manwithdream

A lot of people say that "like a lion" does not make sense in Ps.22:17, but I have an alternative explanation. In psalm 22:7, the writer says he is a worm, and not a man. A worm does not have hands, feet, or bones.

Psalm 22:15 says that his bones have parted. Ps. 22:9 could say "a heap (gimel lamed) is to the L-rd..." instead of "commit yourself to the L-rd."

If person's bones part, then the person collapses into a heap. A heap is like a worm because the person does not have hands, feet, or a bone structure supporting the body.

Maybe Ps. 22:17 says "dogs have surrounded me, companies of evil doers have surrounded me like a lion, my hands and my feet I will count, all of my bones they will see."

Maybe in the beginning of the psalm the writer felt weak, and like he is collapsed into a heap (like a worm), but later he feels stronger like a lion. By saying he has hands, feet, and bones, he could poetically be saying he no longer feels like a worm, but now he is like a lion.

Amaleq13

But it isn't the author who is "like a lion" but those who surround him.

manwithdream

I don't understand how a single lion can surround a person. Dogs (plural) can surround a person like the person is a lion.

dog-on

...but dogs may surround a lion...

spin

The dogs surround. The lion's at the hands and feet.

The major problem with the verse is that we don't know enough about the Hebrew of the period of writing. This means instead of trying to find ways of explaining it away through conjecture, we should take what we can out of it as is.

The speaker feels attacked by something he equates as dogs who surround him, like a lion (presumably at) his hands and feet. Go back and look at v13 which also refers to the lion. Note that this verse also is strange grammatically to us: "mouth" is singular, but the subject is plural; there is no grammatical connection such as "as" to link the lion to what came before it. However, we use the information there in the verse to get the general idea.

Our big problem with v17 is that many christians need to pervert it.


spin

dog-on

I believe I have seen ancient murals of a lion being attacked by a pack of dogs during some sort of gladitorial event. This would seem to be an ancient form of entertainment.

(Have also seen depictions of bears put into a similar position as our poor lion friend...).

Amaleq13

Nobody doubts that people used packs of dogs to hunt lions. The question is whether the structure of the sentence supports such an interpretation and my impression is that it does not.

The "lion" (if that is, in fact, the original word) either refers to the group surrounding him or to his hands and feet in some sense (damage caused?).

As far as I can tell neither of these possibilities supports the offered alternative interpretation.

dog-on

Depends, of course, where exactly one chooses to place the commas...

spin

It's not a matter of placing commas. It has to do with the structure Hebrew poetry. The psalm is full of examples of parallelism that is found in this verse.


spin

dog-on

Quite true, though my response was, admittedly, tongue and cheek...