Ps. 22:16 Again: Digging Through the Objections
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The Jewish translations of Psalm 22:16(17), along with some Christian ones, go a form of the Hebrew text that has the noun “like a lion”:
“Dogs surround me; a pack of evil ones closes in on me, like lions (ka’ari) my hands and feet.”
The problem with this reading is that this leaves the verse without a verb, which is why the versions that choose to go with this form of the manuscript tradition must supply one. Case in point:
As such, the reading as it stands makes no sense.
Other translations go with a form of the text, which reads the Hebrew roots k-r-h as a plural verb:
“Dogs surround me; a pack of evildoers closes in on me. They have pierced (karu) my hands and my feet” New American Bible Revised Edition (NABRE)
The following translation explains what the textual issues are:
“Yes, wild dogs surround me—a gang of evil men crowd around me; like a lion they pin my hands and feet. Psalm 22:16
tc The Masoretic text reads “like a lion, my hands and my feet.” The reading is difficult and the ancient versions vary, so the textual difficulty is probably very early. Without a verb, the syntax appears broken and the role of “hands and feet” unclear. One option is to understand the verb of the previous line to apply again, a poetic technique called ellipsis and double duty. But “my hands and feet” would be an odd object for a verb meaning “they encircled.” Otherwise, the broken syntax may represent the emotional outcry of the Psalmist, first mentioning the lion as part of the third person description, but suddenly shifting to the first person perspective and crying out as the lion attacks, pinning down his hands and feet (a scene depicted in ancient Near Eastern art). But this development seems late textually. All the other witnesses have a verb instead of “like a lion.” The LXX says “they dug my hands and feet; the verb ὀρύσσω (orussō) means “to burrow in the ground, to dig.” A Qumran witness seems to read similarly, “they dug.” Instead of the MT’s כארי (kᵉʾariy; like a lion”), the scroll from Nahal Hever has a verb form כארו (kaʾaru) ending with vav instead of yod. Supposing that the א (ʾaleph) is a superfluous spelling variant, the form would be understood as כרו (karu) from the root כרה (karah), meaning “they dug.” In that case, the Qumran scroll and the LXX agree because כרה is one of the two verbs translated in the LXX by ὀρύσσω. But as both these verbs mean “to dig [in the dirt]” this has not helped us understand the context. Assuming that the enemies are still the subject, we might expect “they dug a pit for my hands and feet.” In fact the Hebrew words behind “they dug a pit” look similar (כרו בור) so it is not hard to imagine that one of these two would be overlooked by a scribed and dropped from the text. Some suppose that “to dig [in the ground]” means “to pierce” in reference to hands and feet (possibly from the root כור). Other variants and suggestions include “they bound,” or “they picked clean” (from אָרָה, ʾarah, “to pluck”) my hands and feet. Or “my hands and feet are consumed,” or “worn out.” The latter two assume a copying error of resh for lamed, making the verb come from כלה. P. Craigie (Psalms [WBC], 1:196) opts for this last but also cites Syriac and Akkadian for additional root K-R-H meaning “to be shrunken, shriveled.” The Akkadian verb (karu) is said of body parts and can refer to paralysis, which is the kind of metaphor which occurs in battle contexts elsewhere (e.g. Ps 76:5). It would be very natural to read “my hands and my feet” as the subject of the verb because verb-subject is typical word order. There is no decisive answer to the problem and the NET translation includes the lion imagery (cf. v. 13) and supposes a verb that conveys an attack. New English Translation (NET)
As noted by the NET, the ancient translations go with a verb, instead of a noun, corresponding to piercing or digging through something:
“For many dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked doers has beset me round: they pierced my hands and my feet.” Psalm 21:17 Brenton’s LXX
“because many dogs encircled me, a gathering of evildoers surrounded me. They gouged my hands and feet;” (“Psalms (and Prayer of Manasses)”, in A New English Translation of the Septuagint, as published by Oxford University Press in 2009, including corrections and emendations made in the second printing (2009) and corrections and emendations made in June 2014, p. 557)
“Because dogs surround me and the assembly of the evil have surrounded me; they have pierced my hands and my feet!” (Psalm 22 Aramaic Bible in Plain English)
