Psalms 22:16

For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

Dogs have compassed me. "Dogs" are peculiarly savage in the East; they prowl about the streets without any owner, and eagerly devour any offal (cf. Psalms 22:20).

They pierced my hands and my feet. So the Septuagint [ooruxan], Ethiopic, Arabic Vulgate, and Syriac translate х kaa'ªriy (H3738): either this is a compound of kaaraah (H3738), pierced, and 'ªriy, a lion - i:e., 'they pierced as a lion:' so the Chaldaic paraphrase, 'Mordentes sicut leo;' or else they read kaa'ªruw, from kaa'ar, to pierce; or the present reading is the Qal participle, plural masculine in regimen, for k-'-r-y-m, from kuwr, vocalized as: ko'ªreey, piercing-literally, (they are) piercers of my hands. Eighteen passages were, according to the Masorah, altered by the scribes. This may have been one; because it is clear the oldest versions read as the English version; and the translation, 'They enclosed (from the previous sentence) my hands and my fast as a lion is very clumsy. The singular for the plural is awkward, where the comparison is to many wicked surrounding the one Messiah; and lions do not enclose or surround (nor could one lion do so), but spring on their prey. Then the repetition of the image of a lion so soon after, in Psalms 22:13, and before, in Psalms 22:21, renders its introduction in this verse unlikely. Jerome, who declares he altered nothing of the strict Hebrew, translates 'fixerunt,' 'they fixed' to the cross. Aquila, a Jew, and a proselyte, under Adrian, about 133 AD, translates eeschunan, 'they disfigured'-a remarkable admission from one who would have gladly opposed the Christian exposition. The little Masora admits that the same Hebrew, which in Isaiah 38:13 means 'as a lion,' has a different meaning here (Psalms 22:16). So many other particulars of Christ's crucifixion are detailed, that the piercing of His hands and feet was likely to be noticed].