Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>]

On 02/12/2003 09:52, David Kimbrough (CLWA) wrote:

> A different way to look at it is to determine the object of the verbs. Of
> the six times that the English word "pierce" occurs in the KJV, the
> corresponding verbs are once "daqar", twice "makhats", three times "naqab"
> (Ignoring the 22nd Psalm for the moment which would be number seven). In
> Strong's these three verbs have listed translations as "pierce", "wound",
> "smite", "strike", "run-through", "pierce-through", "shatter", "bore",
> "thrust", and "thrust-through". In each case, the object of the verb is a
> part of the human body.
>
> Of the 15 times that "karah" derived verbs are used (again ignoring the 22nd
> Psalm) , the object is "pit" 9 times, "well" 2 times, "land" 1 time, "grave"
> or "sepulcher" 1 time, "ear" 1 time (Psalm 40:6, where "opening the ear"
> could also mean "digging out the earwax"), and "evil" 1 time (Proverbs 16:27
> "diggeth up evil"). As can be seen, the object of this verb, even when it is
> not translated as "dig", is something one could easily "dig". However one
> would never "pierce" a well, land, a grave, or a pit (or earwax).
>
> So even if one were to reject the "like a lion" reading, emending the text
> to read "karu" would only result in an equally untenable reading, "they dig
> my hands and my feet". It would seem to me that if the author wanted to
> covey the idea that hands and feet had something sharp thrust through them,
> producing a wound, the author had available several verbs that would do so
> (daqar, makhats, and naqab).  
>
> dkimbrough AT clwa.org
>  
Your logic is faulty. It depends on the premise that this cannot be a 
unique collocation of verb and noun (or noun and noun). But we already 
know that this is a unique collocation which occurs nowhere else in the 
Hebrew Bible - otherwise there would be no problem. And it is easily 
demonstrated that there are very many unique collocations in the Bible, 
i.e. individually unique but collectively quite common.

You mention several of these unique collocations in your posting: KRH 
with "land"; KRH with "grave"; KRH with "ear"; KRH with "evil". In fact, 
from your statistics, 4 of the 15 occurrences of KRH are with unique 
objects. Therefore it is quite common to find KRH with a unique object, 
which is rather a good argument that the questionable word in Psalm 22 
IS a form of KRH.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/