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Testamentum
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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands and

Feet in Psalm 22:17?

Michael V. Flowers
University of North Carolina Pembroke, Pembroke, USA
vonflowers@protonmail.com

Abstract

Ps 22:17 is among the most controverted verses in the Hebrew Bible, both with respect
to its original text and original meaning. The biggest question that text critics and in-
terpreters struggle to answer is what the psalmist said concerning his hands and feet.
With so many proposals now on the table and with debates on this text having reached
an impasse, it seemed like it would be helpful to present the status quaestionis with
regard to this text. Thirteen different proposals are therefore analyzed with a view to
their respective merits and demerits. The goal here is to eliminate the proposals that
seem least viable and to become more self-conscious about how we judge between the
others.

Keywords

Psalm 22:16 (Psalm 22:17) – like a lion my hands and my feet (Masoretic text) – they
pierced my hands and my feet (Septuagint, Dead Sea Scrolls) – crucifixion – they
bound my hands and my feet (Graetz, Vall, Paulus, Kaltner, Driver) – my hands and my
feet are wasted away – my hands and my feet are contracted (Roberts, Barré) – my
hands and feet are repugnant (Aquila, Delitzsch, Duhm)

Ps 22:171 is among the most controverted verses in the Hebrew Bible. The big-
gest question that text critics and interpreters struggle to answer is what the
psalmist originally said regarding his hands and feet. Anyone hoping to do a
serious investigation into this scholarly debate is likely to find the task quite

1 Unless otherwise noted, references to Ps 22 (ET, LXX: 21) and other psalms in this article fol-
low the Hebrew chapter number and versification.

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daunting as he or she encounters a wide array of proposals that attempt to re-

solve the various text-critical and interpretive cruxes relating to this verse. It is
a task in itself simply to familiarize oneself with all of these proposals, a much
larger task to evaluate them. For these reasons it seemed like it might be help-
ful not to offer yet another proposal but simply to take a step back and survey
thirteen of the proposals that have already been offered and then to evaluate
their respective strengths and weaknesses.2 It is hoped that by laying out the
status quaestionis in this way a more informed, critical, and nuanced debate
can be encouraged moving forward.

1 Like a Lion (‫ארי‬+‫ ]…[ )כ‬My Hands and My Feet

In Ps 22:17 the Masoretes marked ‫ ְּכ ָל ִבים‬with a disjunctive ʿoleh weyored ( ֥ ֫ ) and
placed a disjunctive ʾathnaḥ ( ֑ ) under ‫ ִה ִּקיפּונִ י‬, producing three distinct cola:3

‫ִ ֥כי ְס ָב ֗בּונִ י ְכ ֫ ָל ִ ֥בים‬

‫יפּונִ י‬
֑ ‫ֲע ַ ֣דת ְ ֭מ ֵר ִעים ִה ִק‬
‫ָ֝כ ֲא ִ ֗רי יָ ַ ֥די וְ ַרגְ ָ ֽלי׃‬

The first two cola are written in synonymous parallelism and form an A–B/
B’–A’ chiastic structure:

For they surround me – dogs.

A congregation of evil doers – they encircle me.

The last colon can be translated literally as, “like a lion my hands and my feet”.

2 The various proposals are not discussed here in a strictly chronological order but in one that
seemed to require the least amount of repetition and that also seemed easiest for the reader
to follow. It would be rather question-begging, of course, to arrange the proposals in a strictly
chronological order since every one of them is supposed to represent what the psalmist
originally wrote while alternative proposals are attributed to later scribes and interpreters.
A somewhat thematic arrangement has therefore been attempted: e.g. no.’s 1–2 both accept
the “like a lion” reading; no.’s 3–5 appeal to early versional evidence; no.’s 5–7 deal with the
psalmist’s hands and feet being “bound”; no.’s 8–10 are purely conjectural emendations; no.’s
11–12 appeal to the root ‫ ;ארה‬no. 13 is distinctive.
3 If the term “cola” seems anachronistic, the alternative “conceptual/syntactical units” would
apply just as well.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 3

The presumed advantages of this reading are that it follows the overwhelm-
ing majority of extant Hebrew manuscripts and coheres thematically with vv.
14 and 22 where similes involving a lion also appear.
Against this reading, the third colon is syntactically difficult because it lacks
a verb to explain the relationship between the lion and the psalmist’s hands
and feet, a relationship that is not immediately obvious from the broader
context. Commentators who accept the MT have usually tried to address this
problem by positing that a verb was either omitted through faulty transmis-
sion or elided (i.e. purposely omitted as unnecessary and disruptive to the po-
etic structure) by the psalmist and so must now be inferred by the reader.
Abraham Cohen opted for the first of these options, suggesting that the
original verb resembled ‫ כארי‬and was omitted via haplography.4 He hazarded
no guess as to what this verb had been but cited the targum for consideration:
‫“( נכתין היך כאריא אידי ורגלי‬Like a lion they have bitten my hands and feet”). It
seems more likely, however, that the targumist simply added the verb in order
to convey what he thought the psalmist was trying to say. For the verb to have
dropped out by haplography we would expect for it to have resembled ‫כארי‬.
But ‫נשכו‬, the Hebrew equivalent of the targumist’s ‫נכתו‬, looks nothing like ‫כארי‬
in any of the ancient scripts; the same is true of the qal participle, ‫נשכים‬, which
would be the precise equivalent of ‫נכתין‬.5 A similar criticism could be made
of the Jewish Publication Society ( JPS) Tanakh translation of 1985: “Like lions
[they maul] my hands and feet.” The words “they maul” appear to translate
a conjectured ‫“( טרפו‬they have rent, torn”) (cf. v. 14 where the verb occurs in
connection with a lion).6 But again, since this verb would not have resembled
‫ כארי‬in any of the ancient scripts it seems unlikely to have dropped out via hap-
lography. ‫“( אכלו‬they have eaten”) would be an equally unsatisfying conjecture,
both for the reason just mentioned and because lions do not typically eat the
hands and feet of their prey.7 There seem to be no presumptive grounds, then,
for conjecturing that a verb was accidentally omitted.

4 Abraham Cohen, The Book of Psalms (Hindhead, Surrey: Soncino Press, 1945), 64. See also
Brent A. Strawn, “Psalm 22:17b: More Guessing”, JBL 119 (2000): 439–51 (448).
5 A reviewer of this article pointed out that “haplography need not be triggered by the whole-
word resemblance … In this case, haplography might have been produced by graphic confu-
sion (‫י‬/‫ )ו‬and homoioteleuton.” While true, this would be a very weak basis for a conjectural
emendation. Homoioteleuton was typically triggered by a recurring succession of two or
more characters, not a single character.
6 Strawn (“More Guessing”, 448) also considers ‫ טרפו‬one of several possible solutions to the
syntactical difficulty here.
7 Strawn, “More Guessing”, 446.

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If the psalmist elided the verb, the most reasonable assumption would be
that the last-mentioned verb (‫ )הקיפו‬or a copulative verb (‫היו‬, “they are”) was
meant to be read into the text. Yet neither of these options seems viable here.
An individual lion surrounding or circling the psalmist’s hands and feet would
make for a strange image.8 Nor is it possible to read a copulative verb into the
statement, despite the apparent attempt to do so in the JPS Tanakh translation
of 1917: “Like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet” (my emphasis). The word
“at” cannot be derived from the Hebrew text without emending it. On the basis
of Isa 38:13, Rashi suggested that the verb “crush” (‫ ׁשבר‬piel) can be read into the
text while the New English Translation (NET) renders, “like a lion they pin my
hands and my feet.”9 These are only guesses, however. One could insert other
verbs into the text with equal justification.10 From a text-critical standpoint,
this kind of approach is useless. Moreover, lions do not attack the hands and
feet of their prey as this is an ineffective way to kill.11 They certainly do not
crush, much less pin, the hands and feet of their prey.
Although ‫ כארי‬is the most widely attested reading among the preserved
manuscripts, its earliest witnesses are relatively late, namely, the sixth cen-
tury Cairo Geniza palimpsest of the Hexapla (ὡς λέων) and the Psalms Targum

8 Contra Jonathan Magonet (A Rabbi Reads the Psalms [London: SCM Press, 1994], 106–107)
who does not appreciate the strangeness of the imagery. Even if ‫ ידי ורגלי‬were taken as
a merismus for the entire person the verb ‫ הקיפו‬would not fit with the behavior of lions
(see n. 11 below). David Kimchi’s commentary is zoologically uninformed: “The hunting
strategy of the lion is as follows. He walks around a specific portion of the forest dragging
his tail on the ground, marking off his territory. The animals found in this circle are petri-
fied with fear. Instead of running, they draw in their hands and feet and prepare them-
selves to fall prey to the lion” (A. C. Feuer, Tehillim: A New Translation with a Commentary
Anthologized from Talmudic, Midrashic and Rabbinic Sources (Brooklyn: Mesorah,
1985), 111.
9 Mayer I. Gruber, Rashi’s Commentary on the Psalms (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 257; New English
Translation (ed. W. Hall Harris; Garland, Tex.: Biblical Studies Press, L.L.C., 2005), 930.
10 Elsewhere in the Psalms lions are said to do the following: ‫טרף‬, “rend, tear” (Ps 17:12; 22:14;
35:17), ‫שאג‬, “roar” (22:14; 104:21), ‫ארת‬, “lie in wait, lurk” (10:9; 17:12), and ‫חטף‬, “seize” (10:9).
Gary A. Rendsburg (“Philological Notes”, HS 43 [2002]: 21–30 [26]), along with the annota-
tor in the NET Bible, suggests that the verb’s omission indicates that the lion was attacking
suddenly. This explanation appears gratuitous, however, since no parallel is offered.
11 So similarly, Mark A. Heinemann (“An Exposition of Psalm 22”, BSac 147 [1990]: 286–308
[295–96 n. 32]) and Strawn (“More Guessing”, 444), who cite zoological evidence to show
that lions typically attack from behind and strike at the neck or some other major body
part. Several videos on www.youtube.com capture footage of lion attacks. Strawn (“More
Guessing”, 450 fig. 6) reproduces an Assyrian engraving depicting a lion standing beside a
severed head and hand. The rest of the body has evidently been eaten. The hand and head
may have been left because they are less succulent, although the head likely also serves as
propaganda.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 5

