The speaker opens with a violent, visceral plea: spit in my face, pierce my side, scourge and crucify me. It's not a theatrical boast of martyrdom but a cry of deep, personal guilt. He's convinced his sins are so persistent that he crucifies the glorified Christ daily—an ongoing horror that dwarfs the Jews' single act of killing an "inglorious" man. He knows his own death could never satisfy the debt; he's not asking for pity so much as confessing a crushing unworthiness. The mood is raw and self-lacerating, a tight, anguished spiral.
Then, without warning, the poem turns to wonder. He asks simply to "admire" God's strange love—a love that overturns human logic. Kings pardon from a safe distance, but Christ took the punishment into his own body. The final comparison is stunning: Jacob once wore rough goatskins to deceive his father and steal a blessing, but God "clothed himself in vile man's flesh" for the opposite reason—to become weak enough to suffer woe. This image of divine strength willingly breaking reorients everything. The agonized guilt doesn't vanish, but it gives way to a hushed, grateful awe. The speaker is left not with answers but with a stilled, wondering heart.