As an Orthodox Christian, I can tell you with great confidence that this worship space is the direct pre-cursor of any modern Eastern or Oriental Orthodox church. Any depiction or conception that looks like this cartoon dining room is way off the mark:

First of all, these cartoon people are giants relative to the size of the room. The room itself is 16 x 32 feet. The table in the middle of the room is not a kitchen island for serving buffet style during a Christian “love feast”. There would have been no other furniture in the room. Instead, like most modern Orthodox churches, the worshipers would have been standing. Pews in an Orthodox church are a recent innovation, mostly in the United States.

For further discussion, I will use this beautiful black and white rendering of the Megiddo Mosaic floor done by artist, Kelly Vanderbeek. Kelly has kindly given me permission to use her art in this post. Please check out her site (Legacy of Megiddo) and browse her merch.

Thanks to reader feedback, I have added directional indicators to a second version of the church floor. The ancient Christian (and Jewish, too) orientation was toward the East, literally the Orient.

Church Capacity

This room was 512 ft2. If we subtract ~100 ft2 around the alter table (where the priest would have presided over the orderly liturgy of St. James), we are left with about 400 ft2 for gathered worshippers. So how many Christians would have fit in here? You need to set aside any American conceptions of personal space. A good reference is a small Russian Orthodox church where a comfortable metric is 10 ft2 per worshipper, and 5 ft2 when packed in. So between 40 and 80 people could have been worshipping in this space during any given service.

Separation of the Sexes

Now let’s talk about men and women. Just like in the modern Orthodox Church (particularly in monastic churches), men stood on one side and women on the other. How can I be so confident of that practice in the Megiddo church? Because the inscription on the left (North) side of the tile floor mentions exclusively men’s names and the inscriptions on the right (South) side of the floor mention exclusively women’s names. I’ve seen nobody else make this observation. Ah, but you say, in the Orthodox church today, men stand on the right and women on the left. But in ancient times we know it was the opposite. In fact, to this day the Coptic Orthodox church maintains the separation with men on the left and women on the right.

Proportion and Placement

Why is the men’s side bigger than the women’s side? That is simple. It is on a military base which would have had a predominantly male population.

Why is the altar table in the middle of the church? Just like churches do today, they work with the space that they were allotted. The worship would have been oriented to the East, but in this case, the entrance afforded to them was in the East wall (SE corner), so it would not have worked well to have the altar up close to the East wall. There was no apse. The priest needs to be able to compass the altar at several points in the liturgy, so given this small footprint, situating the altar in the middle made most sense.

Alternative Name

This next one shocks me, frankly, and betrays just how ignorant most people who write about this archaeological find are about Eastern Orthodoxy (or Roman Catholicism for that matter). The brother who paid for the costly mosaic floor didn’t have a “nickname” Porphyrios. Porphyrios is not the Greek equivalent of the Latin Gaianos. Nor is this an alias situation (e.g., Saul/Paul). The man had a baptism name, just like every Orthodox Christian gets today if they have converted from something else. The inscription reads: “Gaianos, who is also called Porphyry, a centurion, our brother, having earnestly desired to do so, has commissioned this mosaic-inscription. Brutus has done the work.” Gaianos was undoubtedly a pagan convert who took the Christian name Porphyry. Porphyry (a.k.a., Porphyrios) is the name of a famous Orthodox saint who was born shortly after the Megiddo church was built. That St. Porphyrios (of Gaza, by the way, whose church stood for over a mellenium and was bombed in 2023) could have been named after the same martyr that our guy Gaianos was named after. Perhaps both men were baptized in honor of a common martyr from an earlier period of persecution.

Learners’ Corner

Now, what is with the checkered area on the West end of the men’s side of the floor? Was the mosaic artist not clever enough to design a geometric space to cover the whole rectangle? Could he only work in proportional squares? I find that hard to believe. The artist clearly had talent. So what is up with the seemingly wasted checkerboard space? I submit that this space was for catechumens. In a church without a narthex, catechumens would nerveless be relegated to the back row. Those who were already baptized and chrismated into the Church/body of the God Jesus, stood in the front of the nave. The church already had a well established, structured catechumenate by the 3rd century, and one typically spent anywhere from 1 to 3 years preparing for entry into the body of the faithful, where they could participate in the mysteries of the Church, especially the eucharist. By the way, this understanding that this area was the “back” of the room is a proof point for the idea that the worshippers faced East, a practice universal in East and West Roman empires in the first millennium.

Warrior Saints

The fact that this church was built and paid for by a Roman Centurion comes as no surprise to the Orthodox. Our hagiography is chock full of famous martyrs and confessors from all ranks for the Roman army. The 40 martyrs of Sebaste, St. George, St. Maurice, St. Dimitrios and many others were all around this time of the Megiddo Church. The location inside a Roman military compound near Megiddo Prison strongly implies imperial toleration at least at the local level. It may have served Christian soldiers and their families — effectively an “on-base chapel” a century before Christianity became legal empire-wide.

Here are just two more quick points to wrap up this post:

Continuity of beautification and commemoration

This find shows the seed of the Orthodox and Catholic patronal tradition: donors funding beauty as a form of devotion, expecting commemoration in prayer. That line runs unbroken to Byzantine and even modern Orthodox piety.

Divinity of Christ and sacred abbreviation

“ΘΣ ΙΧΣ” (Theos Iēsous Christos) appears in shortened nomina sacra form — the “holy abbreviation” practice is evidenced in the lower right inscription. This practice goes back to Old Testament times with the writing of the holy name YHWH with ancient script.

We also see the use of abbreviation in the psalms (e.g., Ps 67/68 “His name is YH!”). This continues seamlessly into later Orthodox iconography, where Christ’s halo still bears “ὁ ὢν” — “the One Who Is.” (the Christian form of the Hebrew I AM).

Let me conclude with an invitation, if you want to get a sense of how the early Christians worshiped in the Megiddo church in A.D. 230, visit a traditional Eastern Orthodox church in a town near you!

“For dogs have compassed me;  
the assembly of wicked have enclosed me;  
they pierced my hands and feet.”  
(Ps 22:16 or 17, depending on version)

While the last part of this verse is nowhere quoted in the New Testament, it (along with other parallels from Psalm 22) has been a known Christian foreshadowing since the first century. Jesus Christ references this Psalm himself from the cross, referencing the first line, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”. Nearly all translations of Psalm 22 have something similar to “pierced my hands and feet”. But the NET decided to favor the Hebrew Masoretic Text, despite all other ancient textual witnesses, including an ancient Hebrew fragment1. As it relates to this ancient Hebrew fragment, I have already written a post which attempts to confirm the scholarly view that the traditional Christian translation is aligned with pre-Masoretic, ancient Hebrew. You can read that here:

So, here is the translation from the NET that I dispute:

"Yes, wild dogs surround me --
a gang of evil men crowd around me;
Like a lion they pin my hands and feet"

I take issue with the last line. There are two problems: First, “like a lion” follows the Masoretic Text that is in direct contention with other, earlier witnesses, including the Hebrew text of the Nahal Hever fragment. Second, the verb “they pin” is supplied by the translator out of thin air. It is nowhere in any text from any century. In his 500+ word footnote for this verse, the translator “supposes” the verb “pin”! Seriously, that’s what he wrote. I guess it sounds more scholarly than, “I pulled this word out of thin air (or somewhere less fresh).” Regardless, I call foul. There is no reason to invent verbs for this line, and there is no reason to blindly accept the MT’s, “like a lion”.

Here I will take a fresh look at the middle of Psalm 22 and prove without a shadow of a doubt — from the original structure of the poetry — that the verse in question is only about dogs, not dogs and cats.

