² tn The Hebrew verbal forms are perfects. The translation assumes the psalmist is generalizing here, but another option is to take this as a report of past experience, “when evil men attacked me…they stumbled and fell.”