Psalm 22:17, Hebrew Text, "Like A Lion". Who's Lion?

[spin]

What I like about Rakovsky is that when he knows he is clearly wrongheaded and backing a losing idea, he will change the subject and flood the thread with a mishmash of nonsense and non sequitur. Abandoning the fact that the WAWs and YODs that he trumpeted at the beginning of the thread cannot show his fallacious interpretation, he tries to suggest it in other ways.

Psalm 22

6 But I am a worm,
14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint
16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: _________ my hands and my feet.

1. Why does he compare himself to a limbless worm?

The word "limbless" inserted here by Rakovsky has no value in the question, especially when the narrator says he can count all his bones. Perhaps Rakovsky imagines he is looking on his severed arms and legs. Rakovsky is trying too hard to suggest that something has physically and violently happened to the narrator.

2. How did his bones get out of their joints?

First you must discern what the narrator intends when he says his bones are out of joint.

3. How does the relationship of the enemies, armed with horns and swords to, the arms/hands explain that the bones are out of joint?

You don't know yet. You have shown no physical damage done by anyone to the narrator. In fact, I think you are simply wrong and don't understand the psalm and what the narrator is doing.

Considering the Hebrew use of chiastic structure, it's poetically interesting also how the passage forms an structure of "jaws". The top part of the passage about enclosing the narrator is the top "jaw", and the bottom part about enclosing the narrator is the bottom "jaw", with the physically suffering narrator "bitten" in between.

Besides assertions, there is no evidence that the narrator has been physically violated. This is all just fantasy.

12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.
13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

Obviously nothing has physically happened to the narrator here. They gaped at him. Gaped!

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax;

it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

Yet again nothing to suggest that the others have done anything physical against the narrator.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

Again, not a hint of a thing to suggest that anyone has done anything physical to the narrator. He feels bad. His mouth is dry. He has no strength. But can you see anyone harming him in the narrative??

16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: kari/karu/kru my hands and my feet.

It would be better if you left philology to those who know something about it.

And try this:

"For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have encircled me like a lion,
My hands and my feet, I can count all my bones..."

Who can divine its merits?

1. How does the narrator pour out if his body was unharmed?

Show us all where the narrator says he was physically harmed. There seems to be nowhere.

2.(A) Isn't the "Dust of death" a reference to a body's state of being physically dead?

I see no evidence for it. Perhaps you could argue the point rather than use innuendo. By the way, who is "you" in that verse?

(B) Isn't V. 29 of this chapter contrasting those who are fat on the earth with those who go down to the dust, as a comparison of the living with the dead?

All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

[.quote]
By the time we get to verse 22, the narrator has worked through his difficulties and resolved his anxieties by giving himself into the protection of God. We've gone from the isolation and fear of the first part of the psalm to the security of understanding that God knows what he is doing. No harm has happened to the narrator and he can see that God did not turn his face from him. The narrator plainly does not include himself in v.29, which should be enough to dissuade you from the point you are attempting here.

3. The melting of the heart is the center of the chiasm above. If a heart melts into the bowels, isn't it experiencing collapse, softening, and death?

Most of this does not relate to the text. I haven't signed on to the chiastic structure and you are just riffing on the text. All I can see is someone who cannot let go of the errors he has subscribed to and merely defends the commitments made rather than analyze the complaints against them.

And I do love the decorative touch of your garish images. Just because you don't understand the psalm doesn't mean that you have to avoid being colorful.

[rakovsky]

Another interesting thing about Psalm 22 is the relationship to two other passages that Jewish tradition has related to a suffering Messiah who was mocked and rejected, and "pierced" and/ or "poured out". The relevance is that they appear to be later commentaries or expansions on the theme of a suffering Messianic figure.

Psalm 22 is Davidic, seen as Messianic in the Pesikta Rabbati, and talks about the mocking and rejection here:

• 6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
• 7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head

v. 14 describes the narrator being poured out, and v. 16 describes the hands as being gouged in some text variants.

Isaiah 53 is seen as either Messianic or referring to the people Israel in the Targum and Talmud, and talks about the mocking and rejection here:

• 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
• 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

v. 12 describes the Servant pouring out his soul to death, which has a connotation of blood, as Torah teaches that "the soul is in the blood".
The piercing of the hand looks weak, unless you consider the poured-out Servant to be a metaphorical hand of the Lord in vv.1-2

1. to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2 For he[The arm/Servant] shall grow up before him[the Lord] as a tender plant

or if you see the the Lord's pleasure to bruise the Servant as prospering in the Servant's hand as a reference to the Servant's hand being harmed:

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Zechariah 12 is considered to refer to the death of Messiah ben Joseph in the Talmud (although not Messiah ben David) and Zech 11 & 13 talk about rejection of the Good Shepherd and of all prophets (including the Shepherd?):

11:8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
13:3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.

