- -, B-Hebrew, [], 24 Apr 2005 - Walter R. Mattfeld, karu or ka'ari (Ps 22:16) ?; I have a question of scholars on this list versed in Hebrew, is the following information correct or incorrect, or "in dispute" as to meaning
regarding the word karu or ka'ari ?
Cf. the below quoted statement:
"On Psalm 22:16 "they pierced my hands and my feet" (King James Version), Christians here found a famous example of an explicit prefiguration of Jesus's sufferings. In the Gospel story, the Romans pierce his hands and feet with nails in preparation for his being hung upon the cross. Nitzachon Vetus answered that the word given in the Latin translation as "they pierced" is written in the Hebrew original not as karu ("they pierced"), but as ka'ari ("like a lion"). The entire verse is properly translated, "For dogs have surrounded me; a pack of evildoers has enclosed me, like a lion [at] my hands and my feet." In biblical poetry, such as in the book of Psalms, the second half of a verse typically echoes the first. With this in mind, we should expect the imagery of being torn by wild beasts to be consistent from phrase to phrase -and it is. A modern update of the King James Bible, the Revised Standard Version, now includes a footnote acknowledging the more authentic translation of the verse." (p. 168. David Klinghoffer. Why The Jews Rejected Jesus. New York. Doubleday. 2005. ISBN 0-385-51021-7)
- Dave Washburn; I'd have to say it's "in dispute." The biggest problem, as the translation
above subtly notes, is the lack of a solid relationship between "like a lion" and "hands and feet." The author had to supply "at" in order to make sense of the clause, because "like a lion my hands and feet" is nonsense. LXX reads "they pierced". 4QPs(f) includes the verse (see DJD 16 p. 88). It's in pretty bad shape at this point, but based on line lengths and such it appears to read KR[W], i.e. according to the editors there doesn't seem to have been room for the aleph so it most likely read "pierced." One could wonder whether the "like a lion" reading might have arisen in reaction to Christian use of the verse?
Oh yes, the description of how biblical poetry works is quite simplistic and only tells part of the story......
- Chris Heard; Definitely "in dispute." The translation of that verse has long been a
debated issue in the interpretation of Psalm 22. The MT does read כארי ידי
ורגלי = ka'ari yaday veraglay, literally, "like a lion my hands and feet." Since this phrase does not make good sense, there has been a longstanding
practice of emending כארי = ka'ari to the verbal form כרו = karu, understood to be a 3rd person plural form of the verb כרה I = karah I, "to dig." (The emendation is reasonable; it's not unusual to get an aleph where one doesn't belong, and vav/yodh graphic confusion is common.) Then "to dig" is translated/interpreted as "to pierce" (which it karah I doesn't mean in any of its [other] attested appearances) and then you have "the Jesus connection."
A very important contribution to this debate was made by J. J. M. Roberts, "A New Root for an Old Crux, Ps. XXII 17c," Vetus Testamentum 23.2 (1973) 247-252. (Please remember that in many psalms, the traditional English numbering is one verse off from the traditional Hebrew numbering, such that the Hebrew verse numbers are often one step "higher" than the English
numbers. That is the case here; in Hebrew, the verse in question is numbered as v. 17.) In brief, Roberts surveys the various possibilities, weighing each one with his characteristic good sense. In the end, Roberts agrees with the emendation to karu, but does not see it as an instance of karah I "to dig." Rather, Roberts proposes that we should recognize here a previously unrecognized root, karah V "to be short[ened], shrunken, shriveled" cognate with Syriac and Akkadian karu, "to be short[ened]." In Akkadian, this root is used in medical diagnostic texts to describe illnesses that disfigure the hands and/or feet. Thus Roberts translates Psalm 22:17c "My hands and feet are shriveled."
As far as the parallelism goes, the search for a parallel stich need not be difficult if we remember that the original psalmist did not use "verses." The next line is "I can count all my bones," which would go quite well as a parallel stich to "my hands and my feet are shriveled." This fits very well the sense of the psalm and follows the pattern of the imagery (verse numbers
are all Hebrew; subtract 1 for English):
vv. 13-14 threatening animals
vv. 15-16 physical distress
v. 17ab threatening animals
v. 17c-18a physical distress
Roberts' suggestion has been very influential since the publication of this article, but the "in dispute" nature of this question can be seen by surveying three major contemporary English translations:
NRSV: follows Roberts, emending ka'ari to karu V = "my hands and my feet have shriveled"
NIV: emends ka'ari to (an otherwise unattested meaning of) karu I = "they have pierced my hands and my feet"
JPS: follows the MT, supplying the "missing" verb = "like lions they maul my hands and my feet"
Personally, I find Roberts' arguments quite convincing, though it can hardly be regarded as a consensus. One of the contributors to the recent festschrift for Roberts (David and Zion, ed. Bernard Batto and Kathryn Roberts, Eisenbrauns)--sorry, I cannot remember the name just now--revisits this issue and sharpens Roberts' original arguments.
- Steven Avery; Agreed, and Dave makes good points. (Dave, you should be able to see the DSS on the web, url link/picture below, per the previous 2002 discussion) btw, I have seen some defenders of "like a lion" change the phrase to an exclamatory declaration, supposedly to lesson the grammatical objection.
