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

[iskander]

iskander,

I put my psalm book on my site to read for free if you want to see it. It has a different title "Hebrew Bible Quotes that Have Been Misunderstood for Thousands of Years, Volume 4." http://www.hebrewbiblequotes.com/


Kenneth Greifer

Thank you . I have downloaded the pdf and I will enjoy reading it.
Thanks again!

Kenneth, the introduction in your book is a jewel, it brought back to me the great Spinoza :

I will now point out its difficulties and shortcomings, which prevent our gaining a complete and assured knowledge of the Sacred Text.
Its first great difficulty consists in its requiring a thorough knowledge of the Hebrew language. Where is such knowledge to be obtained? The men of old who employed the Hebrew tongue have left none of the principles and bases of their language to posterity; we have from them absolutely nothing in the way of dictionary, grammar, or rhetoric.....

And not only are these gone, but we are lacking in a knowledge of Hebrew phraseology. The devouring tooth of time has destroyed nearly all the phrases and turns of expression peculiar to the Hebrews, so that we know them no more. Therefore we cannot investigate as we would all the meanings of a sentence by the uses of the language; and there are many phrases of which the meaning is most obscure or altogether inexplicable, though the component words are perfectly plain.....

In addition to the sources of ambiguities common to all languages, there are many peculiar to Hebrew. These, I think, it worthwhile to mention.
Firstly, an ambiguity often arises in the Bible from our mistaking one letter for another similar one. ....
A second difficulty arises from the multiplied meaning of conjunctions and adverbs ......

The third very fertile source of doubt is the fact that Hebrew verbs in the indicative mood lack the present, the past imperfect, the pluperfect, the future perfect, and other tenses most frequently employed in other languages; in the imperative and infinitive moods they are wanting in all except the present, and a subjunctive mood does not exist.....

Besides these sources of ambiguity there are two others, one very important. Firstly, there are in Hebrew no vowels; secondly, the sentences are not separated by any marks elucidating the meaning or separating the clauses, Though the want of these two has generally been supplied by points and accents, such substitutes cannot be accepted by us, inasmuch as they were invented and designed by men of an after age whose authority should carry no weight. The ancients wrote without points (that is, without vowels and accents), as is abundantly testified; their descendants added what was lacking, according to their own ideas of Scriptural interpretation; wherefore the existing accents and points are simply current interpretations, and are no more authoritative than any other commentaries.-

Online Library of Liberty: The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza, vol 1 (Tractatus-Theologico- page 92
Politicus, Tractatus Politicus)

Excellent work Kenneth, well done!

[spin]

Here's a challenge for all you soldiers out there in toyland:

with all this guff about piercing and biting and gouging supposedly going on in Ps 22

can anyone show where the narrator of the psalm is actually... you know... physically... um... harmed??

Flop goes that big pink-winged flying porcine mascot for team Rakovsky.

[iskander]

Kenneth,

Maybe King David felt weak when he said he was a worm, and not a man (PSALM 22:7) because he had to run for his life from his own son. He was crying when he left to go into hiding (2 SAMUEL 15:30), but later he was willing to fight (2 SAMUEL 18:2), so maybe then he was like a lion again. King David did not actually fight in that battle because his people wanted him to be safe (2 SAMUEL 18:1-4).

From page 105 of your book on the psalms


Your interpretation " maybe he was like a lion again" is very interesting and was a popular interpretation .
Psalm 22 as a battle hymn in the history of men and women : In , Kaf ha-Ketoret ("Spoon of Incense" ) , an anonymous commentary on the book of Psalms (which is extant only in manuscripts) says ,

According to this author, every single verse in the Book of Psalms refers to the imminent redemption, and he declares that all the lyrics in the Psalms are battle songs of the final apocalyptic war.

The messianic idea in Judaism
Gershom Scholem
Shocken Books , New York
ISBN 9780805210439
page 42

[kennethgreifer]

iskander,

Thank you for saying nice things about my self-published books. I think I should look at Spinoza's work if I can find it through the library or on the internet. I have a very slow old computer at home, so I am not sure if I can see it online. I hope to try soon.

Kenneth Greifer

[iskander]

iskander,

Thank you for saying nice things about my self-published books. I think I should look at Spinoza's work if I can find it through the library or on the internet. I have a very slow old computer at home, so I am not sure if I can see it online. I hope to try soon.