Here is where in Zechariah 12 it talks about "pouring" of Spirit, and about the "piercing" of one whom the Talmud considers the killed Messiah ben Joseph:
י וְשָׁפַכְתִּי עַל-בֵּית דָּוִיד וְעַל יוֹשֵׁב יְרוּשָׁלִַם, רוּחַ חֵן וְתַחֲנוּנִים, וְהִבִּיטוּ אֵלַי, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-דָּקָרוּ; וְסָפְדוּ עָלָיו, כְּמִסְפֵּד עַל-הַיָּחִיד, וְהָמֵר עָלָיו, כְּהָמֵר עַל-הַבְּכוֹר.

Now one of the questions is where hands or piercing of hands comes up in Zechariah 11-13. In Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, the concept of gouging, piercing or bruising precedes the mention of the harmed hands. In Zech 12:10, the piercing of the Messianic figure is also followed by a mention of a victim's hands in Zech 13:6:

And one shall say unto him: 'What are these wounds between/among thy hands?' Then he shall answer: 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends/beloved.'

A few issues need to be clarified:
1. The word here for between/among is "ben". One possibility is that the wounds are only in the victim's back between the hands. But then why doesn't it just say "in thy back?" And secondly, as a matter of grammar, "ben", like the word "among", also covers that which it is between. A good example is that God's judging "between"(ben) people (Genesis 16:5) doesn't just apply to something in the middle of them, but concerns them.
2. "Friends" or "Beloved" does not necessarily mean wife. (eg. Genesis 25:28: "And Isaac loved Esau").
3. The houses listed in Zech 12 immediately preceding Zech 13 about the wounding in the friends'/beloved ones' house include: The house of David, the house of Levi, of Nathan, of Shimei who are in mourning over the killed one(s).

[spin]

Another interesting thing about Psalm 22 is the relationship to two other passages that Jewish tradition has related to a suffering Messiah who was mocked and rejected, and "pierced" and/ or "poured out". The relevance is that they appear to be later commentaries or expansions on the theme of a suffering Messianic figure.

Psalm 22 is Davidic, seen as Messianic in the Pesikta Rabbati, and talks about the mocking and rejection here:

• 6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
• 7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head

v. 14 describes the narrator being poured out, and v. 16 describes the hands as being gouged in some text variants.

Isaiah 53 is seen as either Messianic or referring to the people Israel in the Targum and Talmud, and talks about the mocking and rejection here:

• 3 He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
• 4 Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

v. 12 describes the Servant pouring out his soul to death, which has a connotation of blood, as Torah teaches that "the soul is in the blood".
The piercing of the hand looks weak, unless you consider the poured-out Servant to be a metaphorical hand of the Lord in vv.1-2

1. to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2 For he[The arm/Servant] shall grow up before him[the Lord] as a tender plant

or if you see the the Lord's pleasure to bruise the Servant as prospering in the Servant's hand as a reference to the Servant's hand being harmed:

10 Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Zechariah 12 is considered to refer to the death of Messiah ben Joseph in the Talmud (although not Messiah ben David) and Zech 11 & 13 talk about rejection of the Good Shepherd and of all prophets (including the Shepherd?):

11:8 Three shepherds also I cut off in one month; and my soul lothed them, and their soul also abhorred me.
11:12 And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.
13:3 And it shall come to pass, that when any shall yet prophesy, then his father and his mother that begat him shall say unto him, Thou shalt not live; for thou speakest lies in the name of the Lord: and his father and his mother that begat him shall thrust him through when he prophesieth.

Here is where in Zechariah 12 it talks about "pouring" of Spirit, and about the "piercing" of one whom the Talmud considers the killed Messiah ben Joseph:
י וְשָׁפַכְתִּי עַל-בֵּית דָּוִיד וְעַל יוֹשֵׁב יְרוּשָׁלִַם, רוּחַ חֵן וְתַחֲנוּנִים, וְהִבִּיטוּ אֵלַי, אֵת אֲשֶׁר-דָּקָרוּ; וְסָפְדוּ עָלָיו, כְּמִסְפֵּד עַל-הַיָּחִיד, וְהָמֵר עָלָיו, כְּהָמֵר עַל-הַבְּכוֹר.

