Psalm 34:20

Psalm 34:20  

No bone was broken     

This statement pulls us up short doesn’t it? Who was it who was brutally tortured and abused and then nailed to a Roman crucifix but not a bone of His body was broken? We are talking about Jesus, of course, and the Scriptures tell us that when the Roman soldiers inspected the three bodies hanging on their crosses, they had to break the legs of the thieves. This caused their torsos to slump and after hours of suffering and gradual weakening it would have brought about immediate asphyxiation. But Jesus did not have His legs broken, He was already dead. He had voluntarily and willingly submitted His Spirit to God and had breathed His last. A soldier thrust a spear into His side just to check that He was deceased; the separation of the blood and water that flowed was evidence enough that His heart was no longer pumping and that He was indeed a corpse. 

We have been sympathising with David’s troubles and have sensed something of his dilemma as he writes this Psalm and then, suddenly, he throws us a curved ball and we realise that the Psalm is prophetic and the “righteous” refers to the Lord Jesus. The eyes of the Lord God were on Him. His ears heard the cries from the cross. The Lord delivered His Son from all His troubles. The Lord was close to Jesus when His heart was broken and his spirit was crushed. The Lord protected Him. In truth we should not be surprised, if the Lord God made such promises to David why would He not honour His Son too and, we might well ask, will He not also protect us? Of course He will. Hallelujah!

 

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