Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Steve Miller" <smille10 AT sbcglobal.net>]

> From: K Randolph
> Sent: Monday, December 07, 2009 1:36 PM
> To: B-Hebrew
> Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] prosthetic aleph in Ps 22:17?
> 
> Steve, Jason, Moshe, et. al.:
> 
> When reading Biblical Hebrew, it is very rare that I find fragments of
> sentences except where a thought is being carried forward from another
> section, usually from the same verse. Then what is carried forward is
> almost
> always a subject or object, with a new verb to add onto the previous
> thought. Almost never is it the verb that is being carried forward.

[Steve Miller] Thanks Karl! If true, this is a very valuable observation. I
will be looking for this when I read.
One that I think is a counter-example to this is: 
Gen 1:2 And the earth became waste and empty; 
and darkness [became] upon the face of the deep. 
And the Spirit of God [became] hovering upon the face of the waters.
I thought that the 2nd & 3rd clauses inherit the verb hayita from the 1st.
Others consider the 2nd & 3rd clauses as verbless clauses that do not
inherit anything from the 1st.

> 
> Now to look at Psalm 22:17—it follows the same pattern. In Hebrew it is
> split up into three sections of three words each. “They are dogs who
> surround me, a congregation of those who do unpleasant things encircle
> me,…”
> Then comes the third section, “as a lion my hands and feet.” Where’s the
> verb in that section of the verse? If the verb is carried forward, then it
> would be the plural “encircle” and then “as a lion” should be “as lions”.
> But it’s not.
> 
> Another way of looking at it, each section of the verse (including those
> verses surrounding it) consists of a distinct thought, with subject, verb
> and object. Yes, they build on context for a complete picture, but they
> are
> not sentence fragments. “As a lion” does not fit the context nor pattern.
> Further, of the three words, only כאר can be a verb, the expected verb in
> this section of the verse. Finally, other translations, most notably the
> LXX, do indicate that it is a verb.
> 
> In conclusion, from context, grammar, and pattern, we expect to find a
> verb
> in that section of the verse, backed up by earlier translations.
> 
> I do not agree that we should split up the verses
> differently. That messes up the next verse.
> 
> I think I have the same .pdf file as Steve, and the picture contained in
> it
> can be enlarged to what appears to be a few times original before it
> starts
> pixellating. There is no question that there כארו is written, a plural
> verb,
> which fits the context of the rest of the verse describing a plural
> subject.
> It also fits the pattern of the rest of the verse that each section
> contain
> its own verb. I think the evidence from the Nahal Heber fragment shows the
> correct original text that was corrupted by copyist errors by the time of
> the MT. I do not think it was deliberate rewriting.
> 
> Incidentally. the photograph of the Nahal Heber fragment indicates that
> the
> final section of verse 18 should read, “המה יביטו יראי בי”, again a
> reading
> I anticipated from grammar, context and pattern.

[Steve Miller] very, very interesting! I would like to discuss as a separate
thread. 
> 
> Now I come to the next question: what does it mean?
> 
> I think this was one of the vocabulary that was forgotten by the time of
> the
> LXX, hence they took it as a variation of כרה and mistranslated even that.
> כרה means ‘to furnish as in to provide Pr 16:27, 26:27’ which, when what
> was
> provided was a well, was done by means of digging. It does not mean ‘to
> dig’
> or similar. 

[Steve Miller] The verb krh always means "dig" or an abstraction of "dig" as
in Pr 16:27 & Job 6:27 "you dig upon your friend". There is no need to
generalize the meaning to mean "furnish". If that was the case there should
be uses of krh to say I krh'd you some food, some clothing, etc. No, it
always means "digged" or something that is in human experience an
abstraction of digged, as in to dig up evil or to deeply wound.

> From this, I do not think this is a prosthetic aleph. I doubt
> such a thing exists.

[Steve Miller] I tend to agree. I would like to hear more from Moshe on
this.
> 
> I take this as a verb that appears only twice, the other time in Amos 8:8,
> meaning ‘to deform’, an understanding taken from Akkadian medical texts
> referring to diseases that deform. In which case, the aleph is an integral
> part of the verb, not something slipped in.
> 
[Steve Miller] How would you translate Amos 8:8 then with that verb?
Sincerely,
-Steve Miller
Detroit
www.voiceInWilderness.info
They shall come, and they shall declare
to a people to be born,
reveal His righteousness.
This deed which the Lord has done
they'll retell to everyone
that He may all peoples bless. (Psalm 22:31)

> In closing, I think the evidence is pretty strong that the Nahal Heber
> fragment preserves the original text of Psalm 22:17. I am just a linguist,
> not a theologian, so here is where I bow out of the argument.
> 
> Karl W. Randolph.
> _______________________________________________