I placed a lot of information in four posts a while back. Much of it is historical rather than directly etymological.
Please note the email from Emanuel Tov discussing the Hebrew, including the grammatical aspects, also Tov discussed the DSS and the LXX reading.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/7196
Link to Tim Hegg article on DSS
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/7197
Emanuel Tov email, including the Hebrew pause issue
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/7198
Hebraic historical understanding
And a link to a grammar discussion (disclaimer -- although the discussion is interesting, and perhaps even accurate, the actual writer was James Trimm, who is not a Hebrew scholar)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic/message/7199
Various arguments/links , for "pierced" and against
Also of interest is the Ruben Barrett discussion which should come back, after revision, to
http://www.hadavar.net/Psalm22
And includes http://www.hadavar.net/addendum.htmlhttp://www.hadavar.net/Psalm22emails.html Ruben is quite knowledgeable on this, so I look forward to his page returning.
btw, the actual question of Targum manuscripts is one that is especially squirrelly, apparently they may fall on both sides, or they may be the one early witness to "like a lion". As I remember, Ruben was one of the few folks really trying to research this. While early evidence is quite substantially in favor of the verbal form, a Targum with "lion" might be an argument for the reading being pre-Christian, even if the manuscript is post-100 AD.
- R. Christopher Heard; On Apr 24, 2005, at 3:45 PM, Dave Washburn wrote:
LXX reads "they pierced".
To be precise, the LXX of Psalm 21:17c (equivalent to EVV Psalm 22:16c) reads wruxan cheiras mou kai podas (using w for omega). Wruxan is an inflected form of orussw, which does not mean "to pierce," but rather, "to dig, dig out." In 33 attested examples outside of Psalm 22, orussw always means to dig in the ground: to dig a well (common in LXX Genesis), to dig a hole (as in Deut 23:13, a hole to contain excrement), to dig a grave (Tobit 2:7 and other places), to dig a pit as a trap (LXX Ps 56:7 = EVV 57:6, etc.). In one sole case it seems to mean "to inscribe" something on a stone (Zech 3:9). Outside of Psalm 21 (LXX, = MT, EVV Psalm 22), there is no biblically (or, as far as I know, nonbiblical) attested use of orussw to mean "to pierce," especially "to pierce" living flesh as opposed to inanimate matter. Neither is there any such attestation for Hebrew karah. It does appear that the LXX translators read karu in their Hebrew source text, and translated it literally according to karah I, "to dig." But just as "they dug my hands and my feet" makes no sense in English (well, it might, inside a 1970s discotheque), wruxan cheiras mou kai podas makes no (better) sense in Greek, nor does karu [I] yaday veraglay make sense in Hebrew. Both Greek orussw and Hebrew karah I (normally) take objects that name empty spaces--wells, pits, holes, graves--_not_ the matter from which those spaces were hollowed out. (Even Ezekiel 8:8 is no exception to this: in MT, the verb is chatar, not karah, and in LXX orussw is used but takes no object: MT va'echtor baqir, "I dug through the wall" vs. LXX kai wruxa, "and I dug," omitting "through the wall" from the LXX.)
See my other post about J.J.M. Roberts's suggested reading of this verse. It seems likely to me (following Roberts) that the LXX translators read karu as the verb in this verse, but translated it incorrectly because they misread it as an instance of karah I rather than the much rarer karah V.
- Peter Kirk; On 25/04/2005 02:08, Heard, Christopher wrote:
... Outside of Psalm 21 (LXX, = MT, EVV Psalm 22), there is no biblically (or, as far as I know, nonbiblical) attested use of orussw to mean "to pierce," especially "to pierce" living flesh as opposed to inanimate matter. Neither is there any such attestation for Hebrew karah. ...
This may be true of the Greek ORUSSW, but it is not true of the Hebrew KRH. This Hebrew verb is used in Psalm 40:7 (v.6 in English versions), )FZ:NAIYM K.FRIYTF L.IY, literally "you dug ears for me". I accept that the meaning of this is rather obscure, and it is not helped by the LXX (39:7) KATHRTISW "you prepared". But the meaning probably relates either to ear piercing as in Exodus 21:6 (Hebrew RC(, found only here in the Hebrew Bible) or to God forming the ear cavity in the body - so both a matter of piercing living flesh.
Vertaling Bijbel, Kanttekeningen SV, [], Want [25]honden hebben mij omsingeld; een vergadering van boosdoeners heeft mij omgeven; zij hebben mijn handen en mijn voeten [26]doorgraven. 25. Versta, de hogepriesters en schriftgeleerden, mitsgaders het snode gespuis der Jode en soldaten, die de Heere Christus bij honden vergelijkt, vermits hunne snoodheid, onreinheid en dolle razernij tegen hem. Verg. Job 30:1. hfdst.59 vs.7,15. Spreuk.26:11. Matth.7:6. Fillip.3:2. Openb.22:15. Zie ook 2 Sam.3:8. 26. Dat is, zij hebben mijne handen en voeten doornageld.