First, I need to explain something about where the verse numbers come from in the Old Testament. Before the period of the Hebrew Masoretes, all Old Testament texts in all languages were written without clear verse indicators. In the Dead Sea Scrolls there are sometimes good chapter divisions, but rarely is there an attempt to divide the books of the Bible into verses. The Masoretes came up with a symbol called a “sof passuq” to divide verses. This marking looks like an English colon (:). Generally, the Masoretes did an excellent job dividing up the Bible, and the beautiful thing is that they didn’t actually number the verses. Without numbers, these markings could not be exactly referenced when making some argument. Furthermore, these markings are not a big visual obstacle when reading. In fact, I generally ignore them when reading the MT. This happened sometime between AD 600 and 1000. Later, in the 1500s, Christian Bible scholars would divide up the New Testament into verses and, horror-of-horrors, number them in both the Old and New Testaments! In my opinion, this verse numbering is probably the worst thing that ever happened to the Bible, and it is symptomatic of what happened generally in Western scholarly thought: Take something whole and divide up into smaller and smaller pieces. But I digress…

My point of all this is to say that someone got the verse divisions wrong in Psalm 22, specifically verses 12-14. I am going to lay out the two middle stanzas of Psalm 22 in a new way — never done before — the way that the Hebrew text reveals them to be. Then I will add explanations that further cement the new arrangement of the poetic lines. I will use the King James Version to avoid any copyright infringement, supplying selective edits that are closer to the Hebrew text. As I have emphasized in several of my blog posts, the structure of the textual unit (one psalm), is by definition something that goes back to the initial composition. Trying to impose poetic structure subsequent to the composition is like trying to fit an apple into a banana skin. It is not possible. So if the underlying structure can be clearly demonstrated, it follows that the text which best adheres to the structure is the “right” text.

Starting from verse 12 (or 11 in some editions):

--------------------------------
 (A)
Many BULLS have compassed me
Strong bulls of Bashan beset me around
They gaped upon me with their mouths

(B)
A LION ripping and roaring
I am poured out like water
And all my bones are out of joint

(X)
My heart is like wax
It is melted in the midst of my bowels

(Bb)
My strength is dried up like a potsherd
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws
And you have brought me to the dust of death

(Aa)
For DOGS have compassed me
An assembly of the wicked have circled me
They pierced my hands and my feet

--------------------------------

(C)     
I will count all my bones
They look and stare upon me
They part my garments among them
And cast lots upon my vesture

(D)     
But be thou not far from me, Lord
O my strength, hurry thee to help me

(E)     
Deliver my soul from the sword
My darling from the power of the DOG
Save me from the LION's mouth
For thou hast heard me from the mouth of the BULLS

(F)      
I will recount thy name unto my brethren
In the midst of the congregation I will praise thee
--------------------------------

You will notice that I used some of Substack’s limited word processing capabilities to highlight a few facts. These facts are a few of the evidences of this original structure. I’ve also used letters instead of numbers to refer to specific verses. This is so as not to confuse you into trying to equate my verse 12 with some translation’s verse 12. Note that both stanzas are clearly marked with shared vocabulary. The bold and highlighted words are the same words in Hebrew. Compassed in the first stanza and count in the second. Shared vocabulary at the start and end of a section is a common Hebrew poetic device called inclusio. The common words form verse bookends and along with the verses in between define the stanza. Next, note the line pattern in each stanza. The first stanza has a chiastic pattern of 3, 3, 2, 3, 3. The second stanza has a 4,2,4,2 pattern. Hebrew poets loved structure and pattern. The pattern 3,3,2,3,3 shows up again later in this same psalm. Now pay attention to the main connection between the two stanzas: the animals. In the first stanza, there is an entire verse dedicated to each of 3 animals in the order of: BULL, LION, DOG. In the second stanza these same 3 animals are referenced in the mirror order in a single verse: DOG, LION, BULL. Those of you who are using your own Bible may be jumping up and down right now saying, “Wait! The last animal is a unicorn!”. Indeed, the King James Bible translates that “unicorn”, but that is wrong if you are imagining a white horse with a single horn between his eyes. I don’t have time to get into it here. Suffice it to say that most translations have it correct: wild oxen or buffalo or bulls. “Wild bovine” would be the gist of it. Before I say more about these wild bovine, it is important to note the chiasm that further ties the two stanzas together:

BULL, LION, DOG: DOG, LION, BULL

This chiasm is as clear as the nose on my face, and by itself argues strongly against the Masoretic Text inserting a separate reference to “lions” in the verse dealing with “dogs”. A lion reference does not belong in the verse dedicated to dogs.

But the structure here goes further, much further. If you look at verse A and verse Aa in the first stanza, you can see the following connections (some of them only in Hebrew):

1. The inclusio is in the first line.

2. The inclusio is the same form exactly

3. The inclusio is followed immediately by the animal subject

4. The second line’s object is a Hebrew construct form (“bulls of” “assembly of”)

5. The second line’s verb is the form 3nd person, plural, perfect, matching in person, number, gender and tense.

6. The third line’s first word is a verb that rhymes and the following word also rhymes: pa-tsu a-lie… in vs “A” ka-ru ya-die… in vs “Aa” [Note: Following the Nahal Hever Hebrew, not the MT.]

7. The third line’s verb is 3rd person, plural, perfect, matching in person, number, gender and tense.

8. The third line’s verb has to do with the threat/terror coming from the animal’s mouth. In verse “A” this is obvious, as gape means to open your mouth wide. In verse “Aa” it is less explicit, but when we stop to consider the meaning of the Hebrew word here translated “pierced”, karu, it becomes more obvious. In its basic sense, the verb means “to dig”, but not in the way you are probably thinking (I.e., with a shovel or spade). The verb is almost always used in reference to a pit or a tomb. These projects are not dug with shovels. They are dug with pickaxes. The implements used to dig pits and tombs have a pointed end. Dogs’ teeth have a pointed end, and hence the association with mouth. Yes, dog’s claws are also pointed, but dogs — even wild dogs — do not attack with their paws. They attack with their mouth. By the way, the Hebrew is not talking about wolves here, at least it does not use the word for wolf. This is some other kind of wild dog, perhaps just nasty, semi-feral village dogs, or maybe jackals.

9. The animals in these verses are both circling. This is not really a repeat of point 1. What is important is that both dogs and wild bovine use encirclement as their aggressive formation. In contrast, encirclement in the form of neat rings is not an offensive tactic common to lions. But it is common to dogs and wild bulls. Furthermore, in both the first stanza and the second stanza, the lion is singular. A single animal has a hard time encircling.

10. And the most obvious parallel for last: both verses are tricola (I.e., 3 lines).

Let’s say a few things about verse B that does in fact have to do with LION. With my changed line grouping, the animal in verse B now comes in the first line of the verse, just like with the verses dealing with BULLS and DOGS. The two actions associated with the singular lion are toe-raif (rip to pieces) and show-egg (roar). This business of ripping in pieces is elaborated in the next two lines. The expression “poured out like water” is used about a dozen times in the Bible and it is almost always used in reference to the spilling of blood to ultimate death. Similarly, having one’s bones no longer connected to each other (the word also means “scattered”) is a consequence of being ripped to pieces. The context here is not about being gored or trampled by a bull. The context is being torn apart, limb from limb by a lion. These three lines belong together.

Verse X is the middle, the chi, of the stanza it is a short metaphorical reflection on the outcome of the encounters with the bulls and the lion (themselves metaphorical). The psalmist’s courage, strength, and hope are all but gone. The have melted away.

Verse Bb serves as a bridge to the last animal in verse Aa. All 3 lines in verse Bb relate to the state of being dried up. Dry pot shard. Dry mouth. Dry dust. That which was spilled out in verse B has soaked into the ground and the writer is on death’s doorstep. No change here. The MT already has 3 lines each for verses Bb and Aa.

A few words about wild bulls are in order. The Hebrew text of Psalm 22 uses 3 different words/names for this animal, but they all appear to refer to a kind of bovine. A good guess would be the aurochs, which went extinct in the eastern Mediterranean around 1000 BC, around the time this psalm would have been written by King David. The aurochs was a large, aggressive cattle-like animal that stood around 6 feet tall at the shoulder and weighed up to 3300 lbs. This is not your family farm domesticated cow or bull. This was a massive creature that roamed all over Europe and is the frequent subject of cave paintings. Here’s a good pic I found for scale:

Now, here is a fun, short video of an Angus bull who does not appear happy (tap or click to play):

Angry bull

That gaping mouth is no mere “mmoooo”. Now, imagine that bad boy with another half ton of heft and giant horns (Angus don’t have horns). Then imagine a group of them circling you. Now you have a better appreciation for picture our psalmist is trying to paint.

In conclusion, what I have done above is to show the received Masoretic Text to be flawed in Psalm 22. It is wrong not only in its verse division, but more importantly in the reference to lions in the verse that clearly has to do exclusively with dogs. The NET prides itself on being very open to criticism and hopefully someday they will correct this flawed translation of Psalm 22:16/17.

1) For thy name is near?

Most English translations of the first verse read something like:

“We give thanks to you, God. We give thanks, for your name is near.”

But the Greek is translated thus:

“We give thanks to you, God. We give thanks and call on your name.”

