JoeWallack wrote:JW:
http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/16243
13 Great bulls have surrounded me; the mighty ones of Bashan encompassed me.
14 They opened their mouth against me [like] a tearing, roaring lion
...
17 For dogs have surrounded me; a band of evildoers has encompassed me, like a lion, my hands and feet.
...
21 Save my soul from the sword, my only one from the grip of the dog.
22 Save me from the lion's mouth, as from the horns of the wild oxen You answered me.
While the author is speaking of an [understatement]imaginary situation [/understatement] note that all of the actions associated with a specific animal are literal actions of that animal. There is no figurative action associated with a specific animal here. If we try out כְרוּ (dig) for verse 17 we have:
Dogs/evildoers dig my hands and feet.
Was there a lion who literally performed literal roaring and ravening on the narrator? No, those are metaphors for the lion's actions. A lion ravens and roars, even though in this passage the lion and the ravening and roaring are metaphorical.
The action of nails into arms, drawing blood, can be literally the same action of "staffs" into ground, drawing water, as in Torah. They both gouge and dig the object.
Nakki Lake
"According to a Hindu legend, this lake is an ancient sacred lake. It is said that the lake was
dug out with nails (Nakh) and hence it got its present name, Nakki."
http://www.india.com/travel/mount-abu/p ... nakki-lake
Nakki Lake in Mount Abu India,
"According to the legend, the lake was
dug out with nails by Gods for protection against a demon named Bashkali. A few local tribes consider this lake sacred "
https://www.yatra.com/india-tourism/att ... nakki-lake
"With every blow as the
nails dug deeper into skull and feet, He said that it was worth it. " (ifeltforsurelastnight.tumblr.com)
"The user throws nails into the air. Upon impact on the ground, they dig themselves into the earth. When the opponent walks over the ground where the nails dug..." (naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Torpedo_Nails)
Alternately, since the evildoers are described metaphorically in phrases throughout the Psalm (as lions and dogs), their actions could be described metaphorically too. The chapter is full of metaphorical phrases, verbs, and words, like the narrator being "cast" onto God at his birth (v.10). Was the narrator literally physical thrown onto a physical God?
JoeWallack wrote:
We've seen that in The Jewish Bible when this word is used literally it always refers to digging dirt to create something. So dogs dug hands/feet to create ...? There's no way to get a literal action of dogs here that fits the literal meaning of the word. This is primary. The secondary try is to search for a neighboring meaning of the word (like you are doing) that would make some sense. Even if you found one it would still fail the preceding primary test. The problem with "pierced" is that it still falls outside of the range of figurative usage in The Jewish Bible because "pierced" is destructive, not creative and in human context refers to injury.
Psalm 22:16 is not literal because the oxen's horns and the lion's mouth is not literal.
Whenever the verb Karah "creates" anything it is using a destructive action and injury. If there is a mound of dirt and then a well is gouged/dug(karah) in it, the action is destructive, injuring the mound.
In Psalm 40, the narrator's ears are gouged. Does that mean that the narrator had zero ear lobes and then God "created" earlobes by literal digging with a shovel? That would not make sense.
Nor were the ears removed. God did not use a literal shovel and dig
off the ears.
The narrator has ears and arms and legs in Psalms 22 and 40, and then the narrator uses metaphorical language, the verb "karah", to describe a transitive action performed on those body parts.
This same root word is used in Aramaic as a verb causing injury to an object:
Assyrian kâru, fell trees
http://bibliaparalela.com/hebrew/3738.htm
What do you think the LXX and the nonChristian Aquila were imagining when they interpreted Kaaru/karu to be about digging and binding the hands and feet? They must have inderstood it as an injurious action verb that took the arms and hands to be their direct object.
The same thing works fine in English and Russian. You can "dig out" a well (the object you are creating) or you can "dig out" the earth (the object you are injuring). If this works fine in English, Russian, and Aramaic as a normal part of basic language, and did so in the minds of the LXX and Aquila, my belief is that it works fine in Hebrew too. As a matter of grammar, what is dug out can be either the objects created (dig out a hole) or the object acted upon directly (dig out the land).
When the Tanakh says in Proverbs 16:27 that the evildoer digs up evil, it means that the evil was someplace and then the evildoer acquires it. Nowhere does that expression suggest that the evil that was excavated was "created" by the excavation anymore than digging up gold creates the gold. Phrases like A. "dig a hole" (objected that results from the action) or B. "dig the ground"(object acted directly upon) or C. "dig up gold" (object that is removed) all make perfect sense conceptually.
In
Job 41, we do see karah being used as a destructive, non-creative action:
5. Wilt thou play with him as with a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens?
6 Shall the companions make a banquet(karah) of him? shall they part him among the merchants?
7 Canst thou fill his skin with barbed irons? or his head with fish spears?
Each of those verses talks of performing agrressive conduct. Verse 6 says about performing gouging / karah on him, which is interpreted metaphorically as making a banquet of him, the direct object on which the karah verb is performed.
The narrator in Psalm 22 is described, if this verb use of karah fits, as being made a "banquet" of by the hungry "ravening" lion's mouth.
Just as predators divide up flesh, the enemies in Psalm 22 are dividing the clothes.
13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.
25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.
26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied:
29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship:
What are all these food and eating references doing in this chapter?
What is getting eaten? What is it that the righteous ate in ancient Judaism in connection with worship, Joe?
I am seeing things in this chapter I didn't notice before. That's an advantage of having this discussion with you.
Tanakh is apparently fine with using a metaphor of Israelites to sheep that get eaten. Ezekiel 34:10 "I will rescue my flock from their mouths; the sheep will no longer be their prey."
Notice how the next chapter Psalm 23 starts with The Lord is My Shepherd. Is the author comparing himself in Psalms 22-23 to a sheep or lamb, like how Isaiah 53 compares the Servant to a sheep or lamb, and is he comparing his enemies to a lion or dogs that eat sheep?
JoeWallack wrote:
rakovsky wrote:
Psalm 40:6
"Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou [KARAH - gouged]"
JW:
The ears are the subject here. There is no injury/destruction to the ears. In your word, it's the "opposite".
In modern English, the subject is supposed to normally come before the object and the singular 2nd person pronoun should be "you", but back in 17th c. English (like in Slavic languages and I imagine Greek and Latin) neither were necessarily the case, especially in poetry.
"I gave
you the words of life" (Modern) vs. "The words of life I have given
thee". ("King's English")
1 Kings 3:
"Yea and the things also which thou didst not ask, I have given thee"
