--- title: "Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah" author: "Adam Clarke" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 574 of 914 url: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/574/ cite: "Adam Clarke, Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah, section 574. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/574/" --- # Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible · Volume 1: Genesis to Jeremiah *Adam Clarke* Clarke's learned notes on the Hebrew and Greek, verse by verse, from Genesis to Revelation: volume 1 of 2. ## 574. Psalms · 28 of 159 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/574/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/adam-clarke-commentary-volume-1-genesis-to-jeremiah/574/#p-N ### Verse 12 [¶1] Many bulls have compassed me - The bull is the emblem of brutal strength, that gores and tramples down all before it. Such was Absalom, Ahithophel, and others, who rose up in rebellion against David; and such were the Jewish rulers who conspired against Christ. [¶2] Strong bulls of Bashan - Bashan was a district beyond Jordan, very fertile, where they were accustomed to fatten cattle, which became, in consequence of the excellent pasture, the largest, as well as the fattest, in the country. See Calmet. All in whose hands were the chief power and influence became David's enemies; for Absalom had stolen away the hearts of all Israel. Against Christ, the chiefs both of Jews and Gentiles were united. ### Verse 13 [¶4] They gaped upon me - They were fiercely and madly beat on my destruction. ### Verse 14 [¶6] I am poured out like water - That is, as the old Psalter: Thai rought na mare to sla me than to spil water. [¶7] The images in this verse are strongly descriptivr of a person in the deepest distress; whose strength, courage, hope, and expectation of succor and relief, had entirely failed. [¶8] Our Lord's sufferings were extreme; but I cannot think there is any sound theologic sense in which these things can be spoken of Christ, either in his agony in the garden, or his death upon the cross. ### Verse 15 [¶10] My strength is dried up - All these expressions mark a most distressed and hopeless case. [¶11] Into the dust of death - This means only that he was apparently brought nigh to the grave, and consequent corruption, this latter David saw; but Jesus Christ never saw corruption. ### Verse 16 [¶13] For dogs have compassed me - This may refer to the Gentiles, the Roman soldiers, and others by whom our Lord was surrounded in his trial, and at his cross. [¶14] They pierced my hands and my feet - The other sufferings David, as a type of our Lord, might pass through; but the piercing of the hands and feet was peculiar to our Lord; therefore, this verse may pass for a direct revelavion. Our Lord's hands and feet were pierced when he was nailed to the cross, David's never were pierced. [¶15] But there is a various reading here which is of great importance. Instead of כארו caaru, they pierced, which is what is called the kethib, or marginal reading, and which our translators have followed; the keri or textual reading is כארי caari, as a lion. In support of each reading there are both MSS. and eminent critics. The Chaldee has, "Biting as a lion my hands and my feet;" but the Syriac, Vulgate, Septuagint, Ethiopic, and Arabic read, "they pierced or digged;" and in the Anglo-Saxon the words translate: "They dalve (digged) hands mine, and feet mine." [¶16] The Complutensian Polyglot has כארו caaru, they digged or pierced, in the text; for which it gives כרה carah, to cut, dig, or penetrate, in the margin, as the root whence כארו is derived. But the Polyglots of Potken, Antwerp, Paris. and London, have כארי caari in the text; and כארו caaru is referred to in the margin; and this is the case with the most correct Hebrew Bibles. The whole difference here lies between י yod and ו vau. which might easily be mistaken for each other; the former making like a lion; the latter, they pierced. The latter is to me most evidently the true reading. ### Verse 17 [¶18] I may tell all my bones - This may refer to the violent extension of his body when the whole of its weight hung upon the nails which attached his hands to the transverse beam of the cross. The body being thus extended, the principal bones became prominent, and easily discernible. ### Verse 18 [¶20] They part my garments - This could be true in no sense of David. The fact took place at the crucifixion of our Lord. The soldiers divided his upper garment into four parts, each soldier taking a part; but his tunic or inward vestment being without seam, woven in one entire piece, they agreed not to divide, but to cast lots whose the whole should be. Of this scripture the Roman soldiers knew nothing; but they fulfilled it to the letter. This was foreseen by the Spirit of God; and this is a direct revelation concerning Jesus Christ, which impresses the whole account with the broad seal of eternal truth. ### Verse 19 [¶22] Be not thou far from me - In the first verse he asks, Why hast thou forsaken me? Or, as if astonished at their wickedness, Into what hands hast thou permitted me to fall? Now he prays, Be not far from me. St. Jerome observes here, that it is the humanity of our blessed Lord which speaks to his divinity. Jesus was perfect man; and as man he suffered and died. But this perfect and sinless man could not have sustained those sufferings so as to make them expiatory had he not been supported by the Divine nature. All the expressions in this Psalm that indicate any weakness as far as it relates to Christ, (and indeed it relates principally to him), are to be