Not only does the Greek make more sense, it is more correct (i.e, original) than the Hebrew MT. The mental gymnastics that scholars go through to prop-up the Hebrew text here are impressive. One scholar points to nearby psalms that imply the power of the name of the LORD, as if proximity of that idea in wholly separate compositions has relevance. This expression, “your name is near”, appears nowhere else in the Bible. By contrast, “we call on your name” appears in a good number of other places in the psalms (e.g., Psalm 79:6, 80:18, 116:4, 116:13). From Genesis to Joel, the expression “calling on the name of the Lord” and similar expressions stand as a consistent, pervasive, and powerful theme throughout the entire biblical narrative.

So how did the Hebrew get messed up? Answer: Simple scribal mistake. Let’s have a look, using this table:

Hebrew is read right-to-left, so the columns are identified in that direction. Rows 1 and 5 are the Hebrew letters, with their English equivalents in rows 2 and 6. Recall that the Hebrew scriptures were originally written without most vowels and sketchy, if even existing, word spacing. Basically a bunch of consonants strung together.

You can see that the letters here in line 1 and 5 are the same letters in the same order. Row 1 is the Hebrew that has come down to us in the Masoretic text. Row 5 is the same Hebrew lettering but with one difference in spacing. the letter “B” (bet) is moved to the 2nd word. Moving this one letter from the 1st word to the 2nd word, makes this Hebrew equivalent in meaning to the Greek.

To make this explanation more plain to English poetry readers, take this snip-it of a poem and identify the error in it:

I think that I shall never see

A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest

Against the earth’s sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day,

And lifts her leafy arms top ray.

I did an informal survey, asking 10 friends to spot the error in this Joyce Kilmer composition. Nine of 10 correctly identified that the error is in the last line: “top ray” should be “to pray”. Even though “top ray” is not grammatically impossible, especially in poetry, it is unusual and “to pray” makes much more sense. This is exactly what we see at the beginning of Psalm 75: The first letter in 2nd word moved to last letter in 1st word.

To wrap-up on this first topic, an additional piece of evidence that the Greek here is correct and the Hebrew wrong will be evident to any of you who can read the MT:

hodinu veqaru bishemekha flows better with the next line, siperu nifleotekha than hodinu veqarov shemekha. 1

2) Are you talking to me?

For the second topic in this psalm, I would like to thank my buddy Dr. Jeff Reed for his insights on animal vocalizations. Jeff was recently on the big stage at TED for an excellent talk about wolf vocalization. You can check that out here:

Jeff and I were discussing Psalm 75:5 and trying to understand the Greek variant. The Hebrew is pretty clear and makes sense: Do not lift up your horn on high, or speak with a stiff neck (RSV). But the Greek is translated: Do not lift up your horn on high; do not speak injustice against God (NETS). There is no simple path from A to B in this case as there was in the first topic. How are we to understand this combative speech between God and his antagonist in verse 5? How does that relate to raising one’s horn and having a stiff neck?

The answer comes from the animal kingdom. Readers from North America may be familiar with the call of elk during the rut. Not just the call, but also the posture. When elk are positioning themselves for battle — battle for a mate — they lift their horns. This posture is a posture of power, superiority, and belligerence. It says: “I am the strongest; I am the best; I am going to crush you!”

This victorious bull is crossing the Yellowstone River with his harem. At least a dozen cow elk surround him and they belong to him. He will breed them all.

With respect to speaking with a stiff neck (or speaking injustice against God), elk, deer and a few other ungulate species have boisterous calls during the rut. Elk bugle; deer grunt. Here is a typical elk call:

When they call, they throw their head back (raise the horn) and let loose:

That, by metaphor, is speaking injustice against God. The Jewish translator of this psalm decided not to give a word-for-word translation (“speak with a stiff neck”). Instead, he chose to convey the meaning and the adversary. In the Bible, raising the horn is generally seen as an act of arrogance or vainglory when done on one’s own power. It is the opposite of the virtue of humility. Psalm 75 makes this clear throughout. It is God who raises up the horn. He exalts and brings low as He sees fit.

Let’s move away from North American elk and take a look at the deer of the Bible. The most common species in Bible times was the Persian Fallow Deer. These were nearly hunted out of existence in the Levant but have been re-introduced by Israeli biologists and their numbers are increasing on preserves.

This public image of a stag from Wikipedia is wonderful. It captures everything. You see the raised horns. You see the stiff neck. You see his “passion”. What about his sound? Let’s take a listen:

Sounds more like a loud belch to me than a grunt, but “grunt” is the common term for this call.

Putting together the audio and visual from the animal kingdom helps us to reconcile the Greek and Hebrew of Psalm 75:5 and deepens our appreciation for what the author had in mind when he composed this wisdom poem. Bull elk and Persian fallow stag raise their horns, extend their necks, and call out to their challengers that they are “boss”. The females in the area are theirs and theirs alone. They will fight to the death if they have to. The original audience of this psalm, being far more connected to nature than most of us, would have understood this metaphor implicitly.

3. Up down; up, down; up down; up down; up down

Psalm 75 has two clear parts: A) verses 1-6 and B) versus 7-11. Part B has an interesting pattern that I haven’t seen anyone comment on. Here is my own translation… very literal:

7. For not from the going out (sunrise/UP) or from the setting place (sunset/DOWN),

And not from desert mountain (DOWN UP).

8. For God is judge.

This one he humbles (DOWN), and this one he exalts (UP).

9. For there is a cup in the hand of the Lord,

And wine foaming, full (UP), mixed.

And He pours this way and that.

Indeed, the dregs will drain (DOWN).

All the wicked of the earth will drink them.

10. But I will declare forever;

I will sing to the God of Jacob.

11. And all the horns of the wicked I will chop off (DOWN).

The horns of the righteous will be lifted up (UP).

So in 5 verses we have 5 pairs of UP and DOWN. This is clearly intentional in my mind, because the very first pair are atypical words for Sunrise and Sunset (East and West). Instead of the typical Hebrew word for sunrise (מזרח) or the typical word for East (קדמ), the word chosen means “the going out place”. That is, the sun goes out from its resting place in the East. Similarly, instead of the more common Hebrew expression for sunset (בּא השּׁמשׁ), the word chosen refers to the West (i.e., the direction where the sun goes down).

What about this unusual expression, “desert mountain”? That is the literal translation. Most Bibles will have “south” or “from the wilderness comes lifting up”. Both of these translations are problematic. Actually, the Greek and Hebrew here are clear: “desert mountains”. Below is a pic I took in the Arabah desert of Jordan, south of Petra. It shows in the background, a “desert mountain”. There are other mountains down there that are more impressive, but this is what I found on my camera roll. The sand at the bottom is about 50 meters below sea level. The top of the formation is about 50 meters above sea level. It is a place of both low and high2. I believe that is the idea that we are intended to understand. It fits the pattern I see in the surrounding verses.

So what is the message here in verse 7? It is not clear. Some have speculated that these are references to direction East, West, South, with the idea being not to look all over the place for guidance or victory. The problem I have with this is that North is missing. Personally, I think these are other references to sources of divine help. The psalmist is telling us not to look for signs or divine sway from the sun, as the Egyptians do. Nor should we look to the deities that reside in the desert high places, as the Canaanites do — many are depicted in desert rock etchings, including the pagan gods Baal and Ashera.

“Desert mountain” may even be a reference to Mt. Sinai where Moses, the God-seer, received direct revelation. Thus, not by signs in the heavens above or places of oracle on the earth below. Rather, our fortune — our cup to drink — is in the hand of God.

In my view, Psalm 119 is an amazing piece of Hebrew poetry. Sadly, in English nearly all of this gets lost in translation. Because of this, it can seem needlessly repetitive and without much skill. The opposite is the case in the Hebrew. Aside from being the longest psalm and the longest chapter in the Bible, Psalm 119 is a 176 verse chiastic acrostic. The 176 verses are in groups of 8 verses for each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet (8x22=176). So verses 1-8 begin with the letter A (aleph). 9-16 all begin with the letter B (bet). Etcetera. This makes the psalm easier to memorize. Instead of a single 176 verse psalm, you are now dealing with 22 small psalms. The chiasm within the psalm (A-B-C-D-E-F-E-D-C-B-A structure) is on a massive scale. The crossing point is right in the middle where you would expect it (verses 81 -96 - letters caph and lamed). It is in this middle section where the speaker pours out his heart to the Lord for salvation. Our focus today is on the first 4 verses of this section (vss 81-84):

81. My soul faints for your salvation;

    For your word I have waited expectantly.