(‫ )כאריא‬which is probably later.12 The oldest preserved reading is ‫כ(א)רו‬, the

evidence for which shall be discussed under no. 3 below.
From a structural standpoint, the two mouth+lion references in vv. 14 and 22
form an inclusio, while a chiasmus can also be detected:13

A Young bulls surround (v. 13a)

B Mouths+lion (v. 14)
C Dogs surround (v. 17a)
C’ Dog (v. 21b)
B’ Mouth+lion (v. 22a)
A’ Wild oxen (v. 22b)

In support of ‫ כארי‬it could be argued that a lion reference in v. 17c would result
in a central D section. However, there are at least two reasons to think that v. 20
is at the center of this poetic structure: (1) this is where the psalm shifts from
complaints (vv. 13–19) to petitions (vv. 20–22); (2) ‫ ואתה‬signals a thematic em-
phasis, as in v. 4, which stands at the center of another poetic structure in
vv. 2–6:

A God has forsaken me (v. 2)

B I cry out to him (v. 3)
C ‫ ואתה‬are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel (v. 4)
A’ God delivered our fathers (v. 5)
B’ When they cried out to him (v. 6)

Although lion similes occur in vv. 14 and 22, the spelling for “lion” is not ‫ארי‬
but ‫ אריה‬and that is also how the term is consistently spelled elsewhere in the
book of Psalms. One could possibly argue that in Ps 22:17 the author chose a
different spelling in order to create some stylistic variation. But other terms
for “lion” could have easily been chosen if variation were the concern: e.g. ‫כפיר‬
(Ps 34:11; 35:17); ‫( לביא‬Gen 49:9; Num 23:24;); ‫( שחל‬Job 4:10; Ps 91:13). Given the
preserved variants of ‫ כארו‬and ‫( כרו‬see no. 3 below), as well as the syntactical

12 See Charles Taylor (ed.), Hebrew-Greek Cairo Genizah Palimpsests from the Taylor-Schechter
Collection (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1900), 1–36, esp. 5. The Psalms Targum
probably does not pre-date the Bavli. See the discussion by David M. Stec, The Targum of
Psalms: Translated with a Critical Introduction, Apparatus, and Notes (AB 16; London: T&T
Clark, 2004), 1–2.
13 See Michael L. Barré, “The Crux of Psalm 22:17c: Solved at Long Last?”, in David and
Zion (FS J. J. M. Roberts; eds. Bernard F. Batto and Kathryn L. Roberts; Winona Lake, IN;
Eisenbrauns, 2004), 287–306 (295–7).

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problems that result when ‫ ָּכ ֲא ִרי‬is read, the alternate spelling here can be argu-
ably viewed as further indication that the MT is corrupt. Indeed, if the psalm-
ist had written a verb that was morphologically similar to ‫( כארי‬see no.’s 3, 4, 6,
7, and 11 below) the other lion references in the psalm might well have encour-
aged copyists to misread this verb as ‫ארי‬+‫כ‬.

2 Like a Lion (‫ארי‬+‫ )כ‬They Circumscribe My Hands and My Feet

Kristin Swenson14 rejects the MT’s tripartite structure, proposing instead that
the verse be arranged into two cola, the first ending with ‫מרעים‬:

‫כי סבבוני כלבים עדת מרעים‬ For dogs surround15 me, a pack of wicked ones;
‫הקיפוני כארי ידי ורגלי‬ Like a lion, they circumscribe my hands and my feet.

In her second colon Swenson understands the psalmist to be saying not simply
that his enemies had encircled or surrounded him but that they had circum-
scribed his hands and feet—i.e., restricted or constricted their movements/
ability. She then understands “my hands and feet” metaphorically, as referring
to the psalmist’s ability to fight or flee. A lion can strike its prey with such grip-
ping fear that it can neither fight nor flee. That, Swenson suggests, is what the
psalmist had in mind here when speaking about being “circumscribed” in his
hands and feet.
Swenson’s analysis of this verse attempts to deal with the syntactical dif-
ficulty caused by the missing verb in the third colon of the MT. Structurally,
it might also seem to cohere better with the rest of the psalm which consists
mostly of bicola (but cf. vv. 8, 16, 24, 27).
But several objections can be offered against this analysis:
– It is lexically dubious that the hiphil of ‫ נקף‬could mean “constrict, restrict”.16
In the Hebrew Bible and the Qumran scrolls the qal or hiphil of ‫ נקף‬can

14 Kristin M. Swenson, “Psalm 22:17: Circling Around the Problem Again”, JBL 123/4 (2004):
637–48. She appears to have drawn her inspiration from Ibn Ezra’s commentary on the
Psalms: see H. Norman Strickman, Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra’s Commentary on the First
Book of Psalms: Chapters 1041 (Brooklyn: Yashar Books, 2007), 262–3. She is followed by
Nancy DeClaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner, The Book of Psalms
(NICOT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2014), 230 n. 26.
15 Swenson renders these perfects as presents, an entirely valid translational approach.
16 Swenson’s “circumscribe” translation is clever because it retains the Hebrew verb’s con-
notation of circular motion (in the Latin prefix circum-) while at the same time introduc-
ing, from English, a connotation of restricted movement. The latter idea may not actually
be a connotation of the Hebrew verb, however. Rather than playing into this potential

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 7

mean the following: “encircle” or “surround” (1 Kgs 7:24; Isa 15:8; Lam 3:5;
1QpHab 4:7); “circumambulate, complete a circle/cycle” (e.g. Josh 6:3; Ps
48:13; Isa 29:1); and perhaps “round off” or “curl” (Lev 19:27).17 If the psalmist
had wanted to say that he felt constrained or restricted, several other verbs
would have been available: e.g. ‫עצר‬, “restrain, detain”;18 ‫גבל‬, “set bounds/
boundaries”;19 ‫סגר‬, “shut, enclose”; ‫רפה‬20, “drop, sink, weaken”.21 The evi-
dence that Swenson adduces to show that ‫ נקף‬could mean “constrain, re-
strict” is neither extensive nor compelling: Josh 6:3, 11; Lam 3:5.22 When used
in Josh 6:3, 11, the verb speaks of a religious procession around Jericho which
cannot be equated with a constraint/restriction of movement. Lam 3:5 is
perhaps more apposite since the verb is used in synonymous parallelism
with ‫“( בנה עלי‬he has built [siegeworks] against me”), which implies that
the speaker feels confined/restricted. The text is possibly corrupt, however.23
Swenson might have also cited 2 Kgs 6:14, where soldiers are said to have
encircled (‫ )יקפו‬the city of Dothan, and 1QpHab IV:7, where the “Kittim”
are said to encircle (‫“ )יקיפום‬the fortresses of the peoples” with a great army
in order to capture those inside. Restricted movement is certainly implied
here on the part of those holed up in the city/fortresses. Yet this idea of re-/
constricted movement is something one can only infer from the distinctly
military context in which ‫ נקף‬is used. In Ps 22:17 the context is very different.
Here it is not a city being surrounded by an army but an individual whose
hands and feet are being surrounded/circumambulated by his enemies “like
a (single) lion” (assuming here that: Swenson is correct in her construal of
the syntax; ‫ כארי‬was original; the verse is a bicola). Swenson’s argument that
‫ ידי ורגלי‬are metaphors for the psalmist’s ability to fight or flee mitigates this
objection somewhat. But this interpretation is highly metaphorical (see the
final criticism below). The psalmist seems rather to be employing imagery,
not metaphor.
– The pronominal suffix on ‫ הקיפוני‬indicates that the action is not directed
against “my hands and my feet” but against “me”. Swenson tries to address

semantic confusion I shall, for the rest of this discussion, use the more neutral words
“constrain” and “restrict” when discussing Swenson’s argument.
17 Friedrich Reiterer, “‫נקף‬, nāqap̱”, in TDOT, 10.10–14. Reiterer does not give “curl” as a pos-
sible meaning but see no. 12 below.
18 Jdg 13:15–16; Jer 33:1; 36:5.
19 Exod 19:12, 23; Deut 19:14.
20 Gen 7:16; Jdg 9:51; 1 Sam 23:7; Job 12:14.
21 Neh 6:9; Jer 50:43.
22 Swenson, “Circling”, 643.
23 See Reiterer, “‫נקף‬, nāqap̱”, 13; Delbert R. Hillars, Lamentations (AB 7A; Garden City, NY:
Doubleday, 1972), 54.

