This is the third usage of T'hillim / Psalm 22 by the list maker. This one is wholly fraudulent. Not only is there no such prophecy, but neither the psalm or Matthew mention "Calvary"! Luke 23:33 (in the King James translation) has "And when they were come to the place, which is called Calvary, there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand, and the other on the left." The word "Calvary" does not appear in Luke 23:33. In Greek it is Κρανίου Τόπος (Kraníou Tópos). The KJV translators chose to use the word "Calvary" possibly because it is a Anglicized version of the Latin Calvariæ Locus-- a Latin translation of the Greek Κρανίου Τόπος (Kraníou Tópos). Modern translators tend to translate the Greek into English and say "the skull." But here is the rub: the term Calvary does not appear in T'hillim / Psalm 22 or in Matthew 27:45 at all. Neither does the term "skull." One will not find the term "skull" in T'hillim / Psalm 22:3 (line 2 in Christian translations) or anywhere else in this psalm. So how is this a prophecy, let alone a prophetic fulfillment of the psalm? The list maker does not mention Luke 23, but instead references Matthew 27:45 which says "Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour." How is Matthew 27:45 a prophetic fulfillment of anything? Last I looked darkness falls every single day -- and we do have an occasional lunar eclipse as well! There was a lunar eclipse circa 29 CE (too early for Jesus' death) -- but it did not last 3 minutes let alone 3 hours! This seems to be 100% fiction on the part of the Gospel author. . . but fictional or not it is not prophesied in the Jewish bible, and definitely not in T'hillim / Psalm 22:3 (2 in Christian translations). There is no prophecy in T'hillim / Psalm 22:3 (line 2 in Christian translations) about the messiah, the messiah's death, or darkness when said death occurs. It says "My G-d, I call out by day and You do not reply, and at night I do not keep silent." -- which is King David's plea that he feels surrounded by enemies and that he prays constantly to G-d. To repeat the quote from the psalm: "I call out by day. . . and at night I do not keep silent." So how can a missionary twist David praying day and night into a "prophecy" that there will be darkness "upon Calvary" when Jesus dies? Some missionaries may say that the psalm is a "types and shadow" prophecy. There is no such thing. Christians can't rely on the plain meaning of future visions to "prove" that Jesus fulfilled prophecies, so they invented the idea of "types and shadows," or very non-literal readings where they just take a word or sentence out of context and claim that Jesus fulfilled something even when the text is plainly not discussing Jesus. This missionary concept of types and shadows for "prophetic fulfillment" is not justified. It is alien to the Biblical view. When the T'nach identifies a vision as fulfilled, we see a direct one-to-one correspondence between prophecy and fulfillment. Prophecy is:
Prophets who do give visions of the future fall into two categories. A positive vision will always come to pass (eventually). However negative visions may always be avoided by improving one's behavior. This is the purpose of a negative vision -- to warn people to avoid it. A principle of the Talmud that Rashi quotes several times states that אֵין מִקְרָא יוֹצֵא מִידֵי פְשׁוּטוֹ -- in English this would be "A verse cannot depart from its plain meaning." (Treatise Shabbat 63a, Treatise Y'vamot 11b, 24a; quoted by Rashi at B'réshıt / Genesis 15:10, 37:19, Sh'mot / Exodus 12:2). The plain meaning of this psalm is that King David is speaking about being surrounded by his enemies and pleading to G-d constantly for His help. Many of the supposed prophecies in the list have some linkage with a Christian proof text -- but this one seems 100% made up.
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