January 14
“Many bulls have surrounded Me; strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me. They gape at Me with their mouths, like a raging and roaring lion. I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death,” Psalm 22:12-15.
In these verses, the promised Messiah and Savior of the world speaks as if He is surrounded by a group of people who are acting like a herd of angry wild animals. “Many bulls have surrounded Me; strong bulls of Bashan have encircled Me.” The suffering Savior was being attacked by ferocious enemies from all sides. The strong bulls of Bashan encircled Him. Bashan was a section of the Holy Land which had rich pasture land for the cattle. Like angry bulls from Bashan, people were determined to destroy Him.
“They gape at Me with their mouths, like a raging and roaring lion.” This refers to a group of hard-hearted people standing with their mouths wide open, as if to say, “We cannot believe what we are seeing!” However, they are very angry, like a raging and roaring lion. This could well be a reference to another enemy of the Savior: His archenemy, the devil himself.
This reminds us of the words written by the apostle Peter: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil walks about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. Resist him, steadfast in the faith,” 1 Peter 5:8-9.
Remember how Jesus resisted the devil when he tempted Him after Jesus had fasted for forty days and forty nights in the wilderness. Jesus resisted and defeated the devil with the Word of God. Of course, the devil never gave up in his attempts to persuade Jesus to sin. Before Jesus was taken captive on the night when He was betrayed, He wrestled with the powers of darkness in the Garden of Gethsemane. Yes, with His suffering and death He defeated and delivered us from the power of the devil.
In the next verses, we are directed to some other things that Jesus suffered while hanging on Calvary’s cross: “I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.”
Like water, His life was being poured out, and after hanging on the cross for about six hours, his bones were indeed out of joint. With their bones protruding, people who were crucified began to look like skeletons. His strength to live was dried up like a potsherd – that is, like a piece of broken earthenware. Hanging on the cross through the heat of the day with blood flowing from His body and with a rising body temperature, His tongue was cleaving to His jaws, and He cried out, “I thirst!” John 19:28. He was brought to the dust of death. His final hour was drawing near.
As we stand at the foot of the cross in spirit, we say with the prophet Isaiah, “He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed,” Isaiah 53:3-5.
“O perfect life of love!
All, all, is finished now;
All that He left His throne above
To do for us below.
No work is left undone
Of all the Father willed;
His toil, His sorrows, one by one,
The Scriptures have fulfilled.” Amen.