Posted on by wrote in General Apologetics, Historical and Messianic Prophecy, Q & A, Uncategorized.

Question:

David (Dowd – the Beloved) wrote Psalm 22 in first person because it is Dowd himself who would fulfill Passover Matsah and FirstFruits. He would have said “you” if he were speaking of someone else. YHWH calls Dowd His “Son, Messiah, Shepherd, Counselor, King, and Gibbor.” Isaiah 9 says that a child IS born– the child is already born. If “Jesus” is the King, then it would be called “The Throne of YHWH, or Yahsha”, but it is called “The Throne of Dowd”; only Dowd qualifies. “The Descendant” is the body prepared as the Passover Lamb, the soul is Dowd’s.  Why do you think Psalm 22 is written in First Person?  What other Prophecies are written in First Person?

Answer:

You are making assumptions about the intent of the author of Psalm 22 (and Isaiah) without providing evidence to support your assumptions, and thus your arguments are rather weak.  How do you know he would have said “you” if he meant someone else?  In literature this sort of thing is done all the time.  Can you prove this, or can you even give a convincing argument that this must be true?  Or is this simply an assumption and no more than that?  Do you have arguments from other Hebrew literature?  Is there some sort of rule that prophecy cannot be stated in the present tense?  In fact, there are several prophecies that Messiah would be the “branch” of Jesse (Isaiah 11:1,10) and a descendant of David (Jeremiah 23:5).  In point of fact, the Jews in general (but not all) believed that the Messiah would not be David himself, but that the Messiah would be a descendant of David.  When YHWH made a covenant with David, it was promised that he would always have someone on his throne, and that a descendant of his would occupy David’s throne “forever.”  Jesus, the son of David, is the only candidate to be the fulfillment of this prophecy.

A messianic prophecy which is in the first person is Zechariah 11:10-13.  Psalm 110:1 is a possible additional example, depending on what you mean by a first person prophecy.  As for Psalm 22, this is a psalm, written by David in which he is expressing his own personal anguish at his own feeling of having been forsaken by God.  The psalm itself does not give us sufficient information to know what event in the life of David lies behind this feeling of having been forsaken.  From the life of David, there are several examples in which he might have felt forsaken!   This type of psalm is known as a psalm of lament. Psalms of lament are always (exceptions?) in the first person.   It is not even clear that, when he wrote this psalm, David was aware that it was messianic.  It is the content of the psalm which tells us clearly that it is messianic.   In this psalm of lament, David cried out to God, “They have pierced my hands and my feet,” and “They divide my clothes among them, and cast lots for my garments.”  It is extremely unlikely that David ever had his hands and feet pierced, and also unlikely that anyone ever gambled over his garments.  Why did he say this?  I do not know, but the fact that these things happened to Jesus and not to David is clear evidence that this is a messianic prophecy, and also that the psalm is inspired by God.  The answer is that this prophecy is in the first person because that is the nature of psalms of lament.

John Oakes

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