It's an interesting literary issue. Literature can be enjoyable and sublime. People make lots of intelligent discussions about the meaning of poetry and literature of all kinds like that of Shakespeare and Homer, trying to guess what the real meaning is. There are techniques used to read and understand poetry. For me, I like the poetry of the Psalms. The most important thing for me is understanding the Psalm correctly, rather than making it come out to some ideologically preferred meaning. (Christian idea of pierced with nails vs. a nonmessianic nonfatal experience)
If you are working with a Haiku, you know it has a certain order, so that if you are missing a word, you can make certain guesses of how it can be filled in. In Hebrew poetry there was a form called a chiasm, where the beginning and end mirror each other.
Psalm 22 also has a set order. Verse 11 begins "Be not far from me" and Verse 19 begins But be not thou far from me. These verses essentially bookend verses 12 to 18. Each line in 12 to 18 is made of ordely repetitions: HARMFUL ACTION or HARMED STATUS + BODY PART or ENEMY
12. Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. (2X: animals, surrounding action, me)(2 phrases)
13. They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion. (They, action, me; two action adjectives, enemy simile) (2 phrases)
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. (harming action, simile; body part harming status; body part, harmed status; body part, harmed status; harmed status, body part)(5 phrases)
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. (My Bodily nonmaterial power, ruinous action;my body part, ruinous action; ruinous action, bodily matter)(3 phrases)
16. For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: __________ my hands and my feet.
(Enemies, surrounding action, me; Enemies, surrounding action, me; ? my body parts, my body parts)
17. I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me. (action, body parts; action, me)(2 phrases)
18. They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture. (action, enemies; action, clothes) (2 phrases)
Based on the structure of the passage, we are looking at this order:
2 phrases X2; 5 phrases; 3 phrases X2; 2 phrases X2.
Each phrase consists of (1) an ruinous action and (2) a body part or enemy. The only proposed exception to this set pattern is verse 16, where in the last phrase two kinds of body parts are listed, but Masoretic texts diverge on whether an action or enemy should be listed.
The poetic order of the passage definitely requires that a ruinous action should be listed.
What ruinous action does the Psalm writer believe happened to the arms and and legs? (In Hebrew, Arms & hands and Legs & feet are the same words, respectively.) He writes that the arms and legs are out of joint, and that he feels like a worm, which is limbless,not a man.
How did the arms and legs get out of joint? The enemies must have pulled them out of joint.
How did the enemies, whose weapons were hornlike, jawlike, and "the sword", pull them out of joint? They must have stuck pointy objects in the joints and then pulled them out. In other words, they "dug out" the arms and legs using their weapons. "They dig out" in Hebrew is Karu.
What examples are there in ancient times of using pointed weapons to take limbs out of joint? In crucifixion what happens is that pointy weapons (nails) are put into the limbs and the body is hung and the limbs go out of joint. Are there any others?
Did they have crucifixion in David's time? I don't know. They did in Alexander the Great's time, centuries later.
So was the Psalm writer supposed to be some kind of prophet, predicting methods of killing not invented until centuries later? The Tanakh did portray David as a prophet, speaking the divinely inspired words....
This feels kind of tenuous. Do you believe Prophecy is for real, Kenneth?
What we can say confidently is that:
(A) The structure of the Psalm demands in verse 16 (A) a ruinous action worddone to (B) the body parts.
(B) Based on all the texts we have, the action resembled Karu/Kru/Kari/Greek "they dug". Karah in the Torah is digging done with long pointed instruments - staffs and scepters.
(C) The body parts, limbs, are described as out of joint, so the ruinous action must have made the limbs out of joint.
They dug/gouged out my arms and legs using pointed weapons, like staffs dig a hole in the Torah or like my ears were dug in Psalm 40.
Hacking off the limbs at the joint would make the narrator feel like a worm, but that is not comparable to the way a pointy object gouges a hole. Hacking also does not make limbs out of joint, because hacking is not done exactly between the arm and the shoulder.
I do believe the Psalmist is suggesting that the enemies attack like a lion. How does a lion's mouth (v.13) attack? It has pointy teeth that pierce flesh. The lion's teeth pierce and gouge the limbs when it bites.
I think it may not be a coincidence that Ka'Ari and Karu sound and are written similarly. The Psalmist may have chosen the word Karu/Kaari for this reason. This is a figure of speech used in poetry called a double entendre.
The rabbis had a method of interpreting the scriptures as if a single phrase had multiple meanings, and one writer I cited earlier in the thread claimed that the rabbis gave both meanings to Karu/Kari in this verse. I believe that both meanings are suggested in the text.A double entendre is a figure of speech or a particular way of wording that is devised to be understood in either of two ways, having a double meaning. Typically one of the meanings is obvious, given the context whereas the other may require more thought.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_entendre