Kenneth Greifer

A more modern song of expected redemption to be heard while seeing this painting ,

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... peuple.jpg

Aux armes citoyens
Formez vos bataillons
Marchons, marchons
Qu'un sang impur
Abreuve nos sillons


Spinoza
These are an older translation and a modern one of the relevant work . It is in chapter 7
http://lf-oll.s3.amazonaws.com/titles/1 ... k_v6.0.pdf
http://cocodrilo.synaptium.net/wp-conte ... eatise.pdf

[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

JW:
It would appear that for this fragment (8) Vavs are generally a little longer than Yods, including final Yods, and heads of the Yods are a little bigger than heads of the Vavs.


Joseph

Is Peter Flint A Liar for Jesus?

[rakovsky]

Good info there, JW. Nice research work.

[rakovsky]

I checked some Eastern church commentaries

"Говорит о гвоздях, которыми пригвожден ко кресту."

Commenting on: "Oruksan" (Greek:dug/gouged) my hands and my feet in the LXX,
Athanasius the Great (4th c.) writes:
"It speaks of the nails that were nailed to the cross".
http://bible.optina.ru/old:ps:021:17

Theodoret of Cyr (5th c.) writes:
"Yes and to Thomas was showen the wounds of nails and the wound from the spear".

So already in those times it was a major reading of Ps. 17 that the "oruksan"(digging/gouging) of the hands and feet was referring to the wounds by the nails, rather than to "binding" of the hands and feet.

[spin]

The facts regarding Ps 22:16:

1) the Massoretic text is problematic but consistent: it says nothing about biting, piercing, gouging or digging. It does say "like a lion", כארי (KAF-ALEP-RESH-YOD).

2) an early copy of the verse was found at Nahal Hever (circa Bar Kochba revolt). The Dead Sea Scrolls are known to show confusion between the letters WAW and YOD. This is so with the fragment in question. The Nahal Haver copy features a long last letter which has been taken to justify the Greek reading "they dug my hands and feet." However, all we see is evidence that there was confusion between WAW and YOD. The Hebrew word כארו is not how "dug" is spelled. What we see is the Greek translator of the Hebrew text read to him making sense of the reader who was confused between the WAW and the YOD. This is the simplest explanation of all the evidence from the Massoretic text, the Greek text and the Nahal Hever fragment.

3) the connection between Ps 22:16 and the piercing notion is not found in the new testament, even though references to other notions in the psalm are to be found.

4) there was no piercing, gouging, digging or whatever physical notion one wants to read into the text, as no violence is ever committed against the speaker of the psalm. He feels alienated and abandoned, surrounded by nasties of all horrid types, but nothing happens to him.

It is dishonest for the various translations to present Ps 22:16 as dealing with piercing. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the text and the translators are not doing the job of representing what the text seems to indicate. I class this issue is one way to judge the quality of the translation: if it talks of piercing it is a suspect translation.

[rakovsky]

The facts regarding Ps 22:16:

4) there was no piercing, gouging, digging or whatever physical notion one wants to read into the text, as no violence is ever committed against the speaker of the psalm. He feels alienated and abandoned, surrounded by nasties of all horrid types, but nothing happens to him.

It is dishonest for the various translations to present Ps 22:16 as dealing with piercing. ...I class this issue is one way to judge the quality of the translation: if it talks of piercing it is a suspect translation.

I guess if you were going to be consistent you would claim Artscroll Tanakh, Judaica Press Tanakh, the Targum, Aquila and Rashi are showing "dishonesty" suspect of Christian bias because they (reasonably IMO) comment that in this verse the enemies "attacked", "bit", "mauled", or "crushed" the narrator's hands like a lion or its jaws, which you claim the text does not say and should not be read into the text.

Aquila, 2nd c. Jewish nonChristian translator: "they disfigure/bind my hands". "Dishonesty" & suspect translation w/ Christian bias?

1917 JPS Version: "For dogs have encompassed me; a company of evil-doers have inclosed me; like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet." Does the text say that like a lion "they are" merely located "at" the hands and feet? "Dishonesty" of inserting words not there?

Judaica Press Tanakh:
"17. Dogs surround me; a pack of evil ones closes in on me, like lions [they maul] my hands and feet."
(http://www.taggedtanakh.org/Chapter/Index/english-Ps-22)

Traditional Jewish Targum on the verse:
"Because the wicked[131] have surrounded me, who are like many dogs; a gathering of evildoers has hemmed me in, biting my hands and feet like a lion."
http://targum.info/pss/ps1.htm

Artscroll & Rashi's commentaries about the lion's attack on the hands have already been cited by me in this thread or in Kenneth's one on Psalms.

Please dig up Maimonides to see if he will major Jewish scholar / commentor #6 to say if the lion is attacking the hands.

Wait a minute, did I just say "dig up Maimonides"? "Dig" up a person? It's another example of metaphor using the concept of digging.