Biblical Hebrew Forum

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

Peter,

On Apr 25, 2005, at 4:57 AM, Peter Kirk wrote:
> 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.

While Psalm 40:7 (EVV 40:6) does use the verb  כרה/KRH with "ears" as 
its object, I do not think this fact in any way makes more probable the 
translation of כרו ידי ורגלי / K[)]RW YDY WRGLY in Psalm 22:17 (EVV 
22:16) as "they have pierced my hands and my feet," for the following 
reasons. (And, by the way, that may not have been your [Peter's] 
intention in citing the parallel, but it still needs to be explored.)

(1) Contextually, I do not see any justification for interpreting Psalm 
40:7 in light of Exodus 21:6. In Exodus 21:6, the context of 
ear-piercing is a ritualistic marking of a lifelong slave. The context 
of Psalm 40:7 seems to have nothing to do, as far as I can see, with 
even a metaphorical theme of perpetual slavery. The context of Psalm 
40:7 is one of newly-gained understanding. In that light, phrases in 
which גלה/GLH "to uncover" takes אזן/)ZN "ear" as an object seem to me 
more useful analogues: Job 33:16; 36:10; 36:15 (the only attestations 
of this phrase as far as I am aware).

(2) If Psalm 22:17 uses a transitive verb כרה/KRH with unspecified 
subjects, then its operation on the psalmist's hands/feet is clearly a 
bad or undesirable thing, a harmful act. In Psalm 40:7, "digging" ears 
for the psalmist is clearly regarded as a good thing, a revelatory act.

(3) If Psalm 40:7 refers to God "forming the ear cavity in the body," 
then it is not a reference to something that happens to "living flesh," 
but rather something that happens prenatally, in the womb. Yet I do not 
think such an interpretation can be sustained from Psalm 40:7, because 
the relevant phrase seems contextually to refer to the psalmist's 
realization of new knowledge about God.

Based on the above considerations it seems most likely to me that the 
unusual idiom "you have dug ears for me" in Psalm 40:7 literally 
describes the removal of some sort of blockage from the psalmist's ear, 
used here metaphorically to describe removal of some sort of blockage 
in the psalmist's understanding of God's attitude toward sacrifice. For 
these reasons, I don't think Psalm 40:7 can be convincingly used to 
support a translation of KRW in Psalm 22:17c as "they pierced" in the 
sense of some sort of harmful activity. (Again, I don't know if Peter 
was suggesting that or not, but it does seem like a possibility that 
needed to be considered.)

Chris H.

--
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