understood of the human nature; for, that in him God and man were united, but not confounded, the whole New Testament to me bears evidence, the manhood being a perfect man, the Godhead dwelling bodily in that manhood. Jesus, as Mans, was conceived, born, grew up, increased in wisdom, stature, and favor with God and man; hungered, thirsted, suffered, and died. Jesus, as God, knew all things, was from the beginning with God, healed the diseased, cleansed the lepers, and raised the dead; calmed the raging of the sea, and laid the tempest by a word; quickened the human nature, raised it from the dead, took it up into heaven, where as the Lamb newly slain, it ever appears in the presence of God for us. These are all Scripture facts. The man Christ Jesus could not work those miracles; the God in that man could not have suffered those sufferings. Yet one person appears to do and suffer all; here then is God manifested in the Flesh. [¶23] O my strength - The divinity being the poxver by which the humanity was sustained in this dreadful conflict. ### Verse 20 [¶25] Deliver my soul from the sword - Deliver נפשי naphshi, my life; save me alive, or raise me again. [¶26] My darling - יחידתי yechidathi, my only one. The only human being that was ever produced since the creation, even by the power of God himself, without the agency of man. Adam the first was created out of the dust of the earth; that was his mother; God was the framer. Adam the second was produced in the womb of the virgin; that was his mother. But that which was conceived in her was by the power of the Holy Ghost; hence the man Christ Jesus is the Only Son of God; God is his Father, and he is his Only One. ### Verse 21 [¶28] Save me from the lion's mouth - Probably our Lord here includes his Church with himself. The lion may then mean the Jews; the unicorns, רמים remim (probably the rhinoceros), the Gentiles. For the unicorn, see the note on [Num 23:22]. There is no quadruped or land animal with one horn only, except the rhinoceros; but there is a marine animal, the narwhal or monodon, a species of whale, that has a very fine curled ivory horn, which projects from its snout. One in my own museum measures seven feet four inches and is very beautiful. Some of these animals have struck their horn through the side of a ship and with it they easily transfix the whale, or any such animal. The old Psalter says, "The unicorn es ane of the prudest best that es, so that he wil dye for dedeyn if he be haldyn ogayn his wil." ### Verse 22 [¶30] I will declare the name unto my brethren - I will make a complete revelation concerning the God of justice and love, to my disciples; and I will announce to the Jewish people thy merciful design in sending me to be the Savior of the world. ### Verse 23 [¶32] Ye that fear the Lord - This is an exhortation to the Jews particularly, to profit by the preaching of the Gospel. Perhaps, by them that fear him, the Gentiles, and particularly the proselytes, may be intended. The Jews are mentioned by name: Glorify him, all ye seed of Jacob; fear him, all ye seed of Israel. ### Verse 24 [¶34] For he hath not despised - It is his property to help and save the poor and the humble; and he rejects not the sighings of a contrite heart. Perhaps it may mean, Though ye have despised me in my humiliation, yet God has graciously received me in the character of a sufferer on account of sin; as by that humiliation unto death the great atonement was made for the sin of the world. ### Verse 25 [¶36] The great congregation - In [Psa 22:22] he declares that he will praise God in the midst of the congregation. Here the Jews seem to be intended. In this verse he says he will praise him in the Great Congregation. Here the Gentiles are probably meant. The Jewish nation was but a small number in comparison of the Gentile world. And those of the former who received the Gospel were very few when compared with those among the Gentiles who received the Divine testimony. The one was (for there is scarcely a converted Jew now) קהל kahal, an assembly; the other was, is, and will be increasingly, קהל רב kahal rab, a Great Assembly. Salvation was of the Jews, it is now of the Gentiles. ### Verse 26 [¶38] The meek shall eat - ענוים anavim. the Poor, shall eat. In the true only Sacrifice there shall be such a provision for all believers that they shall have a fullness of joy. Those who offered the sacrifice, fed on what they offered. Jesus, the true Sacrifice, is the bread that came down from heaven; they who eat of this bread shall never die. ### Verse 27 [¶40] All the ends of the world - The Gospel shall be preached to every nation under heaven; and all the kindred of nations, משפחות mishpechoth, the families of the nations: not only the nations of the world shall receive the Gospel as a revelation from God, but each family shall embrace it for their own salvation. They shall worship before Jesus the Savior, and through him shall all their praises be offered unto God. ### Verse 28 [¶42] The kingdom is the Lord's - That universal sway of the Gospel which in the New Testament is called the kingdom of God; in which all men shall be God's subjects; and righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, be universally diffused. ### Verse 29 [¶44] All they that be fat upon earth - The rich, the great, the mighty, even princes, governors, and kings, shall embrace the Gospel. They shall count it their greatest honor to be called Christian; to join in the assemblies of his people, to commemorate his sacrificial death, to dispense the word of life, to discourage vice, and to encourage the profession and practice of pure and undefiled religion.