Now one of the questions is where hands or piercing of hands comes up in Zechariah 11-13. In Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, the concept of gouging, piercing or bruising precedes the mention of the harmed hands. In Zech 12:10, the piercing of the Messianic figure is also followed by a mention of a victim's hands in Zech 13:6:

And one shall say unto him: 'What are these wounds between/among thy hands?' Then he shall answer: 'Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends/beloved.'

A few issues need to be clarified:
1. The word here for between/among is "ben". One possibility is that the wounds are only in the victim's back between the hands. But then why doesn't it just say "in thy back?" And secondly, as a matter of grammar, "ben", like the word "among", also covers that which it is between. A good example is that God's judging "between"(ben) people (Genesis 16:5) doesn't just apply to something in the middle of them, but concerns them.
2. "Friends" or "Beloved" does not necessarily mean wife. (eg. Genesis 25:28: "And Isaac loved Esau").
3. The houses listed in Zech 12 immediately preceding Zech 13 about the wounding in the friends'/beloved ones' house include: The house of David, the house of Levi, of Nathan, of Shimei who are in mourning over the killed one(s).

I thought you were trying to talk about Ps 22, not go off in several tangents.

[rakovsky]

2. How did his bones get out of their joints?

First you must discern what the narrator intends when he says his bones are out of joint.

3. How does the relationship of the enemies, armed with horns and swords to, the arms/hands explain that the bones are out of joint?

You don't know yet. You have shown no physical damage done by anyone to the narrator.

The man poured out like water and his bones came out of joint, "for" his enemies armed with horned weapons and swords _____ his hands and his feet.

NonChristian Jewish commentaries like Artscroll Tanakh and rabbis like Rashi usually say the enemies attacked him like a lion. I can see why.

I found this claim about Yalkut Shimoni:

In Yalkuth Shimoni they connect “many dogs have encompassed me” (using a midrashic principle called "binyan ab m'shna ketubim") with the Book of Esther, commenting on which, Rabbi Nehemiah said:

"They pierced my hands and feet". ... In English, “they have pierced my hands and my feet”—Rabbi Nehemiah quotes it this way, and the reading of “pierced” was accepted by ancient rabbis.
https://www.moriel.org/online-sermons/2 ... almud.html

But I haven't been able to find the book Yalkut Shimoni online in English to double check the claim.

It (or part of it) is online in Hebrew here:
http://www.sefaria.org/Yalkut_Shimoni_on_Torah?lang=bi
And here
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/11520
In case you can find comments on Psalm 22 it would be interesting for me to see what they say.

Peace.

[spin]

2. How did his bones get out of their joints?

First you must discern what the narrator intends when he says his bones are out of joint.

3. How does the relationship of the enemies, armed with horns and swords to, the arms/hands explain that the bones are out of joint?

You don't know yet. You have shown no physical damage done by anyone to the narrator.

The man poured out like water and his bones came out of joint, "for" his enemies armed with horned weapons and swords _____ his hands and his feet.

NonChristian Jewish commentaries like Artscroll Tanakh and rabbis like Rashi usually say the enemies attacked him like a lion. I can see why.

I found this claim about Yalkut Shimoni:

In Yalkuth Shimoni they connect “many dogs have encompassed me” (using a midrashic principle called "binyan ab m'shna ketubim") with the Book of Esther, commenting on which, Rabbi Nehemiah said:

"They pierced my hands and feet". ... In English, “they have pierced my hands and my feet”—Rabbi Nehemiah quotes it this way, and the reading of “pierced” was accepted by ancient rabbis.
https://www.moriel.org/online-sermons/2 ... almud.html

But I haven't been able to find the book Yalkut Shimoni online in English to double check the claim.

It (or part of it) is online in Hebrew here:
http://www.sefaria.org/Yalkut_Shimoni_on_Torah?lang=bi
And here
http://www.hebrewbooks.org/11520
In case you can find comments on Psalm 22 it would be interesting for me to see what they say.

Peace.

Still nothing but obfuscation. Shantiii!

[rakovsky]

I am open to different interpretations of texts, even if I don't agree with them. I don't believe Noah had a literal Ark and hosted the world's animals, but that's what Genesis says.

If I go by the plain meaning, the figure says he physically and mortally suffers, being poured out like water, having his heart melt, his bones out of joint , and being laid in the dust of death. What reasonably could have caused those physical harms?

The only context is the armed surrounding enemies, and it says he suffers for they surround him, _____ his hands and feet.

Illness doesn't really explain how the bones got out of joint. And are the enemies just standing around waiting for him to die over a long time from a contagious infection? That would not make sense.