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this problem by appealing to texts where the verb’s object is first indicated
by a pronominal suffix and then by a separate noun (e.g. Exod 2:6: ‫ותראהּו‬
‫ ;את הילד‬35:5: ‫תרומה‬-‫יביא ָה את‬
ֶ ; 1 Kgs 21:13: ‫נבות‬-‫ ;ויעדהּו … את‬Prov 5:22: ‫ילכדנֹו‬
‫הרשע‬-‫)את‬.24 In such cases the pleonastic noun stands in apposition with the
pronominal suffix (e.g. “And she saw him, [namely,] the boy”, etc.). Swenson
admits that the pleonastic noun is typically preceded by ‫ את‬but hastens to
add that this is not always the case, citing Ezek 3:21 (‫ )הזהרתֹו צדיק‬as proof.
Even so, the fact that she must appeal to an exceptional grammatical phe-
nomenon weakens her argument. Moreover, none of her examples really
corresponds to the grammatical situation in Ps 22:17 because “hands” and
“feet” do not agree in person, number, or gender with the pronominal suf-
fix on the verb. Swenson contends that while the agreement is not strictly
grammatical it makes sense conceptually since “my hands and feet” can be
understood as a merismus, referring to the psalmist’s entire being, not his
hands and feet only. Yet there are no other instances in the Hebrew Bible or
the Qumran scrolls where the phrase “hands and feet” is used in this way.
Even if one could adduce such an instance, perhaps from another Semitic
language, a merismus in our text would seem unlikely since lions do not en-
circle or surround their prey.25 All things considered, then, Swenson’s pro-
posed second colon ought to have been translated: “They surround me like
a lion my hands and my feet.” This is grammatically nonsensical.
– By joining ‫ כארי‬with ‫ הקיפוני‬Swenson undermines the parallelism and the
A–B/B’–A’ chiastic structure that would otherwise result if the verse were
structured into three cola rather than two.
– Swenson’s interpretation is highly abstract, metaphorical, and ellipti-
cal, even for poetry: “Dogs have surrounded—a congregation of evildo-
ers (i.e. a ‘pack’ of dogs) has encircled me (constraining me, as when an
army surrounds a city or fortress and effectively barricades those inside),
like a lion that is constricting (by means of fear) my hands and feet (i.e.
my entire person and/or my ability to fight/flee).” One suspects that this
interpretation takes too many liberties and reads more into the verse than
is warranted.

24 Swenson, “Circling”, 647.

25 See nn. 8 and 11 above.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 9

3 They Have Dug ( ‫כארו‬, from ‫ )כרה‬My Hands and My Feet

The Septuagint of our verse (= 21:17) reads as follows:

ὅτι ἐκύκλωσάν με κύνες πολλοί, For many dogs encircled me,

συναγωγὴ πονηρευομένων περιέσχον με, An assembly of evildoers surrounded me,
ὤρυξαν χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδας. They dug my hands and feet.

In agreement with the MT, the Greek translator appears to have identified
three cola in this verse (note that there are three verbs and that περιέσχον
agrees in number with συναγωγή but not with κύνες). Unlike the MT, however,
the translator did not read ‫“( כארי‬like a lion”) in his Hebrew Vorlage but a third
person plural verb: ‫ כארו‬or ‫כרו‬. There is no ‫ כאר‬root in Hebrew. Hence, if the
translator read ‫ כארו‬he must have understood the ʾaleph as a mater lectionis
(‫ ) ָּכארּו‬and derived the verb from the third-weak root ‫“( כרה‬to dig”).26 Tertullian
(Marc. 3.19) and Jerome’s Vulgate (ad loc.) likewise read foderunt (“they dug”);
but since they were likely following the Septuagint here they cannot be cited
as independent support for a Hebrew manuscript tradition attesting ‫כ(א)רו‬.
The Syriac Old Testament translator also reads a verb—bzʿw—and this can,
perhaps, be rendered into English as “they pierced”.27 But again, it is uncertain
whether the translator was working with only a Hebrew Vorlage or was being
influenced by the Septuagint.28 Aside from the Septuagint, the best support

26 For ‫ כרה‬in the Hebrew Bible and Qumran scrolls, see, e.g., Gen 26:25; Num 21:18; Ps 40:7;
57:7; 94:13; 119:85; Jer 18:20, 22; CD VI:3, 9; 4Q418 55 3; 4Q525 5 12. The mater lectionis
convention is used already in the Hebrew Bible and becomes more commonplace in
the Qumran scrolls. The ʾaleph always indicates a long a (qameṣ) vowel: e.g. ‫ ראמות‬for
‫( ָרמות‬Prov 24:7); ‫ ימאסו‬for ‫ימסו‬ ָ (Ps 58:7). For more examples, see Friedrich Delitzsch,
Die Lese- und Schreibfehler im Alten Testament (Berlin, 1920), 36 §31a; Eduard Y. Kutscher,
The Language and Linguistic Background of the Isaiah Scroll (1QIsa) (Leiden: Brill, 1974),
52–56. For a discussion on orthography relating to ʾalephs and other matres lectionis, see
Emanuel Tov, Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible (Minneapolis: Fortress, 22012), 208–18.
27 For the semantic range of bzʿ, see Carolo Brockelmann, Lexicon Syriacum (Gottingen:
Halis Saxonum, 21928), 64. He gives the following definitions for the term in the peal: dis-
cidit (“cut in pieces, divide”), laceravit (“cut, mangle”), fidit [rupem] (“split, cleave, divide
[a cliff/rock]”). The paal, which is another way to read the verb here, can mean penetravit
(“penetrate, break through”): cf. 2 Sam 23:16; 1 Chron 11:18.
28 Older scholarship tended to see the Syriac as a translation from Aramaic, but more re-
cent scholarship as a direct translation from the Hebrew. See, e.g., M. P. Weitzman, The
Syriac Version of the Old Testament: An Introduction (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1999), 148–149. Few would doubt that it was also influenced by the Septuagint
(ibid, 129). But the originality and the extent of Septuagintal influence are debated.

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for “they dug” comes from surviving Hebrew manuscripts. Several medieval
manuscripts attest ‫כארו‬.29 Even more significantly, this reading is now attested
in 5/6ḤevPs XI 9, which the editors have assigned “a late Herodian date (c.
50–68 CE)”.30 Additionally, ‫ כרו‬is attested in two medieval manuscripts and is
thought to be attested in 4QPsf [4Q88] (ca. 50 BCE).31 In an article from 1897
Henri Lesêtre observed that although Justin Martyr quotes Ps 22 for his Jewish
interlocutor Trypho and appeals to it as a proof-text for Christ’s crucifixion, he
never pauses to consider Jewish objections to the Septuagint rendering of v. 17.
Since Justin is aware of other Jewish objections to Septuagint renderings—as
in Dial. 67 where the term παρθένος in Isa 7:14 is discussed at length—Lesêtre
hypothesized that ‫ כארו‬was still the established reading in the mid-second
century.32 Gregory Vall characterizes this as an argumentum ex silentio but
the silence is all the more striking now, given the readings from the Dead Sea
Scrolls (which were yet unknown to Lesêtre).
The Septuagint’s handling of our disputed text has several merits:

See Robert P. Gordon, Hebrew Bible and Ancient Versions (SOTS; Farnham, England:
Ashgate, 2006), 251–62; Michael P. Weitzman, “The Origin of the Peshitta Psalter”, in
Michael P. Weitzman, From Judaism to Christianity: Studies in the Hebrew and Syriac Bibles
(eds. Ada Rapoport-Albert and Gillian Greenberg; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999),
90–113; idem, “The Peshitta Psalter and Its Hebrew Vorlage”, ibid., 114–129, esp. 123–126.
Weitzman thinks that Septuagintal influence goes back to the original translator but is
only sporadic. His comment that “the less specific the agreement, the less confident can
we be that the LXX influenced P[eshitta] at all” (ibid., 123) seems relevant to Ps 22:17 since
bzʿw is hardly the equivalent of ὤρυξαν.
29 For medieval mss, see Benjaminus Kennicott (ed.), Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum; cum
Variis Lectionibus II (Oxford: 1780), 323. Six mss read ‫ ָּכארּו‬. One of these is nonsensically
vocalized as ‫ ָּכ ֲא ִרו‬, answering to the MT’s ‫ ; ָכ ֲא ִרי‬but from a text-critical standpoint it is
only the final waw that matters.
30 James H. Charlesworth, James C. VanderKam, Monica Brady (eds.), Miscellaneous Texts
from the Judaean Desert (DJD 38; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 143. See ibid., 141–145, 159–161
for further discussion about the ms. Also Peter W. Flint, “The Book of Psalms in the Light
of the Dead Sea Scrolls”, VT 48.4 (1998): 453–72 (457). See Plate 27 in DJD 38 for a photo-
graph of the faded fragment. Since the waw on ‫ כארו‬is immediately followed by a yod on
‫ ידים‬the two characters are easily compared, leaving little doubt that we are dealing here
with ‫ כארו‬and not ‫כארי‬.
31 For medieval mss, see again Kennicott, Vetus Testamentum, 323. Two mss read ‫ ָּכרּו‬while
three others attest the same in their margins. See also BHS ad loc. Although 4QPsf (4Q88)
1–2 contains Ps 22:14–17 [ET 22:13–16] the key line is damaged. The editors reconstruct it
as: ‫הקיפני כר[ו]ידי ורגלי‬. See P. W. Skehan, E. Ulrich, P. Flint, Qumran Cave 4.XI: Psalms to
Chronicles (DJD 16; Oxford: Clarendon, 2000), 88–89.
32 Henri Lesêtre, Le Livre des Psaumes (Paris: Lethielleux, 1897), 99. Lesêtre’s argument is
referenced by Vall (“Old Guess”, 47 n. 9).

