14 I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within me.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
I am poured out like water. Hitherto he has informed us that being surrounded by wild beasts, he was not far from death, as if he had been at the point of being devoured every moment. He now bewails, in addition to this, his inward distress; from which we learn that he was not stupid or insensible in dangers. It could have been no ordinary fear which made him almost pine away, by which his bones were disjointed, and his heart poured out like water. We see, then, that David was not buffeted with the waves of affliction like a rock which cannot be moved, but was agitated within by sore troubles and temptations, which, through the infirmity of the flesh, he would never have been able to sustain had he not been aided by the power of the Spirit of God. How these sufferings are applicable to Christ I have informed you a little before. Being a real man, he was truly subject to the infirmities of our flesh, only without the taint of sin. The perfect purity of his nature did not extinguish the human affections; it only regulated them, that they might not become sinful through excess. The greatness of his griefs, therefore, could not so weaken him as to prevent him, even in the midst of his most excruciating sufferings, from submitting himself to the will of God, with a composed and peaceful mind. Now, although this is not the case with respect to us, who have within us turbulent and disorderly affections, and who never can keep them under such restraint as not to be driven hither and thither by their impetuosity, yet, after the example of David, we ought to take courage; and when, through our infirmity, we are, as it were, almost lifeless, we should direct our groanings to God, beseeching him that he would be graciously pleased to restore us to strength and vigor.
I am poured out like water - The sufferer now turns from his enemies, and describes the effect of all these outward persecutions and trials on himself. The meaning in this expression is, that all his strength was gone. It is remarkable that we have a similar expression, which is not easily accounted for, when we say of ourselves that "we are as weak as water." An expression similar to this occurs in Joshua 7:5 : "The hearts of the people melted, and became as water." Compare Lamentations 2:19; Psalm 58:7. "My bones are out of joint." Margin, "sundered." The Hebrew word - פרד pârad - means "to break off, to break in pieces, to separate by breaking;" and then, to be separated, or divided. It is not necessary to suppose here that his bones were literally dislocated or "put out of joint," anymore than it is necessary to suppose that he was literally "poured out like water," or that his heart was literally "melted like wax" within him. The meaning is that he was utterly prostrated and powerless; he was as if his bones had been dislocated, and he was unable to use his limbs.
My heart is like wax - The idea here also is that of debility. His strength seemed all to be gone. His heart was no longer firm; his vigour was exhausted.
It is melted in the midst of my bowels - Or, within me. The word bowels in the Scriptures is not restricted in its signification as it is with us. It embraces the upper parts of the viscera as well as the lower, and consequently would include that part in which the heart is situated. See the notes at Isaiah 16:11. The meaning here is that his heart was no longer firm and strong. As applied to the Redeemer, this would refer to the prostration of his strength in his last struggle; and no one can prove that these thoughts did not pass through his mind when on the cross.
I am poured out like water - That is, as the old Psalter: Thai rought na mare to sla me than to spil water.
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.
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.
I am poured out like (h) water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
(h) Before he spoke of the cruelty of his enemies, and now he declares the inward grief of the mind, so that Christ was tormented both in soul and body.
I am poured out like water,.... This may refer to Christ's sweat in the garden, when through his agony or conflict with Satan, and his vehemency in prayer, and the pressure on his mind, in a view of his people's sins, and the wrath of God for, them, and the accursed death he was about to undergo on that account, sweat in great abundance came from all parts of his body, and not only stood in large drops, but fell to the ground like great drops of blood; so that his body was all covered with water, or rather seemed to be dissolving into water, or else to the quantity of tears he shed both there and elsewhere; his sorrow was great even unto death, which vented itself in floods of tears; his prayers were offered up with strong crying and tears; his head was, as Jeremiah wished his might be, as waters, and his eyes a fountain of tears, yea, his whole body seemed to be bathed with them: or else to the shedding of his blood, and the pouring out his soul unto death for his people, which was voluntarily done by himself, or by his enemies; which they shed like water, and made no account of it, Psalm 79:3. Some have thought this respects the opinion some had of him, even some of his own disciples, when he was dead; all their hopes of his being their Redeemer and Saviour being gone, he was as water spilled on the ground, which cannot be gathered up; see 2-Samuel 14:14; but rather the phrase intends his being quite dispirited, his heart failing, his soul sorrowful unto death, his hands feeble, his knees weak like water, and he just ready to faint and die; see Joshua 7:5, Ezekiel 7:17;
and all my bones are out of joint; not through the stretching of his body on the cross, which seems to be designed in Psalm 22:17; but as it is with persons in a panic, their joints seem to be loosed, and their bones parting asunder, their legs tremble, no member can perform its office, but as if everyone was dislocated and out of its place; see Psalm 6:2;
my heart is like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels; as wax melts before the fire, so did the heart of Christ at the wrath and fury of God, which was poured forth like fire upon him; and which he had a sense of, when in the garden and on the cross, bearing the sins of his people, and sustaining the punishment due unto them for it was not because of his enemies, nor merely at the presence of God, and his righteous judgments, which is sometimes the case; see 2-Samuel 17:10; but at the apprehension of divine wrath, and feeling the same, as the surety of his people; and what an idea does this give of the wrath of God! for if the heart of Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, melted at it, what heart can endure, or hands be strong, when God deals with them in his wrath? Ezekiel 22:14.