17 For many dogs have encompassed me: the council of the malignant hath besieged me. They have dug my hands and feet.
Quoniam circumdederunt me canes multi; concilium malignantium obsedit me. Foderunt manus meas et pedes meos, Psalm 21:17 Douay-Rheims Latin Vulgate (DR + LV)
The ancient Aramaic paraphrases of the Psalms read it with both a noun and a verb:
מְטוּל דְאַחֲזַרוּ עֲלָי רַשִׁיעֵי דִמְתִילִין לְכַלְבַיָא סַגִיעִין כְּנִישַׁת מַבְאִישִׁין אַקְפוּנִי נָכְתִין הֵיךְ כְּאַרְיָא אַיְדַי וְרִגְלָי:
Because wicked men, who are like many dogs, have come back against me; an assembly of evildoers has surrounded me; they bite my hands and my feet like a lion. (Aramaic Targum to Psalms 22)
This Jewish rendering is obviously trying to make sense of the verse, since the Hebrew reading “like a lion” (ka’ari) needs a verb in order to complete the thought.
With that said, the evidence supports the verb “they’ve pierced” since this is the reading of the oldest extant Hebrew copy of Psalm 22:16, which was found at Nahal Hever, and has been dated to the mid 1st century AD:
He is encompassed by dogs at the outset of v. 16, and these are then identified as evil men in the same verse. Following is a reference apparently to a lion, that if governed by the previous clause expresses a “surrounding” of the hands by this animal (“as a lion [ka’ariy] are my hands and my feet”). While that rendering seems doubtful, the alternative “they pierced” (ka’aru) requires emendation of the text. However, the latter does have the support of several manuscripts.30 Whatever the original form, clearly the king’s feet and hands are incapacitated by his enemies. (The Moody Handbook of Messianic Prophecy: Studies and Expositions of the Messiah in the Old Testament, edited by Michael Rydelnik and Edwin Blum [Moody Publishers, 2019], pp. 535-536; bold emphasis mine)
29. The reading is disputed between a reading of “like a lion,” “they dug, perforated,” or “they tied.” See Luis Alonso Schökel and Cecilia Carniti, Salmos I (Navarra, España: Editorial Verbo Divino, 2002), 376–77.
30. See the critical apparatus of Biblica Hebraica Stuttgartensia. Rydelnik and Vanlaningham support the reading translated “they pierced” as follows: “The culminating statement of this suffering is they pierced my hands and my feet (v. 16), representing one of the most specific predictive references to Messiah’s crucifixion (paralleled only by Zch 12:10). Yet this is one of the most debated passages in the Bible. The debate centers on the key Hebrew word ka’aru, rendered they pierced, though in most (but not all) medieval Hebrew manuscripts this word is written ka’ariy, meaning ‘like a lion.’ The first reading, however, is to be preferred for five reasons. First, it is supported by three of the four ancient translations (the Septuagint, the Peshitta, and the Vulgate; the fourth translation, the Targum to Psalms, was translated in the second century AD by non-Christian Jews). Second, even for Hebrew poetry, the phrase ‘like a lion’ is far too elliptical and makes no sense without a verb—which supporters of this reading are forced to supply (e.g., ‘like a lion they bite my hands and my feet’). Third, were the symbol of a lion intended, it would have been employed in the plural, not the singular, in order to agree with the plural subject (‘evildoers’) in the verse (as in Jr 50:17 and Zph 3:3). Fourth, one of the leading medieval Jewish scribal authorities (Jacob ben Chayyim) himself affirms that the older and better manuscripts read ka’aru (‘they pierced’) rather than ka’ariy (‘like a lion’). Fifth, the reading ka’aru (‘they pierced’) is attested in earliest the manuscript of this psalm (5/6 HevPs) from the Dead Sea Scrolls, which predates the medieval manuscripts by approximately one thousand years” (“Psalms” in The Moody Bible Commentary ed. Michael Rydelnik and Michael G. Vanlaningham [Chicago: Moody Publishers, 2014], 779–80). (Ibid., pp. 541-542; bold emphasis mine)
Psalm 22:16
Clarification from a Dead Sea Scroll Text
Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet. (Ps 22:16)
The superscription of this psalm writing to David, and therefore the desire for deliverance it describes has been considered to be that experienced historically by the king. Because the Messiah was predicted to come from David's royal seed, Christian interpreters saw David and his experiences as a type of Jesus' experiences, particularly in this psalm, which describes rejection by God and men (vv. 1-8), an agonizing torture by enemies (vv. 11-18) that apparently climaxes in death (v. 15), and yet is followed by deliverance (vv. 22-24). The Gospels record the words of this psalm on the lips of Jesus on the cross, so verses 11-18 were understood to be a messianic prediction of Christ's crucifixion. This interpretation was strengthened by the Septuagint's rendering of the last part of the verse 16 as "they pierced (orusan, an