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 11

– Unlike some of the proposals examined below, it does not require any
emendations to the text or appeals to otherwise unattested Hebrew ver-
bal roots. As was just mentioned, ‫ כארו‬and ‫ כרו‬are both attested in extant
Hebrew manuscripts and both readings are easily taken as derivatives of the
third-weak root ‫כרה‬, which translates as “dig”.33 There can be little doubt,
therefore, that the Septuagint translator was using a Hebrew Vorlage that
attested either ‫ כארו‬or ‫כרו‬. Surviving Hebrew manuscripts attesting these
two readings confirm that the Septuagint Vorlage was not idiosyncratic but
representative of an established text tradition.
– By employing a verb (rather than the noun ‫ )ארי‬the Septuagint avoids the
syntactical difficulties posed by no.’s 1 and 2 above.
– ὤρυξαν/‫ כ(א)רו‬fits with the psalm’s broader context, at least if this verb can
be understood to mean “they pierced”.34 The psalmist has already spoken in
vv. 13, 17a–b about being surrounded by his enemies, and his capture is pre-
sumed to have already taken place in vv. 18–19; he also complains of being at
the point of death in vv. 15 and 16, and of being surrounded/threatened by
savage beasts and “the sword” (a metaphor for violent death?) in vv. 13–14,
17a, 21–22. A death by crucifixion would not be inappropriate to this context.35

33 Gen 26:25; Exod 21:33; 2 Chron 16:14; Ps 7:16; 57:7; 94:13; 119:85; Prov 16:27; CD 6:3, 9; 4Q424
3 6; 4Q418 55 3; 4Q525 5 12. The other word used in the Hebrew Bible for “dig” is ‫חפר‬: e.g.
Ps 35:7.
34 In certain contexts, ‫“( כרה‬dig”) might have been used with a more specialized connota-
tion of “pierce”. Franz Delitzsch (Biblical Commentary on the Psalms (3 vols.; Edinburgh:
T&T Clark, 1871), 1.319) suggests that at LXX Ps 39:7 (MT 40:7) the translator’s κατηρτίσω
(“you have ordered, furnished, prepared”), which makes little sense in the context, is a
corruption of κατετρήσω (from κατατιτράω [= κατατετραίνω], “to bore through, perforate”).
If correct, the translator must have thought that the psalmist was invoking a legal meta-
phor (“my ears you have pierced”), poetically acknowledging himself as Yahweh’s per-
petual servant (cf. Exod 21:5–6; Deut 15:16–17).
35 The author need not be seen here as miraculously anticipating the death of Jesus, as
many early Christians believed. Crucifixion was an ancient practice (see, e.g., Herodotus,
Hist. 9.120–122; Josephus, Ant. 13.379–380; 4QpNah 1:7–8). The predecessor to crucifix-
ion was impalement, which is alluded to in the Hebrew Bible and other early sources
(Deut 21:23; Josh 8:29; 10:26–27; cf. also ANEP 128 no. 368; 131 no. 373; Herodotus, Hist.
4.103.1–3; 4.202.1; 7.238.1; Xenophon, Anab. 3:1.17; Plato, Rep. 2.361e–362a). While the spe-
cific practice of nailing individuals to a post is difficult to date, it was certainly pre-Roman.
Herodotus records the Athenians crucifying a man during the Persian period: ζῶοντα
πρὸς σανίδα προσδειπασσαλεύσαν, “they nailed the living [man] to timbers” (Hist. 7:33; also
9.33.1; 9.120.4). Diodorus Siculus, relying on Ctesias of Cnidas (ca. 400 BCE), tells of an
Indian king from the sixth century BCE threatening to crucify someone: “[Strabobates]
threatened to nail her to a plank/cross (αὐτὴν σταυρῷ προσηλώσειν) after winning the
battle” (Bib. 2:18.1). In what may be a re-telling of a story in Polybius, Diodorus also claims
that Hannibal II (d. 258 BCE) was crucified: Ἀννίβαν εἰς τὸν αὐτὸν σταύρον … προσήλωσεν,

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Alternatively, the psalmist could be seen as returning to his earlier imagery

of dogs, which are known for biting (i.e. digging/piercing with their teeth)
the extremities when attacking.36
– If one posits an original ‫( כרו‬read: ‫) ָּכרּו‬, it is easy to account for the emergence
of the known variants. Without vocalization, ‫ כארי‬and ‫ כארו‬were morpho-
logically very similar since waws and yods were often indistinguishable and
easily confused. Moreover, the other references to lions in the psalm might
have encouraged a copyist to misread ‫ כארו‬as ‫כארי‬. As we have seen, the
‫ כארי‬reading deprives the colon of a verb and this omission is very difficult
to explain text-critically; hence, ‫ כארי‬is better seen as a corruption of ‫כארו‬,
and not vice versa. ‫ כרו‬could then be seen as the original orthography for this
verb, since it does not employ the mater lectionis (a later convention) and
can explain the other readings: ‫כארי > כארו > כרו‬.
But there are problems with the Septuagint’s reading as well. As we shall see
below, interpreters who postulate an original ‫ כרו‬do not necessarily derive this
verb from ‫כרה‬, or from a root that means “dig”. Also, the remark, “They dug my
hands and my feet”, is a bit baffling. Above it was suggested that the psalmist
was thinking of a crucifixion. English translators of Ps 22:17 often render ‫כארו‬
(or ὤρυξαν in the Septuagint) as “they pierced” (e.g. Brenton’s LXX translation,
KJV, NIV, ESV, NASB). This translation evokes the image of Jesus’ crucifixion and
has therefore seemed agreeable to many Christians.37 There would have been
more obvious Hebrew words for “pierce” than ‫כרה‬, however: e.g. ‫( דקר‬e.g. Zech
12:10), ‫( נקב‬e.g. Isa 36:6), ‫( חלל‬poel), and ‫( טען‬pual). The alternative interpreta-
tion mentioned above (about the psalmist thinking here about dogs biting his
hands and feet) poses difficulties as well. The imagery of dogs “digging” at their
prey with their teeth would be unparalleled, at least in the Hebrew Bible. Dogs
do not dig with their teeth but with their claws. More obvious words for “bite”
would have been ‫ נשך‬or ‫אכל‬.

“[Matho] nailed Hannibal to the same plank/cross” (Bib. 25:5.2 = Polybius, Hist. 1:86.4–7);
cf. also Bib. 20:54.7. On these texts from Classical authors, see the discussion in Gunnar
Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity (WUNT 2, 310; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 2011) 52–55,
84–87. The Athenians and Indians may have learned about crucifixion from the Persians
(cf. Thucydides, Pelop. 1.110.3).
36 This interpretation was suggested to me by an anonymous peer reviewer. Cp. with no.’s 4,
10, 11, and 12 below.
37 See n. 47 below.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 13

4 They Have Made My Hands and My Feet Repugnant ( ‫ ּ ֹכאֲר ּו‬, from
‫)כאר‬

Franz Delitzsch suggested that Aquila, in his original translation of this verse,
derived ᾐσχύναν (“they shamed, rendered contemptible”) from the Aramaic
loan word ‫כאר‬, “to soil, make repugnant”.38 Bernhard Duhm, in his commen-
tary on in Ps 22:17, took his inspiration from Aquila and vocalized the verb as a
poel, ‫ּכ ֲֹארּו‬, translating: “Entstellt sind meine Hände und Füsse” (“My hands and
feet are disfigured”).39
This option is attractive because it relies on an extant reading (‫ )כארו‬and
hence does not require an emendation.40 True, in Aramaic, the term for “make
repugnant” is ‫כער‬, with an ʿayin rather than an ʾaleph (e.g. Tg. Nah on 3:6); but
there is evidence that in Hebrew the root could be alternatively spelled with
an ʾaleph.41
Among the difficulties with this rendering are, first, that the poel is an in-
frequent stem formation that normally goes with geminate verbs.42 Second,
‫ כאר‬II (“make repugnant”) seems to have been an infrequently used root. More
common ways of expressing repugnance, abhorrence, shamefulness, etc. were
with roots like ‫שקץ‬, ‫בזה‬, ‫חלל‬, ‫בוש‬, ‫( חפר‬cf. also the noun ‫) ֶח ְר ָּפה‬, and ‫( כלם‬hiphil
or the noun ‫) ְּכ ִל ָּמה‬. Third, if any copyists had understood the verb as a poel we
would expect to find in the manuscript record the insertion of a waw (mater
lectionis) after the kaph in order to assist readers with the verb’s proper pro-
nunciation and meaning. Fourth, while Duhm’s “entstellt sind” may be transla-
tionally satisfying it is philologically dubious. A more literal translation would
be: “they rendered as repugnant/disgusting my hands and feet”. No explanation
is given as to how or why the psalmist’s “hands and feet” had been rendered
thus by his enemies. Fifth, if indeed Aquila read the verb as ‫ ּכ ֲֹארּו‬he may have

38 Franz Delitzsch, Psalms, 1.318. Curiously, ‫( חפר‬the other Hebrew word for “dig”) fre-
quently means “make ashamed” and is typically translated in the LXX with the verb (κατ)
αἰσχύνω (e.g. Isa 33:9).
39 Bernhard Duhm (Die Psalmen (Freiburg im Breisgau: Mohr, 1899), 71. See also David J.
A. Clines (ed.), The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (8 vols.; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic
Press, 1998), 4.349 (‫ כאר‬II).
40 Clines (ed.), Dictionary, 4.349 claims that it does require an emendation, but this is be-
cause he only has the MT in mind. As we saw under the last heading, ‫ כארו‬is among the
extant variants and is plausibly more ancient than the MT’s ‫כארי‬.
41 ‫ כאורה‬is used at Nah 3:6 in 4QpNah (4Q169) 3–4 III 2 (cf. also line 4: ‫)כארום‬, a reading
that is also followed by the targum: ‫ ְמ ָכ ֲע ָרא‬. By contrast, the MT here reads ‫“( ְּכר ִֹאי‬like a
spectacle”).
42 Christo H. J. van der Merwe, Jackie A. Naudé, Jan H. Kroeze, A Biblical Hebrew Reference
Grammar (Biblical Languages: Hebrew 3; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1999), 132.

