Psalm 22:18
18 They part [chalaq] my garments
[beged] among them, and cast [naphal] lots [gowral] upon my
vesture. [labuwsh] KJV-Interlinear
18 They
divide my garments among them, And for my clothing they cast lots. NASB
When armies went to
battle, is was common practice after the battle, that the property and weapons
of the losers were collected by the winners.
The spoils of war as it were.
Captured prisoners were
enslaved or executed and their things were divided up amongst the winning
soldiers.
Some things were divided
up and other things of value were distributed by the casting of lots. Today we would
call that the flip of a coin, heads or tails, the roll of dice, or some such
game of chance where there was but one winner.
By the time of Jesus,
once on the cross, his clothes were stripped from him and divided up among the
soldiers, and then the tunic which was the more valuable article of clothing,
was distributed by the casting of lots, rather than by being cut up into equal
parts, Matt 27:35; Luke 23:34; John 19:23-24.
The John 19 passage gives the best description of this process.
This event was of course
1000 years after this prophecy. David
lived shortly prior to 1000 B.C.
Crucifixion was not a
common practice until the time of the Persian Empire in the early 500’s B.C.
when Darius I crucified many thousands.
The Greeks picked up on the torture practice and then the Romans began
using it as the official form of execution in the first century A.D.
And as these things apply
to one person, this chapter gives many references to practices that did not
occur at the time of its writing, thus directing it to but one person, namely
Jesus Christ, the Messiah, of whom David was writing.
No imposter could possible
accomplish this on themselves, as these things depend on the actions of others
(courts, judges, soldiers, crowds of people, etc.).
