Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Heard, Christopher" <Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu>]

Walter, 

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. 

Hope that's helpful. 

Chris Heard 

On Apr 24, 2005, at 3:13 PM, Walter R. Mattfeld wrote: 


>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) 
>
>Regards, Walter 
>Walter Reinhold Warttig Mattfeld y de la Torre, M.A. Ed. 
>mattfeld12 AT charter.net 
>www.bibleorigins.net 
>
>_______________________________________________ 
>b-hebrew mailing list 
>b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org 
>http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-hebrew 
>
>
-- 
R. Christopher Heard 
Assistant Professor of Religion 
Pepperdine University 
Malibu, California 90263-4352 
http://faculty.pepperdine.edu/cheard 
http://www.iTanakh.org 
http://www.semioticsandexegesis.info