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been more indebted to the Aramaic of his own day than the psalmist’s original
meaning in Hebrew. Sixth, ‫ ּכ ֲֹארּו‬would be a more convincing reading here if
a Semitic parallel could be adduced showing an individual’s hands and feet
being “rendered repugnant, disgusting, etc.” in a context similar to what we
have in Ps 22:17. No such parallel has so far been adduced.43

5 They Have Bound (Emend to ‫אסרו‬, from ‫ )אסר‬My Hands and My

Feet

Gregory Vall44 argued that the psalmist originally wrote ‫“( אסרו‬they bound”)
but this was corrupted, via metathesis, to ‫סארו‬. Since the corrupted term
was nonsensical, scribes “corrected” it to ‫כארו‬, ‫כארי‬, or ‫כרו‬.45 Although no
extant Hebrew manuscript attests ‫ אסרו‬or ‫סארו‬, Vall cites as an ancient and
independent witness the Greek verb ἐπέδησαν (“they have bound”), which ap-
pears in Aquila’s revised—though not his original—translation. Vall also cites
Symmachus’ ὡς ζητοῦντες δῆσαι (“like those seeking to bind”) and Jerome’s vinx-
erunt (“they have bound”), which appears in his Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos.
Vall’s proposal here has at least three strong points. First, it is not purely con-
jectural but relies on three ancient versions. Second, unlike the two other pro-
posals considered below (no.’s 6–7), Vall’s makes use of a well-known Hebrew
word for “bind” (see, e.g., Gen 42:24; 49:11; Judg 15:10ff.). Third, Vall’s proposal
fits with Ps 22’s context. The psalmist appears to envisage himself as someone
who has been, or is about to be, taken captive by his enemies (cf. vv. 5, 6, 9, 13,
21, 22). The act of binding a war captive’s hands and feet is alluded to in 2 Sam
3:34. A comment by the psalmist about his hands and feet being bound by an
assembly of evildoers would have therefore made for some apt and poignant
imagery.
On the other hand, Vall’s hypothesis is quite speculative since neither ‫אסרו‬
nor ‫ סארו‬is attested in any surviving Hebrew manuscripts and since it requires

43 Hands are sometimes said to be “defiled” (‫נְ ג ֲֹאלּו‬, e.g. Isa 59:3) but this expression is always
used to speak of personal guilt, an idea that would be inappropriate to Ps 22:17.
44 Vall, “Old Guess”, 45–56.
45 Vall, “Old Guess”, 52–56. Vall is working with an older suggestion by Heinrich Graetz
(Kritischer Commentatar zu den Psalmen (2 vols.; Breslau: S. Schottlaender, 1882–83),
1:228) and others who also thought the text originally read ‫אסרו‬. But Vall is the first to
propose a viable theory for how the text was corrupted. Translations opting for some form
of the verb “to bind” in Ps 22:17 include REB (“they have bound me hand and foot”) and JB
(“they tie me hand and foot”). See too the other proposals under no.’s 6 and 7 below, where
the binding idea is derived from other roots besides ‫אסר‬.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 15

a sequence of two copyist errors—metathesis followed by an adjustment of

‫ ס‬to ‫—כ‬in order to account for the existence of ‫ כ(א)רו‬and ‫ כארי‬in the manu-
script tradition. The plausibility of Vall’s hypothesis is further reduced because
“samekh and kaf do not look especially alike in the ancient scripts”, as Vall him-
self acknowledges.46 It seems dubious that the translations by Symmachus and
Jerome represent independent witnesses of a Hebrew Vorlage. Aquila’s revised
translation was known and used by both translators so both men may have
simply deferred to Aquila. Of course, Aquila himself could have accessed a
Hebrew Vorlage attesting ‫אסרו‬. But he might have had other reasons for using
ἐπέδησαν:
– He read ‫ כארו‬or ‫ כרו‬and derived this from another root that meant “bind”
(see no.’s 6 and 7 below).
– He did not know how to interpret ‫ כ(א)רו‬and chose ἐπέδησαν, first, be-
cause it went well with ‫ ידי ורגלי‬and, second, because it deprived Christians
of a favorite prophecy about their Messiah’s crucifixion. The Septuagint
translation (ὤρυξαν χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδας) had certainly been used by early
Christians for apologetic purposes.47 And Aquila’s own earlier translation
(ᾐσχύναν, “they have dishonored, disfigured”) had probably also been used
in this way, much to that translator’s chagrin.

6 They Have Bound (‫כארו‬, from ‫כאר‬/‫ )כור‬My Hands and My Feet

John Kaltner48 accepts the minority ‫ כארו‬reading and agrees with Vall that
the psalmist had originally written something about his hands and feet being
bound. He rejects Vall’s hypothesis about scribal corruption, however, positing
instead the existence of a middle-weak Hebrew root ‫כאר‬/‫ כור‬with the meaning
of “bind, tie.”49 As support for this conjectured root he cites the Arabic kwr.

46 Vall, “Old Guess”, 54. See the paleographical chart in Ada Yardeni, The Book of Hebrew
Script (Jerusalem: Carta, 32010), 2. A corruption from ‫ סארו‬to ‫ כארו‬could, however, still
be explained in terms of the later (Aramaic) scripts.
47 For early Christian interpretation of Ps 22:17 as a prophecy about Jesus’ crucifixion, see
Justin, 1 Apol. 35; idem, Dial. 97; Tertullian, Marc. 3.19; Cyprian, Test. 2.20; Lactantius, Epit.
46; Athanasius, Inc. 35; Ep. Marcell. 7, 26; Augustine, Enarrat. Ps. XXI 1.17; 2.17; Cassiodorus,
Expos. Ps. XXI 17.
48 John Kaltner, “Psalm 22:17B: Second Guessing ‘The Old Guess’”, JBL 117 (1998): 503–6.
49 Kaltner, “Second Guessing”, 503–6. Kaltner is following the earlier suggestion of
H. E. G. Paulus, Philologische Clavis über die Psalmen (Heidelberg: Mohr & Winter’schen,
1815), 120–51, esp. 125, 133, 149. Cf. also Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner and Johann
Jakob Stamm, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (trans. and ed. by
M. E. J. Richardson; 2 vols.; Leiden: Brill, 2001), 2.497 (‫ כרה‬iv).

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The advantage of Kaltner’s proposal, over against Vall’s, is that while it

also fits nicely with the psalm’s context and harmonizes with the readings of
Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome, it does not require a sequence of two or more
scribal errors to account for the extant Hebrew readings.
On the other hand, conjecturing a Hebrew root on the basis of an Arabic
one is precarious. This is especially true in the present case since Hebrew
already had a perfectly suitable and frequently used word for “bind”: ‫אסר‬.50
Furthermore, the philological evidence that Kaltner cites from Arabic does not
support a meaning of “bind, tie” but of “wrap, wind” (as one wraps/winds a
turban), “increase” (as one increases a turban’s size by adding wrapping), or
“gird” (as one girds a camel with a saddle).51 If the psalmist had originally spo-
ken about his hands and feet being bound by evildoers he would have presum-
ably meant that he felt constricted, unable to escape. But turbans were not
wrapped/wound and saddles were not girded in order to constrict movement
but to facilitate it. Kaltner’s argument might be more convincing if he could
show that kwr had been used with reference to one’s hands/feet, or in con-
nection with shackles, ropes, or other restrictive items. Kaltner himself finds
another problem with his conjectured root: the middle radicals in the terms
‫ כאר‬and kwr are not equivalents since the Hebrew ʾaleph corresponds to the
Arabic ʾaliph, not wāw. Kaltner downplays this problem, commenting that “this
type of interchange, particularly with middle radicals, is a well-documented
phenomenon in Semitic languages.”52 Swenson finds this argument moot, not-
ing that “‫ א‬does not behave as ‫ י‬and ‫ ו‬do in the second position of the triliteral
root”.53 What she means, presumably, is that in hollow verbs the second char-
acter of the lexical form—whether ‫ י‬or ‫—ו‬is not even used in the qal perfect.
Kaltner could still argue, however, that the aleph is a mater lectionis which was
used here to indicate the long a (qameṣ) vowel (cf., e.g. Hos 10:14).

50 Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms (3 vols.; Edinburgh: Clark, 1873–89),
1.319; Vall, “Old Guess”, 53–54.
51 Kaltner, “Second Guessing”, 504–5. See the classical dictionaries by M. Ibn Manẓur, The
Lisān al-ʿArab (Beirut: Dar Ṣadir, 1883), 5.136–137; A. Al-Fayrūzabādī, Al-Qamus Al-Muḥit
(Beirut: Al-Risalah Publishers, 82005), 472; A. Al-Jawharī, Taj al-Lugha wa Ṣihah al-
Arabiyya (Beirut: Dar Al-ʿIlm, 41987), 809–810.
52 Kaltner, “Second Guessing”, 505 n. 15.
53 Swenson, “Circling”, 640 (italics added).

