The first is that there is nothing to show that the writer meant the Psalm to refer to the Messiah at all, though, strange to say, some of the Jews so interpreted it;[391] therefore if there is an agreement, it is at most only a chance coincidence. But the idea of _all_ these coincidences being due to chance is most improbable. And there certainly is some indication that it refers to the Messiah, since, as we have seen, it leads up to the conversion of the Gentiles, which the other Jewish prophets always associate with the times of the Messiah. [Footnote 391: Edersheim, 1901, vol. ii., 713.] Moreover, if the Psalm does not refer to Christ, it is difficult to see to whom it does refer, since it is quite inapplicable to David, or Hezekiah, or anyone else at that time; as crucifixion was not a Jewish punishment, though dead bodies were sometimes hung on trees. Yet, as just said, verses 7-8 show that the Sufferer was put to death among his own nation. This strange anomaly of a Jew being put to death among Jews, though not in the Jewish manner by stoning, but by crucifixion, exactly suits the time of Christ, when Judæa was a Roman province, and crucifixion a Roman punishment. Many of the _details_ also are quite inapplicable. David, for instance, never had his garments divided among his enemies; yet (even apart from our Gospels) there can be little doubt that the garments of Christ were so divided, as the clothes of a prisoner were usually taken by the guard who executed him. And any such reference (to David, etc.) is rendered still more improbable, because the sufferer appears to have no sense of _sin_, and never laments his own wickedness, as the writers so frequently do when speaking about themselves. And here also the Psalm is entirely applicable to Christ, since (as we shall see in the next chapter) His sinlessness was a striking feature in His character. Nor again did the deliverance of David in any way lead to the _conversion of the Gentiles_, which, as just said, is the grand climax of the Psalm, and excludes all other interpretations. But in any case this objection (which is also made to other Old Testament prophecies) cannot be maintained; for _who_, we must ask, was their real author? Was it the human prophet, or was it God Who inspired the prophet to write as he did? And the prophets themselves emphatically declared that it was the latter. The word of the Lord came unto them, or a vision was granted unto them, and they had to proclaim it, whether they liked it or not. In fact, as St. Matthew says, it was not really the prophet who spoke, but God, who spoke _through the prophet_.[392] There is thus no reason for thinking that they either knew, or thought they knew, the whole meaning of their prophecies; and the objection may be dismissed at once. [Footnote 392: _E.g._, Matt. 1. 22.]