82. My eyes fail in looking for your word,

    saying “When will you comfort me?”

83. For I was like a wineskin in smoke (frost?);

    Your statutes I did not forget.

84. How many days does your servant have?

    When will you execute judgement on my persecutors?

So which is it? Smoke or frost? These nouns are about as opposite as fire and ice. Check that: they are opposite as fire and ice. Pull out your protestant Bible and you will see this word probably translated as “smoke”. But if you look at any translation from the Greek, you will see that the word is translated as frost or ice. That’s because the Greek word πάχνῃ very clearly is “frost” and nothing else.

But which of these words fits the context? Hands-down: “smoke”. The speaker likens himself to being hung - literally strung-up - over a smoldering fire as if he were an animal skin in the process of being tanned. Smoke tanning is an effective way to condition leather, especially for smaller animals whose hide make perfect containers for a “skin of wine”. New wineskins tanned over smoke are soft and expandable, perfect for fermenting new wine (cf. Jesus parable of the wineskins in Luke chapter 5). Here is a great YouTube video of the smoke tanning process:

While there is a common, everyday situation where a wineskin or leather bag would be hung over smoke, the case for frost is not as compelling. If we picture the speaker hanging in the frost, we would expect the surrounding verses to relate to being cold. But the context does not indicate frost. It does indicate the opposite: smoke and heat. The speaker is on the verge of fainting and his eyes are having problems working correctly. Both are conditions induced by smoke, not so much by frost. Anyway, why would the leather bag or wineskin be hanging out in the cold? What is the situation we are to imagine?

Before I get to the Easter egg (i.e., hidden gem), I would like to speculate on what happened here. I think that at some point in the Hebrew transmission of this Psalm (not the Greek), the Hebrew word for smoke (key-TOR קטר) was confused with the Hebrew word for cool/cold (ka-RAR קרר). You can see yourself that they share 2 Hebrew root letters. So I speculate that the individual(s) who translated this psalm from Hebrew, did a perfectly error-free translation, but using a scroll with an error. I will further speculate that the translators were men living in Alexandria Egypt. They were probably upper-class, urban, learned Jews who knew little about lower-class women’s work. Yes, just like in the YouTube video, this tanning work was probably done by women. Hence, they did not catch (or correct) the contextual problem with “frost”.

Psalm 119 (118 in the LXX) is central to Holy Friday worship in the Orthodox Church, particularly the Lamentations Service. The Church sees all sorts of Christological elements in this psalm, too many to cover here. But I would like to add to the inventory of messianic references, using the verses above. The image of a righteous victim being tortured by being hung-up is reminiscent of the crucifixion of Christ. It takes place in this long psalm right, smack in the middle - the X point of the poem. Its apex. But it goes beyond this. According to ancient sources, the Romans would sometimes build fires at the foot of the crucifixion, in order to compound the torture of the victim. There is no evidence of fire being started at the foot of Jesus’s cross; that’s not what I am arguing. I merely find it interesting that crucifixion victims were sometimes subject to the added pain of smoke to the eyes and lungs, which are already under tremendous pressure to function. It reminds me of the pious suppliant in Psalm 119 who is on the verge of fainting and can hardly see. Something to ponder for those of us meditating on Psalm 119 this Great and Holy Friday, A.D. 2025.

The short answer is that the Greek Septuagint psalms have the correct (or at least oldest) numbering and most English psalters are wrong.

“Wrong?” Yes, wrong. “How can you say that?” I can say that because psalms are self-contained poems, individual literary units. If I clubbed together a poem by Emily Dickenson with the lyrics of a Beatles song and told you, “This is one composition.”, I would be wrong, at least insofar as what was originally set down on paper.

Let’s start with the first point of divergence: Psalms 9-10 (Hebrew). In the Septuagint, these two psalms are a single psalm - Psalm 9. This psalm is an acrostic. That is, each verse starts with the next letter in the Hebrew alphabet. There are 8 acrostic psalms in your English Bible. Unfortunately, when translated into English (or any other language), this Hebrew art is not visible. Only the most really awkward, Scrabble-like translation could attempt to preserve it. Psalm 9 is an imperfect acrostic, like a couple others in the Bible. A few letters get skipped or flipped, but when combined, Psalm 9 begins with A,B,C (in Hebrew aleph, bet, gimel) and Psalm 10 ends with X,Y,Z (in Hebrew resh, shin, tav). That is how we know Psalm 9 and Psalm 10 were originally a single psalm.

But don’t take my word for it. Let me quote the renowned Hebrew Bible scholar, Robert Alter: “The Septuagint presents Psalms 9 and 10 as a single psalm, and there is formal evidence for the fact that it was originally one poem.” He goes on to state, “When the chapter divisions were introduced in the late Middle Ages, the editors, struggling with this imperfect text, no longer realized that it was an acrostic and broke it into two separate psalms.” (The Hebrew Bible, A Translation with Commentary, Robert Alter, 2019). From this quote, one might get the notion that those silly Protestant Christians in Europe made this dumb mistake. But Alter seems not to be wholly transparent here. In fact, the mistake exists in both of the oldest nearly complete Hebrew manuscripts in existence, the Leningrad Codex and the Aleppo Codex. The former actually numbers the psalms, using the Hebrew alphabetic numbering system; the latter has a blank line between the psalms. Here from the Leningrad Codex you can see the Hebrew numeral yod (=10) cutting the psalm in half:

And here in the Aleppo Codex you can see the clear psalm break between Psalm 9 and 10 [I also highlighted the folio number in case you wanted to navigate to it yourself online.]:

Not sure why Alter ascribes this error to the “late middle ages”. It goes back centuries earlier to the oldest known Hebrew sources at the time verses and chapters were determined.

So if you are sitting down to read Psalm 9 in its entirety in your King James Version or nearly any other English translation, you should include Psalm 10 with it, or renumber your Psalm 10 as “9b”!

This error in the numbering of the Hebrew psalms accounts for about 70% of the difference between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible psalm numbering.

The second numbering difference is found in Septuagint psalm 113. Up to this point we are off by 1. But here, the Septuagint again has 1 psalm that exists as 2 in the Hebrew… well this gets even more interesting. You see, both of the manuscripts mentioned above treat these 2 psalms in your English Bible as 1 psalm, just like the Septuagint. In the Leningrad Codex, where the psalms are clearly numbered, there is no number introducing Psalm 115. The next number in the codex is for what you have as Psalm 116 in your Bible. In the Leningrad Codes, just like in the Greek Septuagint, 114 and 115 are a single psalm. In the Aleppo Codex, not only is there not a blank line separating one psalm from the next, but in addition, the first line of your Psalm 115 is shown as the last cola of the last verse of your Psalm 114 (i.e., on the same line). So clearly the scribe of this codex saw these as 1 composition, just like his ancestors who translated it into Greek more than a thousand years earlier.

Here’s the place in the Aleppo Codex where English Psalm 114 ends and 115 begins. Keep in mind that Hebrew is read from right to left. The blue box is the end of Psalm 114 (“into springs of water”). The red box is the beginning of Psalm 115 (“not to us Lord, not to us”). All of which is contained in Septuagint Psalm 113.

Another bit of evidence that 114+115 is a single composition is the absence of an introductory superscription (e.g., “A psalm of David”). Several other psalms lack superscriptions, so by itself this is not a smoking gun. But it is a noteworthy data point.

A more interesting data point comes from the Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q96 - 4Q Ps(o) plate 1151, Fragment 10 . This little fragment below measures roughly 3x3 cm and amazingly it contains part of verse 7 of Psalm 114 and verse 1 of Psalm 115 (English numbering). A transcription of the fragment was published in 2010 by Lexham Press (4Q96 Psalms O, Logos digital Edition). The transcription includes the ending of psalm 114 and the beginning of Psalm 115 on the same line. There is no new line or vacat (space left blank) in the manuscript. How is it possible to know this from such a small fragment? It’s because of the vertical positioning of the words that exist on the fragment. We know from other manuscripts and our modern Bibles which words are missing. We know from more complete manuscripts how wide a column was for writing. This determines, on average, how many letters will be placed on a line. Using these pieces of information, a skilled transcriber can guess with some accuracy what are the missing words on each of the lines represented in the fragment. The published transcription shows the same phenomenon that we see in the Aleppo Codex: The first line of Psalm 115 is on the same line as Psalm 114.

