Psalms Chapter 22 verse 16 Holy Bible
For dogs have compassed me: A company of evil-doers have inclosed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.
read chapter 22 in ASV
Dogs have come round me: I am shut in by the band of evil-doers; they made wounds in my hands and feet.
read chapter 22 in BBE
For dogs have encompassed me; an assembly of evil-doers have surrounded me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
read chapter 22 in DARBY
For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
read chapter 22 in KJV
My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.
read chapter 22 in WBT
For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evil-doers have enclosed me. They pierced my hands and my feet.
read chapter 22 in WEB
And to the dust of death thou appointest me, For surrounded me have dogs, A company of evil doers have compassed me, Piercing my hands and my feet.
read chapter 22 in YLT
Pulpit Commentary
Pulpit CommentaryVerse 16. - For dogs have compassed me. "Dogs" now encompass the Sufferer, perhaps the subordinate agents in the cruelties - the rude Roman soldiery, who laid rough hands on the adorable Person (Matthew 27:27-35). Oriental dogs are savage and of unclean habits, whence the term "dog" in the East has always been, and still is, a term of reproach. The assembly of the wicked have enclosed me; or, a band of wicked ones have shut me in. The "band" of Roman soldiers (Mark 15:16) seems foreshadowed. They pierced my hands and my feet. There are no sufficient critical grounds for relinquishing (with Hengstenberg) this interpretation. It has the support of the Septuagint, the Syriac, the Arabic, and the Vulgate Versions, and is maintained by Ewald, Reinke, Bohl, Moll, Kay, the writer in the 'Speaker's Commentary,' and our Revisers. Whether the true reading be kaaru (כָאְרַוּ) or kaari (כָאֲרִי), the sense will be the same, kaarl being the apocopated participle of the verb, whereof kaaru is the 3rd pers. plu. indic.
Ellicott's Commentary
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(16) Dogs.--Literally, barkers. (For the wild scavenger dogs of the East, comp. 1Kings 12:19, &c) Symmachus and Theodotion render, "hunting dogs."The assembly of the wicked denotes the factious nature of the attacks on the sufferer. His enemies have combined, as savage animals, to hunt in packs. Comp. Virgil, 'n. ii. 351:------"lupi ceuRaptores atra in nebula."They pierced.--The word thus rendered has formed a battle-ground for controversy. As the Hebrew text at present stands the word reads k?ari (like a lion). (Comp. Isaiah 38:13.) But no intelligible meaning can be got out of "like a lion my hands and my feet." Nor does the plan commend itself of dividing the verses differently, and reading, "The congregation of wicked men have gathered round me like a lion. On my hands and my feet I can tell all my bones." The punctuation of the text must therefore be given up, and a meaning sought by changing the reading. The necessity of a change is supported both by the ancient versions and by some MSS., and also by the Masora; though considerable difference exists as to what the word should be read. If the authority of the ancient versions alone were to decide, some verb in the past tense must be read, but the most reasonable course is to accept the present text, but with a different vowel, treating it as a participle, with suffix, of k-r, whose root-idea, according to Ewald, is "to bind;" but according to most other scholars is "to dig." It is, however, so doubtful whether it can mean to dig through--i.e., to pierce--that it is better to understand here a binding of the limbs so tightly as to dig into them, and wound them. Render: "The band of villains [literally, breakers] surrounded me, binding my hands and feet so as to cut them."