Ps 22:16 (Eng. 15)
The basic motif
of “My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves to jaws” is
applied in 2 Targ Est 5:1 to Esther’s coming before King Ahasuerus: “With tears
she prayed fervently, sot that her throat and lips became dry.”
In John 19:28
Jesus on the Cross says, “I thirst.” He is then given vinegar to drink, after
which he dies. Jesus’ thirst at this point is “to fulfill the scripture” (v.
28), certainly referring to Ps 69:22 (Eng 21): “for my thirst they gave me
vinegar to drink.” Yet the basic idea of Jesus’ thirst on the Cross may
originally have been occasioned by Ps 22:16. (Robert David Aus, “The Release of
Barabbas (Mark 15:6-15 par.; John 18:39-40), and Judaic Traditions on the Book
of Esther,” in Barabbas and Esther and Other Studies in the Judaic Illumination
of Earliest Christianity [Studies in the History of Judaism; Atlanta: Scholars
Press, 1992], 13)
Further Reading:
Full Refutation of the Protestant Interpretation of John 19:30