Utter exhaustion and hopeless weakness, in these circumstances of pressing danger, are set forth by the most expressive figures; the solidity of the body is destroyed, and it becomes like water; the bones are parted; the heart, the very seat of vitality, melts like wax; all the juices of the system are dried up; the tongue can no longer perform its office, but lies parched and stiffened (compare Genesis 49:4; 2-Samuel 14:14; Psalm 58:8). In this, God is regarded as the ultimate source, and men as the instruments.
(Hebrews.: 22:15-16)Now he described, how, thus encompassed round, he is still just living, but already as it were dead. The being poured out like water reminds us of the ignominious abandonment of the Crucified One to a condition of weakness, in which His life, deprived of its natural support, is in the act of dissolution, and its powers dried up (2-Samuel 14:14); the bones being stretched out, of the forcible stretching out of His body (חתפּרד, from פּרד to separate, cf. Arab. frd, according to its radical signification, which has been preserved in the common Arabic dialect: so to spread out or apart that the thing has no bends or folds,
(Note: Vid., Bocthor, Dict. fran.-arabe, s. v. Etendre and Dployer.)
Greek ἐξαπλοῦν); the heart being melted, recalls His burning anguish, the inflammation of the wounds, and the pressure of blood on the head and heart, the characteristic cause of death by crucifixion. נמס, in pause נמס, is 3 praet.; wax, דּונג, receives its name from its melting (דנג, root דג, τηκ). In Psalm 22:16 the comparison כּחרשׂ has reference to the issue of result (vid., Psalm 18:43): my strength is dried up, so that it is become like a potsherd. חכּי (Saadia) instead of כּחי commends itself, unless, כּח perhaps, like the Talmudic כּיח cidumlaT eht eki, also had the signification "spittle" (as a more dignified word for רק). לשׁון, with the exception perhaps of Proverbs 26:28, is uniformly feminine; here the predicate has the masculine ground-form without respect to the subject. The part. pass. has a tendency generally to be used without reference to gender, under the influence of the construction laid down in Ges. 143, 1, b, according to which לשׁני may be treated as an accusative of the object; מלקוחי, however, is acc. loci (cf. ל Psalm 137:6; Job 29:10; אל Lamentations 4:4; Ezekiel 3:26): my tongue is made to cleave to my jaws, fauces meas. Such is his state in consequence of outward distresses. His enemies, however, would not have power to do all this, if God had not given it to them. Thus it is, so to speak, God Himself who lays him low in death. שׁפת to put anywhere, to lay, with the accompanying idea of firmness and duration, Arab. ṯbât, Isaiah 26:12; the future is used of that which is just taking place. Just in like manner, in Isaiah 53:1-12, the death of the Servant of God is spoken of not merely as happening thus, but as decreed; and not merely as permitted by God, but as being in accordance with the divine will. David is persecuted by Saul, the king of His people, almost to the death; Jesus, however, is delivered over by the Sanhedrim, the authority of His people, to the heathen, under whose hands He actually dies the death of the cross: it is a judicial murder put into execution according to the conditions and circumstances of the age; viewed, however, as to its final cause, it is a gracious dispensation of the holy God, in whose hands all the paths of the world's history run parallel, and who in this instance makes sin subservient to its own expiation.
Water - My spirits are spent and gone like water which once spilt can never be recovered; my very flesh is melted within me, and I am become as weak as water. Bones - I am as unable to help myself, and as full of torment, as if all my bones were disjointed. Wax - Melted, through fear and overwhelming grief.
*More commentary available at chapter level.