And when I turn to the ancient, medieval, and very new Jewish commentaries like the ancient Targum, Rashi, JPT, I get the same thing, they usually see the the enemies as attacking the hands like a lion, as I quoted.

So I'm stuck, SPIN. There is not a way that I can get out of this conclusion whether I use a straightforward reading or rely on the Jewish traditional understanding for insight.

Maybe for some reason you don't like it or see it another way and say things like Shanti to me and show a picture of throwing a tomato, but that does not provide me a way out. I just have to admit it says what it says.

[spin]

I am open to different interpretations of texts, even if I don't agree with them. I don't believe Noah had a literal Ark and hosted the world's animals, but that's what Genesis says.

If I go by the plain meaning, the figure says he physically and mortally suffers, being poured out like water, having his heart melt, his bones out of joint , and being laid in the dust of death. What reasonably could have caused those physical harms?

So far, you have failed to show that anyone has done anything to him. I acknowledge that the narrator is isolated, alienated and threatened, which accounts for his inner turmoil, described as heart melting, etc. But no "physical harms" have happened to him. You are inventing events that have not happened.

The only context is the armed surrounding enemies, and it says he suffers for they surround him, _____ his hands and feet.

So no response to my previous suggestion.

All you are doing is reiterating that you don't really know, which is what the Masoretes did by leaving the text as they found it.

Illness doesn't really explain how the bones got out of joint. And are the enemies just standing around waiting for him to die over a long time from a contagious infection? That would not make sense.

I didn't mention illness. I have been consistent about the psalm: the narrator is expressing inner feelings over his state of harassment.

And when I turn to the ancient, medieval, and very new Jewish commentaries like the ancient Targum, Rashi, JPT, I get the same thing, they usually see the the enemies as attacking the hands like a lion, as I quoted.

Actually, no ancient translation sources support your claim. They show a certain discombobulation over the verse with various conflicting responses..

So I'm stuck, SPIN. There is not a way that I can get out of this conclusion whether I use a straightforward reading or rely on the Jewish traditional understanding for insight.

Perhaps that's a good thing. The scribes may have preserved "like a lion" because they were stuck. That doesn't allow you to perform the heavy-handed eisegesis you have continued with up to now.

Maybe for some reason you don't like it or see it another way and say things like Shanti to me

"Shantiii!" is a response to your "Peace."

and show a picture of throwing a tomato,

Context offers help.

but that does not provide me a way out. I just have to admit it says what it says.

Which is almost certainly "like a lion", which explains the LXX, given the WAW/YOD confusion. You have no grounds whatsoever to bash the "pierced" stuff as though it answered anything. It just shows your willingness to continue to support a view that has not a scrap of evidence behind it, that doesn't explain the Hebrew form or why the Greek error "dug" (specifically about creating holes in the ground, pits and wells) unrelated how many times you try to "pierced", or why no ancient translation indicates "pierced".

You need to admit that it doesn't evince what you want it to show. It says what it says, whether you want it or not.

[iskander]

It is pierced in the Christian tradition. Tradition!

It is called Tradition
what is good for the gander is good for the goose


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRdfX7ut8gw

[spin]

It is pierced in the Christian tradition. Tradition!

It is called Tradition
what is good for the gander is good for the goose

Is it better to believe things that are unfounded, but have been accepted for a long time, or to discard unfounded views that you cannot distinguish from utter nonsense?

[iskander]

It is pierced in the Christian tradition. Tradition!

It is called Tradition
what is good for the gander is good for the goose

Is it better to believe things that are unfounded, but have been accepted for a long time, or to discard unfounded views that you cannot distinguish from utter nonsense?

Who is to decide on matters of Religion?
Each one has traditions, but what could any of these traditions mean to outsiders?

The tradition of the Golden Calf receives a Roman interpretation years later , which is different from some other rabbinic interpretation.

One of Kabbalah’s most distinctive images of the feminine divine is that of a motherly, breastfeeding God. Suckling at My Mother’s Breasts traces this idea from its origins in ancient rabbinic literature

Ellen Davina Haskell is Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.
http://www.sunypress.edu/p-5588-sucklin ... easts.aspx


The Conquest of the Promised Land


Hashem breastfeeding Moses and Aaron
http://www.crystalinks.com/romulus.html

In the original version the calf was a bull breastfeeding Moses , which explains his murdering anger against the perpetrators.

In a matter of religion- theology- both are right , I will not take sides.


LIBER PSALMORUM
XXI.
..
17 quoniam circumdederunt me canes multi
concilium malignantium obsedit me
foderunt manus meas et pedes meos
http://www.liberpsalmorum.info/Vetus%20Italica.html