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 17

7 They Have Bound ( ‫כארו‬, from ‫ )כרה‬My Hands and My Feet

G. R. Driver also accepted that a third person plural verb had been used by
the author of our disputed text. He rejected the Septuagint’s rendering, how-
ever, supposing instead that the psalmist was claiming his hands and feet to
have been bound. But unlike the earlier proposals deriving the verb from ‫אסר‬
(Graetz/Vall) and ‫כאר‬/‫( כור‬Paulus/Kaltner), he suggested that it derived from
the third-weak root ‫כרה‬, pointing to evidence from cognate languages: e.g., the
Akkadian verb karāru (“tie, be twisted”), the Arabic roots krr (“wind”) and kwr
(“wrap, wind”), and the Syriac kār (“press together”).54 As circumstantial evi-
dence from the Hebrew Bible itself, he argued that in Ezek 16:4 the Septuagint
translator misread ‫“( ָּכ ַּרת‬it was cut”) as ‫ ָּכרּו‬and translated it as ἔδησαν (“they
bound”). Driver further argued that since the psalmist has already spoken of
his own death in v. 16c a reference to the binding of his hands and feet in v. 17
would seem anticlimactic and out of place. He therefore followed Sigmund
Mowinckel in re-locating v. 16c (‫מות תשפתמי‬-‫ )ולעפר‬immediately after v. 17.55
He then translated ‫ אספר כל־עצמותי‬in v. 18 as, “I recount all my great sufferings”
(cf. Job 7:15; Ps 40:6) and emended ‫“( ִּת ְׁש ְּפ ֵתנִ י‬you have cast me”) in v. 16 to a
defective 3 pl. ‫“( ְש ָפ ֻתנִ י‬they have cast me”). Thus:

For dogs have encompassed me

A company of evil-doers hath inclosed me;
They have bound my hands and my feet
And have cast me on the ash-pit of death

Against Driver, ‫ אסר‬is the normal root for describing the binding of one’s hands
and feet. Also, J. J. M. Roberts observes that Driver’s supposed Akkadian cog-
nate karāru “is really q/garāru, ‘to wind, coil’ (von Soden, Attw, 902–3) or ‘to
turn, roll over’ (CAD g, 47–48 [2nd ed.: 285])” whereas “karāru means ‘to put
in place’ (CAD k, 207 [148]).”56 Nor is Driver correct in claiming that the Arabic
verb krr means “wind”. It means, “turn against, return, withdraw”.57 Kwr, the
other Arabic root that Driver cited, is likewise unhelpful, not only for the se-
mantic reasons that were mentioned in the above critique of Kaltner (no. 6),

54 G. R. Driver, “Mistranslations”, ExpT 57.7 (1946): 192–193. He is followed, among others, by
Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1–59: A Commentary (trans. Hilton C. Oswald; Minneapolis:
Augsburg, 1988), 292.
55 Sigmund Mowinckel, Psalmenstudien (2 vols.; Amsterdam: P. Schippers, 1966), 1:73–74.
56 J. J. M. Roberts, “A New Root for and Old Crux”, VT 23 (1973): 247–52 (here 249 n. 1).
57 See, e.g., Edward William Lane, Arabic-English Lexicon (8 vols.; Cambridge: The Islamic
Texts Society, 1984), 2:2600.

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but because it would correspond to the hollow verb ‫כור‬, not the third-weak
‫כרה‬. Finally, Driver’s rearrangement of v. 16c is highly arbitrary, as is his emen-
dation of ‫ ִּת ְׁש ְּפ ֵתנִ י‬.

8 My Hands and My Feet Have Been Torn (Emend to ‫ ָק ֲרע ּו‬, from ‫)קרע‬

Hans Schmidt58 suggested that the original verb in Ps 22:17 was ‫“( ָק ֲרעּו‬they
have been torn/rent”) but a copyist misheard it as ‫“( ָּכארּו‬they have dug”). On
this conjecture we can perhaps imagine that the psalmist was envisaging his
enemies as dogs who were tearing or ripping his hands and feet apart (cp. no.’s
11–12 below).
Schmidt’s proposal can be challenged on several counts. First, there is no
external evidence for ‫קרעו‬. Second, ‫ ָּכ(א)רּו‬could have only been audibly con-
fused for ‫ ָק ֲרעּו‬at a somewhat late period, after ʿayin had become quiescent;
hence, if ‫ ָק ֲרעּו‬had been original its lack of attestation in surviving witnesses
seems all the more surprising. Third, dictation was typically used when mul-
tiple copies were needed; and while the Hebrew psalms would eventually be
“mass produced”, this can probably not explain the early readings of ‫ ָּכ(א)רּו‬by
the Septuagint translator or the ‫ כארו‬reading in 5/6ḤevPs XI 9 and the (ap-
parent) ‫ כרו‬reading in 4QPsf. Fourth, I am not aware of any relevant parallels
in which dogs are described as tearing or ripping at one’s hands and feet; we
should probably have expected “they bit”.

9 My Hands and My Feet Are Wasted Away/Exhausted (Emend to

‫כלו‬, from ‫)כלה‬

E. J. Kissane conjectures an original ‫( כלו‬from the third-weak ‫ כלה‬root), noting

that lameds were sometimes miscopied as reshes.59 This commonly used root
connotes the idea of completion or bringing something to an end. Kissane also
departs from the MT by reading the third colon in v. 17 with the first one in v. 18:

My hands and my feet are wasted away,60

I can number all my bones

58 Hans Schmidt, Die Psalmen (HBAT 15; Tübingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1934), 36.
59 M. E. J. Kissane, The Book of Psalms (2 vols.; Dublin: Browne and Nolan, 1953), 1.97–101.
60 For this nuance of ‫כלה‬, see BDB, 477 (2b): “waste away, be exhausted, fail”.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 19

Thus arranged, v. 17c and 18a would suggest that the speaker is languishing
in the envisioned situation. As key support for his proposed emendation and
restructuring of the cola in the MT, Kissane points to a possible parallel in
Job 33:21:

‫יִ ֶכל ְּב ָׂשרֹו ֵמר ִֹאי‬ His flesh wastes away from sight
‫ לֹא ֻרּאּו‬,‫ּוׁש ִפי (וְ ֻׁשּפּו) ַע ְצמ ָֹתיו‬
ְ And his bones, which were not seen, stick out

The second colon here is nicely parallel with Ps 22:18a. Kissane points out that
the first colon would also parallel Ps 22:17c if only the resh in ‫ כארו‬could be
emended to a lamed.
Peter C. Craigie follows Kissane’s suggested emendation but translates, “My
hands and my feet were exhausted”.61
‫ כ(א)לו‬is among the more convincing conjectural emendations that have
been proposed for this verse. Not only does it have an impressive parallel in Job
33:21 but it makes good sense structurally since it meaningfully connects the
otherwise dangling third colon in v. 17 with the first one in v. 18.
Nevertheless, the fact that ‫ כ(א)לו‬is not supported by any Hebrew manu-
scripts or corroborated by any of the ancient versions makes it suspect. Indeed,
since a resh would only have been confused with a lamed in later scripts one
would expect to find some evidence of its prior existence among surviving
witnesses.62 Moreover, on this reading one would have to wonder why the
psalmist is offering this kind of lament. Is he complaining about his generally
emaciated condition? If so, should we not have expected him to speak of his
entire body or at least some other part of it? Hand and foot bones are among
the most visible in the human body, regardless of how well-fed and healthy a
person is; hence, it would seem odd for the psalmist to emphasize the visibility
of those bones. In the Hebrew Bible the root ‫ כלה‬is used most frequently of the
eyes (e.g. Job 17:5; Ps 69:4; Lam 2:11; 4:17). It is also used of a person’s “reigns”
(Job 19:27); “flesh” (Job 33:21); “life” (Ps 31:11); “heart and flesh” (Ps 73:26); “soul”
(Ps 84:3; 119:81); “spirit” (Ps 143:7); “flesh and body” (Prov 5:11); entire being (Ps
37:20; 39:11; 119:87; Mal 3:6). It is never used of either the hands or feet, or of
both together. Neither Kissane’s nor Craigie’s translations seem to reflect a
known idiom, therefore, at least in biblical Hebrew. Perhaps someone will one
day adduce an ancient text that refers to a person’s hands and feet wasting
away or being exhausted due to hunger or some other situation that would fit

61 Peter C. Craigie (Psalms 1–50 [WBC 19; Dallas: Nelson, 22004], 195–196).
62 Roberts, “New Root”, 250–51.

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the context of Ps 22. Until then this proposed emendation will require philo-
logical support.

10 My Hands and My Feet Hurt/Are Pained (Emend to ‫כאבו‬, from

‫)כאב‬

Another proposed conjectural emendation regards ‫ כארו‬as a corruption of

‫“( ָּכ ֲאבּו‬they hurt, are pained”).63 This proposal has some plausibility because
the letters beth and resh are morphologically similar in several ancient scripts.
It must be treated with some suspicion, however, since it is not supported by
any surviving witnesses (but cf. n. 27 for Syriac). Moreover, one would have to
explain why the psalmist is calling special attention to the pain in his hands
and feet. Perhaps we can imagine the dogs at the beginning of the verse bit-
ing at these extremities. But a connection with these dogs is difficult to infer
here because of the intervening colon and because the dogs were not said to
have been biting. Hence, we should have expected the third colon to make
this connection clearer: e.g. “My hands and feet hurt because dogs are biting
them”. Without any such clarification, the assertion, “My hands and feet hurt”,
would read like a random or undeveloped thought. Another possibility is that
the psalmist was imagining his hands and feet being amputated by his enemies
(cf. 2 Sam 4:12; 2 Macc 7:4). But if the psalmist wanted to evoke this imagery he
would have presumably used a verb like ‫ קצץ‬or ‫כרת‬, not the vague ‫כאב‬. A more
basic problem here is that pain cannot be experienced in one’s hands and feet
once they have been amputated.

