EXPLANATORY NOTES AND QUAINT SAYINGS (4)

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.