indicative of orusso, "dig, pierce") my hands and my feet." The Syriac Peshitta (a Syriac translation of the Hebrew Bible ca. second century AD) followed this with bazu ("pierced"). This reading obviously translated a Hebrew verb, but the MT, the traditional Jewish text, reads ka’ari ("like a lion"), understanding a preposition (ki, "like") added to a noun ('ari, "lion"). Numerous emendations were offered in light of this textual problem, but support for the reading in the versions came with the archaeological discovery of a Hebrew text of this passage in one of the Dead Sea caves at Nahal Hever. This text (5/6 Heb 11.9) clearly read as a verb, ka'aru ("they dug at/pierced"). There is no evidence, as some have contended, that Jews or Christians tampered with the text. It is more probable that in one of the manuscripts used by the Masoretes the ink had degraded on consonant waw so that it was read by a scribe as a yod, resulting in the word being read as a noun rather than a verb. (Zondervan Handbook of Biblical Archaeology: A Book by Book Guide to Archaeological Discoveries Related to the Bible, by J. Randall Price & H. Wayne House [Zondervan Academic, Grand Rapids, MI 2017], p. 155; bold emphasis mine)
9. The Hebrew text at this point has ka’ari, which makes no sense in the sentence: “Like a lion (ka’ari) my hands and my feet.” All the ancient versions, and the early Jewish sources as well, have a verb instead of “like a lion.” Some of the Masoretic manuscripts also have verbs, either karu or kur, plural forms of the perfect tense. The difference in the current Hebrew text and the Hebrew that was behind the versions would essentially be the last letter, a yod if it is “lion” and a waw if it is the plural verb. And since the yod and the waw are similar, it would have been easy to make the change.
So on the one side (“like a lion”) we have the standard Masoretic reading in the Hebrew Bible, but on the other side (a verb) we have two manuscripts in the Masoretic Hebrew tradition that do not go with the reading of “like a lion” (Kennicott ms 39 has the yod changed to a waw, and DeRossi ms 337 has a Kethiv—Qere’ reading, attesting to both forms). Three later Hebrew manuscripts have the scribal emendation to the verb k—r—w (no ’aleph), and the ancient Greek, Arabic, Syriac, and Latin versions have verb forms. They read something like “they pierced, they dug, they bored through” (Greek has oruxan). The later Greek revisions have different verbs, but still verbs nonetheless: Aquila has épédesan and Symmachus dig hos zetountes, “they bound” or something similar. The Midrash has a verb, but with the translation of “conjure.”
There is a further development of this issue within the Hebrew tradition. In the notes on the page (Masorah finalis) the Medieval editor of the manuscript Jacob ben Chaim had a comment that there was a Kethiv—Qere’ reading at this point, that while “like a lion” was in the text, something else was to be read in its place. The evidence for ben Chaim was found on a Jewish manuscript called “‘ochlah ve ’ochlah,” which was a list of words in the Hebrew Bible that occur in two places with different meanings. word ka’ari, “like a lion” was on that list; in the other place where occurred it meant “like a lion,” and so could not mean that here.
A protestant scholar of the 1800s, Hupfeld, insisted that Ben Chaim had inserted that note under the influence of his Christian friends. C. D. Ginsberg addresses this issue (in Introduction to the Massoretico-Critical Edition of the Hebrew Bible [New York: KTAV, 1966], p. 969), stating that Hupfeld’s accusation was inexcusable because the manuscript list to which ben Chaim referred was in the library at the University of Halle where Hupfeld taught, and he did not check to see if it was there. Ginsberg follows the reading in the Targum, which has both: “like a lion” and “they tore, pierced.”
All the external evidence, the manuscripts and versions, supports the presence of a verb in the verse, probably with the meaning “they pierced.” The text, then, was changed to avoid the reading in favor of “like a lion.” The image in the psalmist’s mind was probably of dogs nipping at the hands and feet and puncturing them. Similarly, the idea that Messiah would be pierced is found in Zechariah 12:10 (and see Isaiah 53:5). Greek has “they count (exerithmesa) all my bones.” (A Commentary on the Psalms: 1-41, by Allen Ross [Kregel Academi, 2012], pp. 523-524; bold emphasis mine)
The expression “they pierced (punctured)” the hands and the feet fits the contextual description of scavenging dogs. They nip and bite, and in the process puncture the extended limbs. As discussed earlier, it appears that the idea of piercing was changed slightly to read, “like a lion (my hands and my feet).” The original reading had a verb, probably “they pierced.”33 (Ibid., p. 540; emphasis mine)
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