But what about the contents of Psalms 114 and 115? Does the poetry itself indicate one way or the other if they were 1 or 2 psalms? Not really. It could go either way in my opinion. Psalm 115 seems like a second stanza of a combined psalm, much like verses 7 and following are a second stanza of Psalm 19 (LXX 18). There is a new direction in theme and images, but there are connections also between the stanzas.

To summarize this 2nd point of divergence in numbering, we have 4 lines of evidence that demonstrate the original composition was combined. 1) The witness of the Septuagint itself (late first millennium B.C.), 2) The witness of the earliest Hebrew codices (circa A.D. 1000), 3) Absence of a superscription, and 4) evidence from the Dead Sea Scrolls (circa 1st century B.C.).

We’ve got two more points of numbering divergence to go. I will save those for part 2 of this topic which I hope to finish in about a month. If you are kind enough to subscribe, you won’t miss the epic ending. :)

In a previous post, I showed how the structure of Psalm 136 supplies strong evidence that the Hebrew Bible is missing a verse. Similar to how Psalm 145 is widely understood to be missing the so-called nun verse. In the case of Psalm 145, the Septuagint Greek contains the missing verse. But in the case of Psalm 136, the two oldest Greek manuscripts containing Psalm 136 (Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Alexandrinus) do not include the verse in question. However, proof that the verse actually did exist in Greek comes from two very different sources.

The first source is St. Jerome’s first edition of the Psalter. Chapter 12 of The Oxford Handbook of The Psalms is titled “Jerome’s Psalters”. In this helpful chapter, Scott Goins covers the history of Jerome’s three Psalter editions. As Goins explains, Jerome’s first Psalter was mostly a revision of the already existing Old Latin Psalter (a.k.a. Vetus Latina Psalter). While it is not entirely certain that this first Jerome Psalter even exists today, there is presented what is claimed to be a text of this Psalter in the absolutely gorgeous manuscript Psalter of St Germain. Firstly, this text is ancient, dating between AD 500 and 576. Second, it is gorgeous. Every page is purple tinted parchment (animal skin) written with silver and gold ink. Jerome notes in his intro to the book of Job that purple parchment was reserved for the most special books. Third, it follows the Septuagint numbering of the psalms. In the snip below from the start of the psalm on folio 267 you can make out the gold lettering roman numerals CXXXV (135). There is so much more to say about St Germain and this manuscript, but it is way off topic. The only thing that makes the text a bit of a challenge to read is the fact that the letters from the reverse side of the page are visible, albeit in reverse image.

The verse we care about today (verse 16) is on folio 268. Before we look at it I want to thank my classicist friend, Ty Wangsgaard, without whose Latin translation help I may not have learned about this manuscript.

In this image I have provided a couple of helpers. I’ve indicated the refrain with a capital “R” stamp on the left margin. “For his mercy endures forever.” The first red box surrounds the Latin word “populum” from which we get words like “population” and “populous”. It is the word “people” from verse 16, “who led His people through the wilderness…”. The red arrow points to the beginning of the verse that is missing from the Hebrew and the three major Greek uncial manuscripts: “Qui eduxit aquam de petra rupis…(refrain).” I have red-boxed the words “aquam” and “petra” as those should be familiar to most readers. Note the “A” at the end of “petra” was made small to fit on the page! This line reads: “He brought water out of the hard rock”. In a work from 1659 on the history of lapidary, the author Thomas Nicols indicates that the Latin phrase “petra rupis” referred to flint. Page 238. Unfortunately, the phrase “petra rupis” does not appear in any version of the Vulgate that I have searched, so I am not going to propose the Hebrew original based on the Latin. There is a similar phrase, “petra durissima” that is used in Deuteronomy 8:15, but I would like to base my text on an exact match.

In Jerome’s second version of the Psalter, which came to be known as the Gallican Psalter, he used a Greek source of the Psalms which did not contain this verse, so he dropped it. In his third edition, Jerome used available Hebrew manuscripts (during his stays in Syria and Palestine) and like the Masoretic Texts we have today, those Hebrew sources obviously did not include verse 16b either.

In a lengthy letter between Jerome and two priests who questioned over 80 of Jerome’s changes between his first edition and 2nd edition, the verse under investigation here does not come up. But a less significant difference in verse 7 is covered in the letter. This leads me to believe that perhaps Jerome never included the verse in question, even in his first edition, which was a revision of the existing Vetus Latina (Jerome, Epistle 106 (On the Psalms), Michael Graves, SBL Press 2022).

Suffice it to say that the oldest Latin text we have of the Psalms does include the line that I have argued is missing from the Hebrew based upon the structure of the psalm itself. As a reminder, the structure of the composition (if one accepts the structure I propose), is as old as the psalm’s composition (i.e., from the hand of the original author!).

That is all I have time to say about the first line of evidence that the “water from the hard rock” verse was original. The second source of evidence comes from the Coptic (Egyptian language) scriptures. Here we have a textual tradition of our missing line that carries on to the present day. The current Coptic Psalter includes our missing line! There is little need for me to get my hands on the oldest Coptic manuscripts, although I would love to. The Coptic Psalter dates back to perhaps the 2nd century when the Psalms were already being heavily used in the the churches and a translation was needed in the Egyptian language of the common people.

I had enough Latin in high school to be dangerous, but my year of Egyptian in college was forgotten as soon as I graduated (Sorry, Dr. Hoffmeier!). So I had to rely on another friend, an Egyptian American, Joseph Fahim. I asked Joseph to compare the Coptic of the text of Psalm 136:16b with 5 Old Testament passages that relate to the Israelites getting water from the hard rock (Psalm 77:16, Psalm 113:8, Deuteronomy 8:15, Deuteronomy 32:13, and Numbers 20:8). Joseph did a lexical analysis of each passage and, by far, the closest text was Deuteronomy 8:15. In his words:

Huge thanks to Joseph for confirming what I was leaning toward from the Latin, and what Rahlf’s critical Greek edition pointed to as reference. Now we are able to triangulate between the Hebrew structure, the Old Latin, and the Coptic to produce what the original Hebrew may have looked like for this verse:

למוציא מים מצור החלמיש

כי לעולם חסדו

Transliteration:

LE-mo-tsee MA-yim mee-TSUR ha-kha-la-MEESH

kee le-oLAM khas-doe

Translation:

Who caused water to come out of the hard rock

His mercy endures forever.

In conclusion, it seems very clear to me that the original Greek and Hebrew had this additional verse. How did it get dropped? My guess is the cause was what manuscript experts call “haplography” or “eyeskip”. The scribe just made a visual mistake. If you have ever hand-copied long portions of written text, you may know how easy this is to do.

You may have been wondering about the image I included at the top of this blog post. I took this pic of my hand-written copy of Psalm 136 in Hebrew (modern, cursive script). I later included my re-constructed line on the left and circled/highlighted it. Notice my verse cross-reference below the verse: “Dt 18:5”. This, too, is a scribal error. The actual cross-reference is Dt 8:15. Scribal mistakes happen. Thankfully in the case of Psalm 136, we did not lose any deep theology or critical history. It was merely a recounting of an episode in the Israelites’ wilderness wanderings. Nevertheless, in the context of this poem/psalm, we are now able to fill what has been a 2000 year gap in the Hebrew text.

Psalm 22 has been controversial since early Christians understood it to be prophesy about the crucifixion of the Messiah. Not only does Jesus appear to quote this psalm from the cross (“My god, my god…why hast thou forsaken me?”) but the psalm contains several other images that are referenced in the crucifixion passages (e.g., casting lots for his clothes).

By far the most contentious line comes in verse 16b, “…they have pierced my hands and feet.” Or, if you follow the Hebrew Masoretic Text, “…like lions [they maul] my hands and feet.” The difference comes down to 1 letter: a waw(ו) versus a yod (י). Even in modern Hebrew script, you can see how similar these two letters are.

• If the letter is a waw(ו), then the Greek Septuagint translation “they pierced” can make sense.

• If the letter is a yod (י), then the Hebrew translation “like lions” can make sense.

I use the phrase “can make sense”, because in each case there difficulties with the translation from the Hebrew. By contrast the Greek of the early Church scriptures is not foggy. To quote the most recent and authoritative translation from the Greek (NETS - New English Translation of the Septuagint): “They gouged my hands and feet.” (Psalm 21[22]:16b). By the way, the psalms would have been among the earliest works translated into Greek after the Torah, probably in the 3rd or 2nd century before Christ.

