thirst for blood. All ranks of people combined against him ; and not so much as one was found to administer comfort to him, or to assuage his anguish. Of this he complains as a great additional source of grief and sorrow ; " Reproach hath broken my heart ; and I am full of heaviness : and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none^"
Exceeding deep also and various were his sufferings. In his body he endured all that the most cruel adversaries could inflict. He complains that his frame was so emaciated that they might " count all his bones;" that " his joints also were dislocated," and " his hands and feet pierced with nails :" and, to complete the scene, whilst he was suspended thus, a naked bloody spectacle upon the cross, some gazed upon him with a stupid unfeeling curiosity (" they look and stare upon me") ; and others, with cruel indifference, amused themselves with " casting lots upon his vesture."
Now in no sense whatever were these things at any time fulfilled in David. In relating them, he evidently personates the Messiah, in whom they were fulfilled with the minutest possible precision.
In his soul his sufferings were far deeper still. Before ever his body was touched, "his soul was exceeding sorrowful even unto death ''." And from whence did that anguish proceed but from the hand of the Father, who visited on him the sins of the whole world '^? Yes, this it was which then so oppressed and overwhelmed him : and at the same time all the hosts of hell assaulted him ; for " that was their hour, and the power of darkness." Under the pressure of these mental agonies, " he was poured out like water," or rather, was consumed, as it were, by fire, as the burnt-offerings were, even with the fire of God's wrath ; insomuch that " his heart was like melted wax in the midst of his bowels."]
Of his sufferings we may form a yet further judg- ment from,
2. His supplications —
[These were offered up in every diversified form, of reno- vated entreaty, and of urgent pleas: *' Be not thou far from me ; haste thee to help me : deliver my soul from the sword ; save me from the lion's mouth ; for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." Now these petitions, I apprehend, related chiefly, if not exclusively, to the sufferings of his soul. It was " the Father's sivord that had now awaked against him, to smite him," and it was " the roaring lion,'' even Satan, with
» ver. 11. with Ps. Ixix. 20. ^ Matt. xxvi. 38. <: Isai. liii. 10.