Biblical Hebrew Forum

[Harold Holmyard <hholmyard AT ont.com>]

Yitzhak Sapir wrote:
> On 9/28/06, Vadim Cherny wrote:
>
> > I'm less familiar with the Christian issues, but I frankly don't see how you
> > could read ca-ari in Ps22:17 as "pierced."
> > As a lion [they have encompassed (transposition from the earlier phrase)] my
> > hands and feet.
> >
> > Vadim Cherny
>
> The prefix ka- in this verse takes a qamats, suggesting it can't be
> read as "As a
> lion".  There are variants with a patach, but as it stands the standard 
> reading
> also has its problems (though probably less than the reading k)r = dig, which
> ignore just the vowels, but also the aleph).

HH: The aleph may not be such a problem. Conrad 
Gren writes:

Ancient Hebrew sometimes has a fuller (plené) 
spelling than what exists in today's Hebrew text. 
This included adding alephs to assist in 
vocalization, before the vowel pointing system.

Yours,
Harold Holmyard