A fragment of an ancient scroll containing Psalm 22 was discovered in a cave in the wadi Nahal Hever in the West Bank during explorations in the 1960s. This fragment is not very easy to read, but it contains the line we care about in this post. And as it relates to the letter in question (the waw versus yod), the majority of epigraphers who have looked at the fragment agree it is a waw, supporting the traditional Christian reading of the verse as, “They pierced my hands and feet.” This post is not a survey of scholarly opinion. My claim is defensible, but I am not going to take the time to do that here. [For a starting point of scholarly coverage and bibliography for further reading, see The Meaning of the Dead Sea Scrolls by James VanderKam and Peter Flint, p.125.]

Recently, a new line of doubt been advanced by some who admit that the controversial letter is a waw but want to defend the Hebrew Masoretic Text. The argument states that while a waw was written, we should read a yod. At first, this may seem like special pleading, but it is not unreasonable. It is a documented phenomenon that ancient Hebrew scribes for reasons of style or efficiency would sometimes make a final yod look like a waw. This phenomenon usually stems from the scribal act of “ligature”. Ligature is defined as, “where two or more graphemes or letters are joined to form a single glyph”. A familiar example is our ampersand sign (which combines the Latin letters ‘e’ and ‘t’ which are the Latin word ‘et’ (&). Another example we see in English is the merge of ‘a’ and ‘e’ to form æ.

Hebrew scribes sometimes did the same thing. This was particularly done at the end of words where a final yod was combined (or almost combined) with a previous letter, usually a letter whose foot would end where the waw-ish yod begins. The most common 2-letter combination of this is the nun+waw/yod (נו). Recall that Hebrew is written from right to left. The easiest way to think about this in English is to imagine writing the upper-case letter “L” followed by the letter “I”. Such a combined character would look something like a block “U”. Why would one do this? One can imagine that doing this might be faster (eliminating the need to lift the stylus and re-position it). It also saves linear space by smashing the two letters close together. If you have ever written with a quill and ink, you will also know that keeping the stylus on the parchment in a constant fluid manner, reduces the occurrence of drips and blotches.

Here is a clear example of this practice from the great psalm scroll found at Qumran (11QPs(a)).

These are the first two words of Psalm 119:115 (סורו ממני - Depart from me…). You can see the last letter (i.e., the left-most letter in Hebrew) is actually attached to the letter that comes before it, a nun (English “N”). We know from context and later Masoretic texts that the last letter is supposed to be the letter yod (י), but it was clearly written as a ligatured waw(ו). The other word in this phrase contains two waws that are supposed to be waws. So, you can see for yourself that our scribe has given us a waw(ו) where he should have given us a yod (י).

Not all instances of a yod looking like a waw involve ligature. Particularly in the Qumran Psalm scroll, the scribe seemed to have been all over the place in this regard. In the words of the publisher of this scroll, James Sanders, “Waw and yod are distinguished in the scribe’s mind, not always by his pen...” (The Psalms Scroll of Qumran Cave 11, p. 7).

Some internet pundits who agree that the Nahal Hever fragment seems to contain a waw in our controversial word, point to the Psalms Scroll of cave 11 as evidence for why we should read the letter as a yod and not the waw.

I have not seen anyone analyze the Nahal Hever fragment itself for the presence of ligatured or otherwise lengthened yod. Hopefully, I have not lost you up to this point. The above was required background for what I present here as new.

Below is the official infrared image of the Nahal Hever fragment. The URL to the source is included in the caption. There are 7 lines of existing text with the bottom line being very fragmentary and difficult to decipher. While not nearly as clear as the Qumran Cave 11 psalms scroll, most of the lines are legible and the letters are clear enough for someone familiar with early first millenium Hebrew script. The orange arrow points to the controversial letter, which for the purposes of this blog post we will assume is a waw (whether or not it is to be read as a yod).

The bottom line

Before we go line by line and examine all of the occurrences of yod and waw, let me give the highlights for those of you who are busy and want to go do something else.

1. Of the 27 readable instances of waw and yod, none are a yod masquerading as a waw. They all play the letter expected by the Hebrew MT.

2. Only 2 of the 25 readable instances are questionable as to its intended letter, but only because of the scribal care (apparently). Four yod are not readable due to the condition of the fragment. The rest are clearly waw or yod.

3. There are 4 prime opportunities to expect a lengthened yod, two following a taw and two following a nun, including on the word immediately preceding the controversial word (הקיפוני), and the scribe took the bait none of these times.

Conclusion: While ligated and otherwise lengthened yods exist as a phenomenon in ancient Hebrew texts, they do not occur in the Nahal Hever fragment.

The detail

Next I will examine line by line all of the places where a yod or a waw is expected according to the Masoretic Text. I will judge each occurrence relative to its clarity as a yod or a waw.

For each line I have attempted to roughly align the modern Hebrew font above the Nahal Hever text. The positioning is approximate and intended only as a reader help. Also, I have included two image snips of the line under review. One with my drawing over the letters and one without, so that you can form your own opinion.

While I do not claim to be a renowned epigrapher, I did study ancient texts and languages in my graduate work under Dr. William Dever at the University of Arizona. I have spent dozens to hundreds of hours reading texts from the Dead Sea region.

Each Hebrew letter has its typical form in each period of its history. In the case of the Dead Sea scroll material in general and the Nahal Hever fragment in particular, the typical yod when compared to the typical waw has:

1. A broader, more triangular head

2. A less vertical stance

3. A shorter leg

With these differentiators in mind, let us examine the text.

Line 1:

While the legs of the waw and yod in this line are of similar length, the stance and triangularity of the heads clarifies which is which. In addition, there is a clear gap between the leg of the yod and the foot of the taw to its right. The yod that I have circled is too partial for me to make a confident determination.

Note: The yod following the taw was a prime opportunity for ligature that was not taken.

Line 2:

There are two readable waw and yod apiece in this line. The giveaway on the first yod is the fact that the foot of the preceding nun (while faint) fully underlines the yod. The second yod is clearly distinguished from its adjacent waw in all three differentiators.

Line 3:

Line 3 contains the singular yod in the fragment that might look more like a waw, but it would be a bad example of a waw at that. From the darkness of the preceding letter ‘ayin, it appears that the scribe had just reloaded his stylus and it resulted in a rather messy yod. The other examples are clear, including the highlighted controversial waw. Notice the two vertical red arrows. These are pointing to two yods that the leading expert on the Nahal Hever fragment, Dr. Peter Flint, has published. Dr. Flint was able to handle the fragment himself as well as have access to enhance imaging like this snippet I found on the internet:

The closest I can find on publicly available sites is the following scanned infrared negative:

Given these images, and Dr. Flint’s publication of his opinion, I am going to include both of these yod in the respective column.

Line 4:

The first yod of line 4 has a longer leg than the ideal yod. However, the clear overlap with and gap between the foot of the preceding letter taw places it in the yod column. The two circled letters at the end of the line I have discarded from the statistics, because I am able to make an argument either way for these two. They are simply not legible enough in my opinion to make a judgement. Without the guidance of the known context of Psalm 22:17, I would say they are both yods. Considering this, they would cancel each other out statistically.

Line 5:

In line 5, I did not even bother to circle the first waw, because the parchment is damaged. The next waw and yod have been circled. I have discarded these two from the statistics; they are not legible in my opinion. The two legible yods have slightly long legs, but their heads and stance put them in the yod column. And when compared to the height of the pe that sits between them, the length of the legs makes it clear they are not waws.

Line 6:

Stance, head and leg length are all clear in line 6. Two yod; two waw. One yod not considered as the parchment is damaged in that spot.

Line 7:

At first view, one might wonder how I can determine from this fragmentary line which word from Psalm 22 is written here. The answer is simple. The Nahal Hever fragment contains one line of text for each line of the poem. The lines are not run together to cram as many letters as possible onto the animal skin real estate. Instead, the poetic structure is retained. Based on this and the number of characters in verse 20 relative to the preceding verses, we know positionally which word should appear here.

I will admit to the possibility that the two letters in this last line cannot be confidently placed in the yod column. Exclude them if you wish, my conclusion remains the same:

There are no clear examples of yod presenting as waw in the Nahal Hever Psalm 22 fragment.

After much study of Psalm 136 (LXX 135), I am convinced that here, too, there is a pattern in the psalm structure that argues in favor of the re-constructed Greek text of Alfred Rahlfs. There is a hole in the psalm without this missing line, actually 2 lines forming a bicolon.