11 Because They Picked Clean or as If to Rip Apart ( ‫כארי\ו‬, from ‫)ארה‬

My Hands and My Feet

Mitchell Dahood accepts the ‫ כארי‬reading and thinks that it derives from
ֻ‫ ָא ְרי‬+‫ ִּכ‬, that is, an irregularly formed causal conjunction and an irregular 3 pl.
perf. ending of the root ‫“( ארה‬to pluck, hack in pieces”).64 Like Kissane, he also
joins v. 17c with v. 18a in order to form a distich:

63 E.g. Artur Weiser, The Psalms: A Commentary (London: Bloomsbury, 1962), 218 n. 10. The
BHS apparatus also gives as a proposed emendation the 3 pl. piel form of this same verb:
‫ ֵּכ ֲאבּו‬.
64 For this yod ending he appeals primarily to Ugaritic where he says this verbal form occurs
“regularly”, even though it only occurs “sporadically in Phoenician and Hebrew” (Mitchell
Dahood, “The Verb ʾĀrāh, ‘To Pluck Clean’, in Ps. XXII 17”, VT 24 [1974]: 370–70).

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 21

Because they picked clean my hands and feet,

I can number all my bones.”65

R. Tournay66 reads ‫ ֶכ ֱארֹו‬, that is, a comparative kaph prefixed to an irregularly

formed infinitive construct of the root ‫ארה‬. He translates, “comme pour déchi-
queter (mes mains et mes pieds)” [“As if to rip apart (my hands and my feet).”],
and then paraphrases:

A pack of dogs, a figurative description of the villains, encircles and sur-

rounds the unfortunate, as if they wanted to rend him with claws and
teeth, tearing all his limbs into pieces, so much so that he is able “to count
all his bones” (v. 18).67

Deriving ‫ כארי‬or ‫ כארו‬from the root ‫ ארה‬has two advantages: it requires no

emendation to the text and no conjectures about otherwise unattested Hebrew
roots.
But the proposed readings/interpretations of Dahood and Tournay are
problematic because they:
– rely on orthographies that are highly irregular or unparalleled in classical
Hebrew: ‫ ִּכ‬rather than ‫ ָא ְריֻ ; ִּכי‬rather than ‫ ֱארֹו ; ָארּו‬rather than ‫;) ֱארֹות‬
– rely on lexically dubious translations: ‫ ארה‬was an agricultural term, refer-
ring to the gathering or plucking of fruits and myrrh from a tree, bush, etc.
(Ps 80:13; Song 5:1; m. Šeb. 1.2); it is never used to speak of the plucking clean/
picking at meat from the bones, or the ripping of a carcass to pieces;
– produce a difficult sense: why would the “assembly of evildoers” be picking
clean the psalmist’s hands and feet like cannibals eager to consume the last
bit of his flesh?
Tourney’s approach mitigates the last of these problems by attributing the
flesh-eating act to the dogs in the first colon. But this requires some question-
able assumptions. Tourney understands ‫ עדת מרעים‬in the second colon as the
implicit subject of ‫ ֶכ ֱארֹו‬. This phrase does not seem to be an equivalent for
‫כלבים‬, however, despite the parallel structure. Parallel expressions occur else-
where in biblical Hebrew and these always refer to humans (e.g. Ps 26:5: ‫קהל‬
‫ ;מרעים‬86:14: ‫ ;עדת עריצים‬Job 15:34: ‫ ;עדת חנף‬Isa 31:1: ‫)בית מרעים‬. Hence, it would

65 Mitchell Dahood, Psalms III: 100–150: Introduction, Translation, and Notes (AB 17A; New
York: Doubleday, 1970), xxx–xxxi, 313; idem, “ʾĀrāh”, 370–71. Note that in idem, Psalms I:
1–50 (AB 16; New York: Doubleday & Co., 1966), 137, 140–141, he argued that ‫ כארי‬was an
infinitive absolute, derived from the root ‫ כרה‬but having an archaic -i ending.
66 R. Tournay, “Note sur le Psaume XXVII 17”, VT 23 (1973): 111–12.
67 Tournay, “Note”, 111 (my translation).

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be exegetically difficult to connect the imagery about the dogs in the first colon
to the third colon.

12 Because They Picked Clean (= No. 11) and Like a Lion (= No. 1)

James R. Linville68 proposes a “very complex” exposition according to which

double meanings can be detected in both ‫“( הקיפוני‬they have encircled me”
and “they have dismembered me”) and ‫“( כארי‬they have picked at” and “like a
lion”), and “multiple meanings” in ‫ידי ורגלי‬.
Linville’s approach mitigates the first and last of the three problems that
we mentioned under the last heading.69 He argues that the psalmist was play-
ing fast-and-loose with the rules of orthography in order to create word plays.
Since ‫ כארי‬can be read both as “they picked clean” and “like a lion”, the flesh-
eating act can be appropriately connected with the lion rather than the ‫עדת‬
‫( מרעים‬which would presumably refer to humans).
Linville may be suspected here of wanting to “have his (exegetical) cake and
eat it too.” One can find lexical and syntactical ambiguities in the works of
almost any author, regardless of the language or the era when he/she wrote.
But unless one has good reason to suspect that these ambiguities were deliber-
ate it is safest to treat them as coincidental, otherwise one will have to adopt
the absurd position that almost any ambiguously worded text was intended
to have multiple meanings. Ambiguities are most often the result of careless
writing. As support for his interpretation, however, Linville appeals to an ar-
ticle by Paul R. Raabe, which argues that the psalmists deliberately use mul-
tivalent words and phrases.70 Raabe may have identified a real phenomenon
but the examples that even he adduces are not all beyond dispute (e.g. Ps 4:5).
More importantly, Linville’s examples of deliberate ambiguity in Ps 22:17 are
unconvincing.
To elaborate on this last point, it is not enough to note that ‫ כארי‬can be read
either as a noun (“lion”) or as a form of ‫“( ארה‬pick at”), especially when the or-
thography for the verbal form ( ֻ‫ ָא ְרי‬+‫ ) ִּכ‬is so irregular and when ‫ כארי‬is already
textually suspect due to the variant readings and the syntactical difficulties
that it engenders. Linville therefore appropriately looks for other evidence in
this verse to confirm his argument about deliberate ambiguity. He focuses on
‫הקיפוני‬, citing Lev 19:27 and Ps 17:9 as proof that the root ‫ נקף‬could sometimes

68 James R. Linville, “Psalm 22:17b: A New Guess”, JBL 124.4 (2005): 733–44.
69 Linville, “New Guess”, 739–40.
70 Paul R. Rabbe, “Deliberate Ambiguity in the Psalter”, JBL 110.2 (1991): 213–27.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 23

connote an act of violence and not just of circling and surrounding. If true, this
would fit better with a lion metaphor since lions are obviously violent but are
not known to circle or surround their prey.71 Linville notes that the prohibition
in the first half of Lev 19:27, where the root ‫ נקף‬is used, stands in synonymous
parallelism with a prohibition in the second half of this verse, where the root
‫“( שחת‬destroy”) is used. This does not prove, however, that ‫ נקף‬could connote
violence; for the “destruction” referred to here—i.e. the shaving one’s beard—
hardly constitutes an act of violence. Ps 22:17 is not concerned with shaving in
any case. Furthermore, in Lev 19:27 the words ‫ לא תקפו פאת ראשכם‬are some-
what ambiguous (cf. also Jer 9:25; 25:23; 49:32). Traditionally, they have been
taken to prohibit the shaving of one’s sideburns and the cutting of one’s hair
so that the hairline forms a ring around the head. The Septuagint translator,
however, reads: “You shall not make a curl (οὐ ποιήσετε σισόην) from the hairs
of your head”. If this is an apt rendering, the verse would contain a synthetic
rather than a synonymous parallelism and Linville’s entire line of reasoning
would be misguided. With regard to Ps 17:9, while ‫ נקף‬and ‫ שדד‬are used here in
synonymous cola this does not necessarily mean that the verbs in these cola
are synonymous, or even that they carry similar connotations. To be encircled
by one’s enemies could, of course, be a threatening experience and could even
be a prelude to violence, but it is not itself a violent act, much less an act of
dismemberment.

13 My Hands and My Feet Are (a.) Shriveled Up (b.), Gone Lame, (c.)
Contracted ( ‫כרי\ו‬, from ‫)כרה‬

J. J. M. Roberts accepts either ‫ כרו‬or ‫ כארו‬as original. But unlike the Septuagint
translator, Kaltner, and Driver, he does not think that the psalmist was speak-
ing about his hands and feet being either “dug” or “bound”. Instead, he conjec-
tures an otherwise unattested third-weak Hebrew root ‫ ָּכ ָרה‬with a meaning
similar to the Akkadian root karû, “to be short”. He then construes ‫ ידי ורגלי‬not
as the objects but as the subjects of ‫כרו‬, translating: “My hands and my feet are
shriveled up, I can tell [i.e. count] all my bones”.72

71 See n. 11 above.
72 Roberts, “New Root”, 252 (italics added). Roberts is followed by the RNAB, NRSV, and
the Inclusive Version; also, by John Goldingay, Psalms: Psalms 1–41 (Grand Rapids: Baker,
2006), 321 n. I, 333; Walter Bruggemann and William H. Bellinger Jr., Psalms (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2014), 112.

