Old Testament prophecy fulfilled by Jesus.
Have His hands and feet pierced.
David’s Psalm 22 is a prophetic one. In it he wrote:
“For dogs have surrounded me: a band of evildoers has encompassed me; they pierced my hands and my feet.” Psalm 22:16.
What is interesting is that David wrote these words about piercing hands and feet, hundreds of years before crucifixion was first used.
Crucifixion was used for hundreds of years by various groups beginning in about the 6th century BC. It was the punishment often times used for political prisoners. By the time of the Rome empire, Roman citizens were usually not crucified because it was a horrific way to die. But they crucified many non-Romans. So that passersby would know, they placed a sign over the prisoner’s head that listed his crime.
David’s words from Psalm 22 were fulfilled in Jesus, the son of David, when he was crucified.
The book of John tells us this:
“And Pilate wrote an inscription also, and put it on the cross, and it was written, ‘JESUS THE NAZARENE, THE KING OF THE JEWS.’ Therefore this inscription many of the Jews read, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city; and it was written in Hebrew, Latin, and in Greek.” John 19:19-20.
About 300 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, the Roman emperor Constantine I became a Christian. He was the first emperor to convert to Christianity. He abolished the use of crucifixion in the Roman empire.
Carla Killough McClafferty