Before getting into the structure, even a casual reading of the psalm gives one the sense that something is missing in verse 16, the wilderness wanderings verse. The six verses preceding verse 16 recount the Exodus events. After verse 16, there are four verses dealing with the battles against the kings of the Amorites and Bashan. So when the 40 years in the desert gets one short line (“He led his people in the wilderness”), it feels too abbreviated for someone familiar with the biblical narratives. The cadence is “off”. The wanderings have become a short stroll.

Nearly all English translations of this psalm render verse 16 something like:

[Give thanks] to Him who led his people through the wilderness: For his mercy endures forever.

But the Orthodox Study Bible, which leveraged Rahlfs’ Greek text, reads:

[Give thanks] to Him who led His people through the wilderness, For His mercy endures forever.

To Him who drew water from the hard rock, For His mercy endures forever.

Now it is a fact that the 3 “great Uncial codices” of the Greek Old Testament do not include this additional bicolon about getting water from the rock (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, Alexandrinus), but some other sources do include it. I am not qualified to make a judgement on Rahlfs’ reconstructed text. It seems to be based on ancient Coptic and Latin sources, like this text from the Vetus Latina Psalter:

I agree with Rahlfs’ inclusion of an additional bicolon for two reasons: 1) the straightforward reading described above, and 2) this pattern I see in the psalm:

[Tap or click on the image to enlarge.]

To simplify the presentation, I have removed the refrain (for His mercy endures forever) that is at the end of every verse. I have also simplified the idea of each verse to highlight its content. What we see is that the first half of the psalm consists of five 2-by-3 bicolons. I do not expect anyone will quibble with this. After these, the pace of the poem accelerates, switching to 2-by-2 bicolons. This latter structure of five 2x2 bicolons works only if verse 16 includes the bicolon having to do with providing water from the hard rock (or any additional bicolon, for that matter). Inclusion of this bicolon solidifies the structure and gives the wilderness wanderings more content as it seems their due.

One could argue that verses 17-20 could form a single 2x4 bicolon. This is fair thematically, but in the Hebrew, even though the theme is the same, the wording is clearly two 2x2s, not a single 2x4. Strike and kill go together; Sihon and Og go together.

The end of the psalm might seem to throw the structure off, but I do not think so. There is a lot of variation in the Hebrew and Greek manuscripts at the end. In the Masoretic text, verse 26b is not there, and I think one could make an argument either way if it was dropped from the Hebrew or added to the Greek. It’s easier to add or subtract from the ending of a text than its middle. I like to see verse 25 as a single bicolon for two reasons. First, it accelerates the pace yet again, bringing the poem to a crescendo. Second, it returns to the universal outlook (“all flesh”) that began the psalm, after its focus switched to Israel.

I was really hoping the Dead Sea Scrolls might be of assistance here, but unfortunately the otherwise beautiful psalm scroll disappoints. This is psalm 136 from 11Q5 plate 975.  Verse 16 would be the very next (unpreserved) line of text!

[Tap or click on the image to enlarge.]

Oh, well.

In a future post I plan to provide a Hebrew reconstruction of the missing bicolon, leveraging the Greek, Latin (and possibly Coptic) versions. Stay tuned…

In this episode from the gospel according to Matthew, Jesus’ interlocutors describe a compound case of levirate marriage in an attempt to stump the Rabbi. The Sadducees ascribe the social practice to Moses, the recorder of the Torah. The practice of levirate marriage (a.k.a. yibbum in Judaism) is set forth as law in Deuteronomy 25: 5ff,

“5 If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not be married abroad unto one not of his kin; her husband's brother shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife, and perform the duty of a husband's brother unto her. 6 And it shall be, that the first-born that she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother that is dead, that his name be not blotted out of Israel.”

The sociological reasons typically cited for this practice argue that the purpose here is to ensure that the widow has offspring to take care of her in her old age. But the reason cited in the text itself is explicitly to keep alive the “name” of the brother who has died. That is, to preserve his family line. It is this explanation that I would like to dwell on further insofar as it points to an even deeper and more foundational reason for the practice of levirate marriage. Levirate marriage is a deterrent to fratricide, at least in the milieu of ancient Israel.

To establish this explanation, we need to recall the story of Judah’s son, Onan in Genesis 38. Onan had an older brother named Er. Er was Judah’s first-born son. Onan was the second-born, and Shelah was third. The eldest of Judah’s 3 sons gets himself killed by God because of some wickedness that is not explained to us. So it is up to his younger brother, Onan, to have sexual relations with Er’s widow, Tamar. Thereby Onan fulfills his duty as a levirate and provides her a child that would be considered the offspring of Er, not its biological father, Onan.

But Onan, we are told, interrupts the sex and “spills his seed” on the ground. He does not want to fulfill his obligation to his dead brother. As a consequence, God kills Onan, too. Judah is now down to one remaining son, and the subsequent narrative describes how it will be Judah himself who gets Tamar pregnant and secures the family line, making her an ancestor of King David and Jesus (Matt 1:3).

But let us back up just a bit here and consider why it is that Onan does not want Tamar to have offspring in Er’s name. We are not told, and I can find zero, zip, zilch speculation in the literature as to Onan’s possible objection over “giving seed to his brother”, other than some assumed grudge that perhaps Onan had with his older brother. But when we consider the inheritance customs in ancient Israel, the reason becomes clear - for at the root of all evil one finds money.

First, we need to dispense with the typical explanation for the purpose of levirate marriage, namely that the widow will have offspring to take care of her. There are other solutions to this problem. The most straightforward being that the widow enjoins herself to the family/clan of her dead husband (without child-bearing), or she returns to her family/clan of origin. Being joined to a surviving brother in levirate marriage would seem to be an extreme solution if the problem needing to be solved is merely the well-being of the widow.

Since Er was the first-born son of Judah, by Torah law and Israelite custom he was going to inherit a double-portion of Judah’s property upon Judah’s death (Deut. 21:15-17). If Judah had only three sons, it means that Er was going to inherit 50% of his father’s estate, double what each of his brothers would inherit. Onan and Shelah would each get 25%. With Er’s untimely demise, Onan could expect a windfall. Instead of 25% of Judah’s estate, Onan now stands to inherit 66.6% of the total, since he is now the eldest son!

But if Onan is obliged to impregnate Tamar and raise-up for her a son who will preserve the family line of Er, this windfall evaporates. Tamar and her offspring by Onan would inherit the original 50% that was to come to the dead first-born, Er. So now we see a perfectly rational, selfish reason for Onan to spill his seed on the ground. He goes into Tamar to keep up appearances, but makes every attempt to spoil the outcome intended by the levirate marriage custom. Why? Because the offspring of Tamar is going to cost him a large chunk of inheritance. In later forms of Judaism (Talmudic and Rabbinic) there may be provision for the levir/yibbum brother to get an increased share of the inheritance, or even the double-share. There is no indication that this was the case in Ancient Israel.

Additionally, this perspective on the account makes God’s anger more understandable. I neither need to agree nor disagree with those who cite the events in Genesis 38 as evidence for the immorality of birth control. I am setting that topic to the side; birth control does not concern me here. Rather, I have identified at least one other understandable reason for God’s wrath in this situation: Onan is threatening the foundational social norm of levirate marriage. This norm (pre-Mosaic “law” if you will) deters one brother from killing another (especially the first-born), since the financial motivation is eliminated. If I am expected to replace my brother’s life with that of another offspring from my own seed, what’s the point?

But perhaps one thinks he can game the system like our guy Onan has tried to do in Genesis 38. Indeed, this might explain why this episode was included in the book in the first place. If some Israelite is thinking to thwart the levirate arrangement by coitus interruptus, God may strike him down summarily.

Fratricide is a key problem in the book of Genesis. It is the first, shocking, violent act recorded after Adam and Eve are evicted from the garden of Eden. Cain has a resentment against his brother Abel and kills him. In this case of fratricide, Cain happens to be the first-born and the resentment is not related to money, but rather Cain’s resentful over the favor of God for Abel’s sacrifice.

Early human societies needed ways to deter siblings from killing each other. To this day, inheritance disputes tear families apart. According to a Wall Street Journal report, around 70% of heirs lose part of their inheritance because of disputes. Today we have well-established laws regarding murder and manslaughter, but in early human societies there were no codified laws. Two brothers tending their father’s flocks far away from family, town or village and among steep cliffs and deep ravines makes for a setting where one brother can easily have an “accident”. The form of levirate marriage practiced in 2nd millenium timeframe of the Patriarchs was one tool among whose deep purposes was perhaps to dissuade such accidents from taking place.

