Written Before the Cross

Written Before the Cross

Psalm 22:16 and the prophecy of the pierced hands and feet

"They pierced My hands and My feet." Psalm 22, traditionally credited to King David around 1000 BC, describes a man surrounded by enemies, mocked, his bones out of joint, his garments divided by lot, and his hands and feet pierced. Christians have long read it as a prophecy of Jesus' crucifixion. In this teaching, Jafet Perez of The Road to Damascus focuses on verse 16. He argues that the wording is too specific, and was written too long before the cross, to be dismissed as coincidence.

What is said in the video

• Psalm 22:16. He reads the verse ("a pack of villains encircles me; they pierced my hands and my feet") and says anyone who hears it can see that "this is clearly talking about the crucifixion."
• A thousand years before the cross. If David wrote the psalm himself, "this was written a thousand years before Christ's crucifixion. A thousand years, guys."
• How the psalm is dated. He notes that historians date Psalm 22 to roughly 1000–700 BC, based on its linguistic style, vocabulary and poetic structure.
• "A crazy exact use of words." He traces crucifixion's history on a whiteboard timeline: impalement and suspension in Assyria and Persia, then the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Greek world, and finally Rome. He argues that nailing came late in that history.
• Even the latest date. Taking the latest date he considers possible for the text, the Greek Septuagint at around 200 BC, he says "it would still be 230 years before Christ's crucifixion."
• The historical Jesus. "We know for a fact that Jesus Christ was a historical figure." Extra-biblical sources confirm that He was crucified, and He was crucified because He claimed to be the Son of God, "the Word made flesh."
• His closing challenge. "There's really only two possibilities here." Either Jesus was a liar, He was delusional, "or He was simply saying the truth."

A note on the history

The dates and the timeline of crucifixion in the video are the speaker's own presentation. A few points for context:

• Psalm 22's heading attributes it to David (c. 1000 BC). Many critical scholars date the psalm later. On any dating, though, it was in Scripture centuries before Jesus.
• Crucifixion-type executions go back to the Assyrians and Persians, as impalement and suspension. Herodotus records Darius impaling 3,000 Babylonians around 519 BC. Alexander the Great crucified 2,000 men at Tyre in 332 BC, and Rome took up the practice in the 3rd century BC.
• The speaker's claim that nails were first used around 150 BC is his own estimate. Ancient sources vary. Herodotus describes the Persian Artayctes being nailed to planks in 479 BC. The best-known physical evidence of nailing, the heel bone of a crucified man named Yehohanan found in Jerusalem, comes from the 1st century AD.
• Jesus' crucifixion is usually dated to AD 30 or AD 33.

A note on the text: "pierced" or "like a lion"?

The traditional Hebrew Masoretic Text of Psalm 22:16 (22:17 in Hebrew) reads *ka'ari*, "like a lion [at] my hands and my feet." The Greek Septuagint, translated before Christ, reads *ōryxan*, "they dug" or "they pierced." The Syriac and Latin Vulgate follow it, as do some Hebrew manuscripts, and the NKJV footnotes this. A psalms scroll from Nahal Hever in the Judean Desert (1st century AD) is widely read as *ka'aru*, a verb form, rather than *ka'ari*. The two Hebrew words differ by one small letter (yod vs. vav), so most English Bibles translate "pierced."

The speaker addresses this in the full video. He presents the "like a lion" reading and argues that a copying error between two very similar words is the likely explanation. Faithful scholars land on both sides of the textual question. The fulfillment does not rest on this one verse alone, though. Psalm 22 also describes the mocking (vv. 7–8), the thirst (v. 15) and the dividing of the garments by lot (v. 18), which the Gospels record at the cross (Matthew 27:35, 39–43; John 19:23–24, 28).

Scripture (NKJV)

"For dogs have surrounded Me; the congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet." Psalm 22:16

"Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving, but believing.'" John 20:27

"And I will pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem the Spirit of grace and supplication; then they will look on Me whom they pierced. Yes, they will mourn for Him as one mourns for his only son, and grieve for Him as one grieves for a firstborn." Zechariah 12:10

Source

"If Jesus Isn't God, Explain This Prophecy" by The Road to Damascus (Jafet Perez), October 16, 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgXr75qU0pA