I may tell all my bones
For what with the stretching out of his body on the cross, when
it was fastened to it as it lay on the ground, and with the jolt
of the cross when, being reared up, it was fixed in the ground,
and with the weight of the body hanging upon it, all his bones
were disjointed and started out; so that, could he have seen
them, he might have told them, as they might be told by the
spectators who were around him; and so the Septuagint, Vulgate
Latin, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions render it, "they have
numbered all my bones"; that is, they might have done if: the
Targum is, "I will number all the scars of my members", made by
the blows, scourges, and wounds he received;
they look [and] stare upon me;
meaning not his bones, but his enemies; which may be understood
either by way of contempt, as many Jewish interpreters explain
it: so the Scribes and elders of the people, and the people
themselves, looked and stared at him on the cross, and mocked at
him, and insulted him; or by way of rejoicing, saying, "Aha, aha,
our eye hath seen", namely, what they desired and wished for, (
Psalms
35:21 ) ; a sight as was enough to have moved an heart of
stone made no impression on them; they had no sympathy with him,
no compassion on him, but rejoiced at his misery: this staring
agrees with their character as dogs.
