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

[JoeWallack]

JW:
Fragment 8 with final Yods highlighted:





Joseph

Review of Fundamentals of New Testament Textual Criticism by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts

[JoeWallack]

JW:
Fragment 8, final Yods in yellow and surrounding Vavs in red:




Joseph

Review of Fundamentals of New Testament Textual Criticism by Stanley E. Porter and Andrew W. Pitts

[rakovsky]

Thanks for your research on this, Joe.

[rakovsky]

Ken got me to thinking when he wrote:

In Psalm 22:7, the writer says he is a worm and not a man.

...he felt like a worm which does not have hands, feet,

Psalm 22:14 also says: "And all My bones are out of joint".
What happened to the hands/arms and legs/feet (same words in Hebrew for the limbs, respectively), that made them out of joint?

Proverbs gives an example of how the word Karah 16:27 (gouge , dig out) can work gramatically. It says "A worthless man digs up (Karah) evil". That is, the evil was in something, then the man dug it out (Karah).

It's like that with the arms and legs. They were in the person's joints and then they got dug out.

How does karah dig things out? With shovels? In the Torah, numerous cases are given when the digging (karah) is done with long pointed tools, like staves and scepters, rather than with flat ended ones like shovels.

That is, long pointed objects, compared to the bulls' horns, are stuck in the narrator's limbs, and then they dig/gouge "my arms and my legs", speaking of the Psalmist's limbs.

On the sixth pass the crowd looked on in awe, as the bull gored a furrow of blood down the matador's arm and took away part of his sleeve on the end of its horn...
Waiting On Nothing , Catfish McDaris - 2012

A bull's horn pierced his lung and heart as he was trying to help ... man was gored in the chest and a 24-year-old Spanish man in the arm
thesource.com/2016/07/10/ Jul 10, 2016

Bulls' horns attack by "piercing".

Spurred by a dream – The Denver Post, Jun 7, 2005 - ..."on the wire cage where a bull's horn gouged the metal".

"The story is told of the incredible spirit of one dog that had its entrails ripped out by the bull's horns, yet returned gamely to the attack..."
Larry Murdock, https://books.google.com/books?id=5Ok-U ... 22&f=false

If a bull's horns can "rip out" body parts, then it's also rightly said that the horns can "dig out" and "gouge out" the body parts.
This is part of normal speech.

Psalm 22 talks about bull's horns and a lion's jaw attacking the narrator. It is part of normal speech to say that a beast or predator can dig out body parts with its horns or vicious jaws.

[spin]

Pardon the reality break...

It is part of normal speech to say that a beast or predator can dig out body parts with its horns or vicious jaws.

What utter raving tendentious bovine dust. You cannot help but insinuate your conclusion-driven nonsense. This is unbecoming behavior.

[rakovsky]

Pardon the reality break...

It is part of normal speech to say that a beast or predator can dig out body parts with its horns or vicious jaws.

You cannot help but insinuate your conclusion-driven nonsense.

Hello, Spin.

Inferring terms and using the most relevant synonyms in the language into which a translation occurs is a common part of normal translation and commentaries.

The Artscroll Tanakh and Rashi's commentary do this too as Iskander quoted.

Rashi , like a lion, my hands and feet: As though they are crushed in a lion’s mouth, and so did Hezekiah say (in Isa. 38: 13): “like a lion, so it would break all my bones.”

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... rashi=true

The Artscroll English Tanach

22:17
for dogs* have surrounded me; a pack of evildoers has enclosed me, like a lion [ they attack] my hands and my feet.

.

Nowhere does it explicitly say word for word that the enemies "attack" or "crush" the narrator's limbs. So this word and concept is inferred by the Artscroll Tanakh and by Rashi, inference being a common part of translation and commentary.
Their idea that the enemies attack the narrator's limbs like a lion's jaws is a correct understanding of the passage, based on vv. 14 and 22 where a lion's jaws are mentions twice.

How do a lion's jaws attack arms and legs? The jaws bite and "pierce" them with their teeth.

Bayou Moon, Ilona Andrews - 2010 "Huge jaws pierced the foam."

The Grandfather Paradox, by Dave Means - Page 4, - 2007 - " the vise-like jaws pierced his neck"

Bulletin - Volumes 4-6 - Page 20, Academia Sinica. Institute of Zoology - 1965 , "jaws pierced the paper and the impression of the lower jaws duplicated that of the first bite".

