God, Aliens, and Other Stuff

In Part 1, we looked at the first 18 verses of Psalm 22 as a lament. It was a perfect picture of Christ’s crucifixion as described in the New Testament. It is one of the most amazing segments of literature ever written. Starting with verse 19, however, an entirely different mood prevails. And yet, the reference to dog, bulls, lions, and the sword makes it clear that part 2 of the psalm fits with verses 1-18. In the later verses of part 1, the sufferer is laid in the dust of death. He dies! So how is he rejoicing in the entire rest of the psalm? 19 But you, Lord , do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me. 20 Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. 21 Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen. I know I’m pushing it here, but I like to think that we are seeing the soul of the not yet resurrected Christ in the above verses. A sword has literally been pushed into his heart to make su...

Although this psalm has a heading that it is a psalm of King David, Israel’s second king who reigned for 40 years in the tenth century BCE, scholars take that with a grain of salt. And they are right. The headings came later, and there is no guarantee that the heading is correct. However, the Psalm 22 resides in a biblical section designated as the “Psalms of David,” and whoever wrote it was in my opinion a “seer” (a Spirit-filled psychic) of high magnitude. Thus, I assume that it was David until someone can prove that it isn’t. According to a passage in 1 Samuel, ecstatic prophecy was a respected phenomenon in those days, even to the point where the person prophesying is laid out helplessly on the ground for long periods of time ( 18:19-24 ). Today’s Pentecostals would have no problem recognizing such an event. Whoever wrote Psalm 22 was possibly in that kind of state, and not only saw it, but lived it. The scholars who analyze Psalm 22 will usually say something like, the sufferer ...