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Roberts’ interpretation invites the same objection that was raised against
Kissane’s: if the psalmist were describing his emaciated condition it seems odd
for him to focus only on the visibility of the bones in his hands and feet, given
that these are normally visible in a healthy body. Doubts can also be raised as to
whether Roberts’ conjectured Hebrew cognate would have meant, “to shrivel
up”. Roberts alleges that in Akkadian and Syriac there is a matching triconso-
nantal root which could, “in certain contexts”, be used “to indicate physical or
mental infirmities”. But Vall observes that Roberts has inadvertently conflated
two different Syriac roots: krʾ (third-weak), “to be short, sorry”, and krh (third
strong), “to suffer, be sick”. “A Hebrew cognate for the latter”, Vall notes, “would
require the consonantal ‫”ה‬.73 As for Roberts’ Akkadian root karû, this is stan-
dardly defined as follows:

Karû(m) II “to be(come) short” Bab., M/NA G (u/u, also i/i) [LÚGUD(.
DA)] of space, of time; of heart, life “be(come) diminished” Gtn [LÚGUD.
MEŠ] “contract repeatedly” of parts of body; of life “constantly become
diminished” D “shorten” time, “diminish” s.o.’s life, “put in desperate
straits”; stat. “(are) very short”, of parts of body etc.; MA “deduct, sub-
tract”? Š “shorten” days; > kurû, kurītu?; kurru; → tagrītum.74

Thus, if the Hebrew verb in Ps 22:17 was related to the Akkadian root karû the
colon should probably be rendered, “My hands and feet are shortened, con-
tracted”, not “shriveled up”.75 Moreover, the alleged parallel to Ps 22:17, which
Roberts adduces from an Akkadian medical diagnostic text, does not seem ap-
posite: “If in his sickness his mouth is paralyzed and his hands and his feet are
shrunken (qātāšu u šēpāšu iktarâ), it is not a stroke, his sickness will pass”.76
While the precise medical condition envisioned here is uncertain, it does not
seem to deal with emaciation, as the context of our psalm would presumably
require if the author had declared that his hands and feet were “shriveled up”.
The Akkadian text may refer to muscular cramping or some bone disease, ei-
ther condition being inappropriate to the context of Ps 22.

73 Vall, “Old Guess”, 51–52. He adds (ibid, n. 38) a further criticism: “While the third-weak
root can refer to emotional suffering (e.g. Peshitta of Gen 34:7; 45:5), it is never used of
physical infirmity.”
74 Jeremy A. Black, Andrew George, and Nicholas Postgate, A Concise Dictionary of Akkadian
(Harrassowitz Verlag: Weisbaden, 2000), 150.
75 Cf. Barré, “Crux”, 289–90. See below for Barré’s own dubious translation.
76 Roberts, “New Root”, 251.

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What Did the Psalmist Say about His Hands & Feet in Psalm 22:17 ? 25

Michael L. Barré accepts Roberts’ proposed Akkadian background for

‫ כ(א)רי\ו‬but regards it as a medical loanword rather than a cognate. He appeals
to the same Akkadian medical diagnostic text cited by Roberts, arguing that
the hands and feet here are not “shriveled up” but immobile/non-functional,
as when one experiences a stroke: the muscles in the person’s hands and
feet are envisioned as contracting or cramping spasmodically. The author
of Ps 22 utilized this medical terminology to describe the paralyzing effects
of his enemies’ attacks. Barré translates v. 17 as, “My hands and my feet have
gone lame.”
While understandably discarding Roberts’ rendering (“they are shriveled
up”), Barré’s translation/interpretation poses its own difficulties. His render-
ing of ‫ כ(א)רי\ו‬as “gone lame” plays on an English expression which has little
to do with the hands and feet being short(ened)—as the Akkadian root karû
connotes—but with their being limp or paralyzed.
Barré’s alternate rendering, “are contracted”, is more justifiable philologi-
cally. Its validity would depend on: (1) his interpretations of two Akkadian
medical diagnostic texts; (2) his suggestion that the psalmist was invoking an
Akkadian loan word. His interpretations of the diagnostic texts seem plausible
enough. But his appeal to an alleged medical loanword, which is itself attested
in only two Akkadian texts and is unattested in Hebrew, is speculative.
Barré also emends ‫ אספר‬to ‫ ספד‬in v. 18a. Appealing to both a variant in the
Septuagint (ἐξηρίθμησαν) and the standard reading of the Syriac (ʾyllw, “they
wailed”) he proposes that ‫ ספד‬was either intended as an irregularly formed 3
m. pl. perfect (‫ ) ָס ְפ ֻד‬or “an infinitive absolute serving as a finite verb (‫) ָספֹד‬.”77
This, he theorizes, was miscopied as ‫ ספר‬and read as an infinitive absolute.
Afterwards, it was deliberately altered (“modernized”) to read ‫אספר‬. He pro-
poses that v. 18a originally meant something like, “All my bones have intoned
my funeral dirge.”78 The imagery here seems rather odd and unparalleled,
however. In sum, while Barré’s suggested linguistic background and emenda-
tions are ingenious, demonstrating an impressive knowledge of the ancient
languages, they are highly conjectural and add further complications to his
exegesis.

77 Barré, “Crux”, 291.

78 Barré, “Crux”, 293.

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Conclusion

It will be helpful here to list the thirteen proposals that have been discussed:

1. like a lion (‫ארי‬+‫ ]…[ )כ‬my hands 8. my hands and my feet have been
and my feet torn (emend to ‫ ָק ֲרעּו‬, from ‫)קרע‬
2. like a lion (‫ארי‬+‫ )כ‬they 9. my hands and my feet are wasted
circumscribe my hands and away/exhausted (emend to ‫כלו‬,
my feet from ‫)כלה‬
3. they have dug (‫כארו‬, from ‫)כרה‬ 10. my hands and my feet hurt/are
my hands and my feet pained (emend to ‫כאבו‬, from ‫)כאב‬
4. they have made my hands and my 11. because they picked clean or as if
feet repugnant (‫ּכ ֲֹארּו‬, from ‫)כאר‬ to rip apart (‫כארי\ו‬, from ‫ )ארה‬my
5. they have bound (emend to ‫אסרו‬, hands and my feet
from ‫ )אסר‬my hands and 12. because they picked clean (= no.
my feet 11) and like a lion (= no. 1) my
6. they have bound (‫כארו‬, from /‫כאר‬ hands and my feet
‫ )כור‬my hands and my feet 13. my hands and my feet are (a)
7. they have bound (‫כארו‬, from ‫)כרה‬ shriveled up, (b) gone lame, (c)
my hands and my feet contracted (‫כרי\ו‬, from ‫)כרה‬

As was stated at the outset, the goal of this article has not been to offer a new
proposal that solves the textual and interpretive cruxes in Ps 22:17; rather, the
goal has been to survey and evaluate several proposals that have already been
offered.79 This kind of exercise is usually the first step in moving beyond a
scholarly impasse since it helps to identify which of current proposals are least
viable and how better to judge between the others.
None of the textual readings and interpretations examined in this article is
without significant problems; but some are worse offenders than others. For
reasons that need not be repeated, no.’s 2, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, and 13a–b (“are shriv-
eled”, “are gone lame”) do not seem like viable options and should probably be
excluded from future discussions.
The remaining six options—no.’s 1, 3, 5, 6, 9, and 13c (“are contracted”)—
may be quickly reviewed. If ‫“( כארי‬like a lion”, no. 1) is original we shall have
to assume that a verb has dropped out, although such a corruption would
be difficult to explain text-critically. The proposed emendation of ‫( אסרו‬no.

79 In this article I have tried to deal with influential and recent proposals. For a few others,
see Vall, “Old Guess”, 50–52.

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5) is enticing but the process by which its allegedly corrupted forms—‫כ(א)רו‬

and ‫—כארי‬emerged, as well as the complete disappearance of ‫ אסרו‬from the
Hebrew manuscript tradition, would, once again, be difficult to explain text-
critically. The proposed emendation of ‫( כלו‬no. 9) is also enticing for contex-
tual reasons but is purely conjectural. If ‫ כארו‬is original it would be simplest
to derive the verb from the commonly used third-he root ‫כרה‬, “dig” (no. 3), al-
though this seems to leave us with an awkward metaphor or one that is at least
difficult to explain philologically (but cf. n. 34). It would be more speculative
to derive the word from roots or definitions that are unattested in Hebrew and
can therefore only be inferred from (supposed) cognates in other languages
(no.’s 6, 7, 13c).
There seems no way of deciding between these remaining options without
becoming quite arbitrary, given that they can only be evaluated using incom-
mensurable and subjective standards. There is no obvious way, for example, to
judge between no. 9, on the one hand, which seems contextually appropriate
and finds an interesting parallel in the book of Job but has no manuscript sup-
port, and no. 13c, on the other hand, which may also be contextually appropri-
ate, requires no emendation, and is supported by cognates in Akkadian but has
no parallels in Hebrew writings. Again, there is no easy way to judge between
no. 1, which is widely attested in the manuscript tradition and fits the psalm’s
lion imagery but is grammatically nonsensical, and no. 3, which has the old-
est textual support but creates an odd metaphor. Again, there is no obvious
way to judge between no. 5, which fits the context and relies on a commonly
used Hebrew term but requires a difficult emendation, and no. 6, which fits
the context just as well and requires no emendation but relies on a dubious
Arabic cognate.
The arbitrariness with which one judges these remaining options will likely
be compounded by ideological concerns which scholars tend not to divulge
and which often affect them at a largely unconscious level. For example, an
orthodox Jew may find ‫( כארי‬no. 1) more appealing than ‫( כ(א)רו‬no. 3) because
it coheres with tradition and deprives Christians of an important proof-text for
their Messiah. A Christian, by contrast, may find ‫( כ(א)רו‬no. 3) more appealing
because it allows the text to be read as a prophecy about Jesus. Someone taking
a secular approach may find one of the other options appealing since it is more
detached from the Jewish-Christian debate and allows him or her to appear
more neutral and dispassionate.
By highlighting the weaknesses of certain proposals, the present study has
allowed us to narrow our options significantly. Given the difficulties in decid-
ing between the remaining options, however, it seems unlikely, barring the

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28 Flowers

discovery of new evidence, that we will be able to move much further beyond
this. Studying the text is likely to tell us more about ourselves than what the
psalmist originally wrote or meant.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Philip Alexander for fielding many of my questions about Syriac and
to the anonymous postgraduate student who helped me look up several terms
in Classical Arabic dictionaries.

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