PSALM XXII, 17-'3)1 '1' "W,

REV. FREDERICK KRAMER,

Rector of St. John's Church, Boulder, Col.

" There is scarcely any passage of the Old Testament, the true reading and
interpretation of which have given rise to so much discussion." These are Dean
Perowne's words referring to this passage. Many attempts have been made to
explain the difficulty, but to my mind, as well as to the minds of students at
large, none have proven successful. The literal translation of the passage is-
"As a lion, my hands and my feet." The word in dispute is t")•, which, in
connection with the two following words "my hands and my feet," is beyond a
doubt, the wrong reading, because it does not make sense, and whatever the
writer may have written, he certainly wrote something that was reasonable and
comprehensible. Now, although tig is a palpable mistake, we cannot on that
account substitute another reading, without proving the substituted reading the
true one beyond a reasonable doubt.
The reading substituted in all translations is "pierced." "They pierced my
hands and my feet." Some critics, however, (Rosenmiiller, Gesenius, De Wette,
Winer,) translate "bound strongly."
The Massoretic reading in almost all MSS. is t'i . There are some excep-
tions which we will note later. LXX. has tipvyav, Syriac o4.0, Vulgate folder-
unt, they "pierced" "bored through." Aquila, 2d ed. Symmachus and Jerome
have, "they bound;" and Aquila, 1st ed. has "they put to shame." Here we
have four different readings of the MSS. and versions: (1) As a lion; (2) they
pierced; (3) they bound; (4) they put to shame. Nos. (1) and (4) are without a
doubt wrong, since they do not suit the context. We are, therefore, left to follow
the versions in rendering either "they pierced" or "they bound."
The LXX., Syriac, and Vulgate agree, all reading "they pierced." The
agreement of these three weighty authorities is of the highest importance and
solves the problem for us. We accept, "they pierced" as the true reading.
But having adopted this reading, the real work only begins, we must harmo-
nize the IIebrew text with the versions, and show that the original reading of the
passage was, "they pierced my hands and my feet."
All critics, without exception, have tried to solve the difficulty by supposing
a root 1fl, or a cognate of or ;i). Some make the word *•D
•., ii.

This content downloaded from 139.082.096.033 on June 10, 2019 05:01:22 AM

All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).
 PSALMXXII. ~j ?19' ?~K . 99
17-- ?
a participle in 3d plur. constr. ; and others retaining the Massoretic punc-
t"!•
tuation, regard 9"!• as an Impf. plur. absol. with termination -- instead of

These explanations might be conclusive but for one thing. There is no root
*•• in Hebrew. Further, the analogy between ~T •D and •D is arrived atT

through the Arabic, and the Arabic very seldom has the meaning, "to pierce."
That there is no root 1f) in HIebrew is proven from the following. Jacob
ben Chayim in the Massorah Finalis says that he found fig) as the k'thib and
' "• as the keri in good MSS. This is supported by the Massorah Magna in
Num. xxlv. 9. Why did the Massorites insert a keri ? Simply because the word
in the text was unknown and strange to them. That the explanation of the
critics, therefore, is highly problematic, is plain. A more plausible theory, then,
would be preferable.
The oldest Hebrew MS. dates back only to the middle of the Xth century.
This dearth of really ancient MSS. is owing to the fact, that they were condemned
for very slight defects. A new sheet, if there were found in it three defects of
the scribe, was buried in the "Gheriza," attached to the synagogue. If, then,
the oldest MS. be only a little over 900 years old, it is plain that the text of our
present Hebrew Bible is many centuries removed from the original copy. Now,
I maintain that the reading tig is merely a mistake of some copyist. There
is a verb "to bore, to pierce," and I will now endeavor to show that the
-:1,
original reading of the passage was t t'7 fIg and not "t ~.
"'1
That many scribes did not understand what they were copying, is well
known. That they also made mistakes and repeated passages can be seen by a
careful reading of the Scriptures. Compare 1 Chron. IX. 34sqq. with 1 Chron.
vIII. 28 sqq. So, too, the scribe that copied Psalm XXII. was led to write
down the wrong word in the 17th verse. He did not understand that which he
was putting down, and through the similarity of j with ) in MSS., he mechan-
ically wrote fig for f'1 ; and the mischief was done.
That this interchange of letters was a common mistake of copyists, may be
seen from the following examples: Isa. xvlI. 3 •"•D for ]"f• Cdd.;
xxvli. 21 •D for Cdd., Syriac, Sym., Tieo.; Jer. xvII. 4 "•'[ for
1,"! 6
"I0) Cdd. mult., Aqui., Thee., Tg., Vg., Massorah at v. and Job x. 9; Hosea
vI. 12 Dyg) for igy Cdd., Syr., Tg., Arabic. These examples are taken
from Davidson's " Revision of the Hebrew Text." The two following are taken
from Gesenius in his Introduction to his Hebr. urndChald. Wirterbuch. Ezek.
XLVII. 13 0 for ;t; Ex. xvii. 16 • for b.
But how came the change from I'fI to *"'' ? This is easily traced. The
MS. containing the mistake was used and the mistake was not discovered.
Finally, after having been in use for a long time, a copy was made from it and

This content downloaded from 139.082.096.033 on June 10, 2019 05:01:22 AM

All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).
100 HEBRAICA.

the mistake discovered. The scribe who was making the copy came to the word
17!• and stopped. He did not know the verb 1 or 15) because it did not
.
exist in the language. Then he sought to fix the right reading. He looked
back over the Psalm and saw in the 13th verse " Many bulls have come about me,
fat ones of Bashan enclose me on every side." Verse 14, They gaped upon me
...as a ravening and a roaring lion. Verse 17, For dogs have come about me ;"
and came to the conclusion that the former scribe instead of writing , at the end
of the word, wrote and he therefore, made the correction, as he supposed, by
writing ,tD .,
in place of •f3 . This I think to be an easy and plausible
explanation of a difficult passage.

This content downloaded from 139.082.096.033 on June 10, 2019 05:01:22 AM

All use subject to University of Chicago Press Terms and Conditions (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/t-and-c).