Biblical Hebrew Forum

[MarjorieAlley AT cs.com]

In a message dated 4/26/2005 11:14:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
Christopher.Heard AT pepperdine.edu writes:

>>> I do apologize if this post is overly pedantic. However, since the issue 
in
interpreting Psalm 22:16 is not just figuring out whether we have here a
preposition + noun or a verb, but also determining, if it is a verb, what
verb it is and what semantic range that verb occupies, to say that a Hebrew
manuscript "reads X," where X is a string of English words, short-circuits
the interpretive process. <<<


Don't apologize; you made some excellent points!

On another forum I have frequently reminded others that the choices are by no 
means limited to "like the lion" and "pierced". 

I've collected a fair number of journal articles on this over the years, and 
I've enjoyed reading the wide range of proposed roots and meanings. There's 
an 
interesting footnote in an article by G. R. Driver: "Textual and Linguistic 
Problems of the Book of Psalms." Harvard Theological Review, volume 29 
(1936), 
pp. 171-195.

Driver proposes that a suitable root is "Ass. karu I.2 'to lop off, shear' ". 
His footnote reads (without diacritical marks):

"Cf. Ass. Utlatus dalabis kuru 'his privies were painfully hacked off' "

Incidentally, the Driver article is significant because on p. 175 he says ten 
Hebrew manuscripts have the reading ka'aru and five have the reading karu. 

Regards,
Marjorie Alley