"Piercing" is the normal, common, correct way of talking about the bite of jaws in English.

Psalm 59 says that the city's enemies are like dogs with swords in their jaws. The bite of the jaws means the attack of swords.

Psalm 22 describes the enemies' weapons as pointed - horns and "the sword". When the enemies attack, they will use pointed weapons.
Attacking with pointed weapons means piercing the object of the attack.

Enemies who attack someone's "arms and legs" with swords and hornlike pointed weapons "pierce" the arms and legs.
"Piercing" is a correct understanding of what the Psalmist is suggesting happened to the narrator as the armed enemies attacked his arms and legs.

[spin]

Pardon the reality break...

It is part of normal speech to say that a beast or predator can dig out body parts with its horns or vicious jaws.

You cannot help but insinuate your conclusion-driven nonsense.

Hello, Spin.

Inferring terms and using the most relevant synonyms in the language into which a translation occurs is a common part of normal translation and commentaries.

The Artscroll Tanakh and Rashi's commentary do this too as Iskander quoted.

Rashi , like a lion, my hands and feet: As though they are crushed in a lion’s mouth, and so did Hezekiah say (in Isa. 38: 13): “like a lion, so it would break all my bones.”

http://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo ... rashi=true

The Artscroll English Tanach

22:17
for dogs* have surrounded me; a pack of evildoers has enclosed me, like a lion [ they attack] my hands and my feet.

.

Nowhere does it explicitly say word for word that the enemies "attack" or "crush" the narrator's limbs. So this word and concept is inferred by the Artscroll Tanakh and by Rashi, inference being a common part of translation and commentary.
Their idea that the enemies attack the narrator's limbs like a lion's jaws is a correct understanding of the passage, based on vv. 14 and 22 where a lion's jaws are mentions twice.

How do a lion's jaws attack arms and legs? The jaws bite and "pierce" them with their teeth.

Bayou Moon, Ilona Andrews - 2010 "Huge jaws pierced the foam."

The Grandfather Paradox, by Dave Means - Page 4, - 2007 - " the vise-like jaws pierced his neck"

Bulletin - Volumes 4-6 - Page 20, Academia Sinica. Institute of Zoology - 1965 , "jaws pierced the paper and the impression of the lower jaws duplicated that of the first bite".

"Piercing" is the normal, common, correct way of talking about the bite of jaws in English.

Psalm 59 says that the city's enemies are like dogs with swords in their jaws. The bite of the jaws means the attack of swords.

Psalm 22 describes the enemies' weapons as pointed - horns and "the sword". When the enemies attack, they will use pointed weapons.
Attacking with pointed weapons means piercing the object of the attack.

Enemies who attack someone's "arms and legs" with swords and hornlike pointed weapons "pierce" the arms and legs.
"Piercing" is a correct understanding of what the Psalmist is suggesting happened to the narrator as the armed enemies attacked his arms and legs.

Repetitive drivel that shows no knowledge of Hebrew is yet a further waste of the forum's attention. You don't know what is required of you to explicate the Hebrew material and you keep demonstrating the fact.

[Secret Alias]

"Piercing" is the normal, common, correct way of talking about the bite of jaws in English.

Really? If this was Family Feud and the question was 'pick a verb to describe the action associated with a bite' my money is on 'bite' or 'biting.' Survey says ... something like 50+ people would agree. I'm not sure 'pierce' even makes the list. One of those answers where the host deliberately hesitates because the audience knows it's a stinker. Silly argument.

[Secret Alias]

Like I said, doesn't even make the list at the thesaurus:

http://www.thesaurus.com/browse/bite

[rakovsky]

"Piercing" is the normal, common, correct way of talking about the bite of jaws in English.

Really? If this was Family Feud and the question was 'pick a verb to describe the action associated with a bite' my money is on 'bite' or 'biting.' Survey says ... something like 50+ people would agree. I'm not sure 'pierce' even makes the list. One of those answers where the host deliberately hesitates because the audience knows it's a stinker. Silly argument.

In this case it's not simply a mouth biting by itself, but looking for the proper word to describe the blows of enemies with swords and sharp objects.
The weapons in the chapter - jaws, teeth, swords, horns - all gouge and pierce.
Teeth and Jaws bite, but swords and horns don't.
Swords and horns stab, but teeth and jaws don't.

So pierce and gouge are the consistently applicable terms for describing the attacks of the enemies in the chapter that are said to attack the narrator with their sharp weapons like a lion's jaws.