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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: dwashbur AT nyx.net
  • Cc: Hebrew <b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Re: 22nd Psalm & 40th Psalm
  • Date: Fri, 28 Nov 2003 11:43:21 -0800

On 28/11/2003 11:25, Dave Washburn wrote:

On Friday 28 November 2003 07:55, Pastor Mark Eddy wrote:

...

How can someone know that king David didn't think it was about Jesus?


I assume that you more or less mean "about a coming Messiah"? Part of the Christian viewpoint is that at times, the Hebrew prophets wrote things that foreshadowed events surrounding the future Messiah (whom we identify as Jesus) without really understanding that they were writing such foreshadowings. I would suggest that this might be one of those times, though to me it really doesn't matter whether David was aware of the messianic implications of this psalm or not, assuming the implications are there. The question of such implications, foreshadowings etc. is beyond the scope of this list, so that's all I'll say about it.


Dave, I think there could be a bit more to this. It is at least conceivable, although I am not arguing that it is true, that Psalm 22 was consciously and deliberately written as a prophecy of words to be spoken (or imagined or predicted as to be spoken) by a future Messiah - in the same way as Isaiah 9:1-7 and Jeremiah 23:5-6 seem to be conscious prophecies or predictions of a future Messianic figure.

If so, one might expect to find some kind of marker within the Hebrew text that this is a prophecy, rather like HINNEH YAMIM BA'IM in Jeremiah 23:5. Identifying such markers would be within the scope of this list. If Mark can provide any evidence of this sort for his hypothesis, it would be relevant for this list.

On the other hand, such a prophecy might be unmarked, and so the literal answer to Mark's question must be that there is no way that we can know for certain that this was not a conscious prophecy. But then there is much that we can never know for certain about the Hebrew Bible. Sometimes we have to work on the best probabilities, or else believe things as part of our faith.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/






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