Arguably the most enigmatic verses in Psalm 51 (50 in the LXX) one finds in verses 7-8 (variously 5-6):

Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
    and in sin did my mother conceive me.

Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being;
    therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart. (RSV vs 5-6)

The first half of the second verse contains a word that appears only twice in the Hebrew bible (טחה – inward parts), and it has been translated variously as “innermost self”, “inward parts”, “internal organs”, “innermost being”, or sometimes just skipped!   Of the second verse Robert Alter notes, “This whole verse is the one line in the poem that is rather obscure…It is unclear what the line as a whole means to say...” (The Hebrew Bible: Translation with Commentary, loc 78474)  Taken together, these two verses have been described by Hossfeld and Zenger as “a parenthesis” (Psalms 2, p.13, note h.4).  They are set apart from what comes before and after both by the thematic flow of the psalm and by the word “behold” (הן) that starts each verse.  Something different is going on with this pair of verses.

I speculate that the author (let’s suppose King David) has given a voice to his infant son, who is either dead at this point or is soon to be dead.  For the following reasons, I find this at least plausible.

Foremost, this understanding clears-up the question exposed by the first verse. Who was conceived in sin?  This child conceived by the scandalous union between David and Bathsheba was the offspring of an adulterous act – an act surrounded by an abundance of other secret and not-so-secret sins.  He, more than David, was the product of sin.  Unlike those who speculate about David’s own mother, here we have clear testimony from other Hebrew texts that Bathsheba both conceived and bore this child in the context of Torah offenses. At a minimum these include false testimony, murder, adultery, and coveting.  By contrast, those who contend that the author was talking about himself struggle to explain how it was so that he was conceived in sin, without falling back upon the notion of original sin. 

Second, my speculation may elucidate the use of the introductory “Behold” (hen; הן), which is a common way for a speaker to preface a statement.  In this context, it might serve to separate these lines from the parts of the psalm where the author himself is doing the narrating.  That is, it helps to make these lines parenthetical.  Why doesn’t David introduce the new speaker?  One good reason would be that infants don’t speak.  The argument here is not so much that David is quoting someone else as he is giving voice to what that other person might have said in this context if he were able to speak.  He is musing about what could be going on inside the child’s mind, a musing that many parents will understand. 

But is such an abrupt, un-introduced change in speaker attested elsewhere in Hebrew poetry?  Most certainly, yes.  Many places.  In his recent article, “Whose Voice is Heard? Speaker Ambiguity in the Psalms” (CBQ 82, no. 2, 2020: 197-213), Samuel Hildebrandt examines several instances of this kind of change in 1st-person speaker/narrator, in the psalms and in prophetic poetry, particularly Jeremiah.  In this paper, he examines psalms 32, 45, and 109 as case studies in speaker ambiguity.

I would add to Hildebrandt’s list Isaiah’s Suffering Servant psalm/song (52:12 – 53).  In this Isaiah passage, there is no announcement of when the Lord is speaking versus Isaiah speaking, or when Isaiah is speaking about the servant versus directly addressing the Lord.  There is some degree of ambiguity as a result.   More examples could be cited.   

Understanding these two verses in Psalm 51 as reflecting the words (or, perhaps better, thoughts) of David’s infant son, improves the understanding of the verses coming before and after them.  Immediately before these lines, David declares that the Lord’s words are just (i.e., as delivered by Nathan the prophet), and his judgment is pure (i.e., the Lord’s sentence delivered by Nathan, “The son who was born to you will die.” – 2 Samuel 12:14).   This strong contextual fit could be elaborated more fully, but for those readers who have forgotten the details, please read 2 Samuel chapter 12.  This also lends historical credibility to the superscription where we are told, “When the prophet Nathan came to him after he had gone in to (into) Bathsheba.”

Further evidence that David’s infant is involved with these two verses comes several lines later in the psalm, after David has pleaded for cleansing and a new heart. We read,

“Deliver me from bloodguilt, O God, the God of my salvation.” (v14, Brenton’s LXX). 

Leviticus 20 and Numbers 35 make clear that the penalty for murder is death.  Hossfeld and Zenger comment on this verse: “’Being saved from blood’ then means being saved from the power of threatened or impending death.  Since nothing is said in this psalm about enemies, this can only be about the ‘death penalty’ with which the petitioner, because of his sins, is threatened by God, or the deadly wound inflicted on the human being by sin…” (p.13). 

Possibly, but in the light of my proposal herein, we have another possibility:  David is not concerned with his own life being taken (he is, after all, the king), but rather the life of his infant son.  Is David pleading with God to spare the boy’s life?  This is exactly what we are told David does in 2 Samuel 12:16:

David pleaded with God for the boy. He fasted and went into his house and spent the night lying in sackcloth on the ground. (NIV)

While the above points make a case for understanding the first “Behold” verse as relating to the baby, the second “Behold” verse is less clear.  A fairly literal translation after the “Behold” reads:

You desire truth in inward things.  And by means of hidden things, you teach me wisdom.

We have already pointed out the difficult vocabulary in this line.  It is ambiguous in not only voice, but in meaning.  Perhaps the second “Behold” switches the narration back to David, or perhaps it is still the child’s perspective being described.  Whichever the case, both sides of this bi-colon are concerned with illuminating that which has been covered-up. The Hebrew root “inward things” (tooakh; טוח) means to plaster over, overlay, or besmear (i.e., hide).  The saga of David and Bathsheba is rife with deception and cover-up.  And thus, we have another element of fit with the traditional historical context.  The infant was the product of actions done in secret and later covered-up.  Truth and wisdom ultimately come to the surface (as does the fetus), whether it is David himself being taught the lesson, or the infant – or both.  As Hildebrandt argues, the ambiguity in the psalms sometimes seems intentional. 

To wrap this up, my suggestion here is speculative. However, it seems to me to be no more speculative than other attempts to understand what is implied or intended to be understood from these enigmatic lines within this beautiful biblical poem.

My goal with this psalm is to understand clearly what images are being described to us. The author is narrating and explaining the world which surrounds him, a world which makes the author declare, “How great are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all. The earth is full of your riches.”

One of the puzzles in this psalm is in verse 8. There are two very different ways this verse gets translated, and the translations are about 50/50 split. Below are my generic renderings of each camp.

Translation 1: “The mountains rise up; the valleys sink down, to the place you have established for them.”

Translation 2: “They go up the mountains; they go down the valleys, to the place you have established for them.” Here, “they” is understood to be “waters”.

Verdict: Translation 2 is what was we should understand was originally intended.

Here are the key reasons why we should be envisioning the water cycle and not plate tectonics in this verse.

First, according to my Greek language PhD pal, Jeff Reed, the Greek translation is ambiguous as to what is “moving up” and “moving down”. The Greek words for “water”, “mountain”, and “valley” are all neuter and therefore have the same form in both the nominative and accusative forms. “Mountains” and “valleys” therefore could be the subject of the verbs or the object. Out of curiosity we checked Codex Sinaiticus (sometimes called the world’s oldest Bible), and the fully magnified portion of the text was not helpful (perhaps an infra-red image would be more conclusive):

So is the Hebrew similarly ambiguous? Not so much. The strongest evidence that this verse is not talking about mountains going up and valleys going down is that the gender of “valleys” (feminine) does not match the gender of the verb for “go down” (masculine). Assuming the imperfect tense here [which is safe because that is the verb conjugation of the surrounding verbs relating to the waters] the form for “go down” would be quite different if it were tied to the feminine plural noun “valleys”. For you Hebrew readers it would be teradnah (תרדנה) instead of yer’du (ירדו). So if the valleys are not the things descending, it must be the waters.

The next reason is the context within the psalm. Verses 5-9 go together as a clear unit, and their core subject is water. The water stands on the mountains; the water flees and scatters; the water stays behind its boundary - it will not return again to cover the earth (Gen 1). In academic circles one would say that verse 8 forms an inclusio with verse 5.

Reason #4: It seems more likely that Iron Age man had a better understanding of the water cycle than any intuitive grasp of mountain uplift. Many of us have actually witnessed water-bearing clouds move up the slopes of mountains and deposit their contents when they get up high. In verse 7 it tells us that God rebukes (thunder!!) the waters for being up there and they flee! They go down to where they are supposed to be; to the place set for them (i.e., the sea or lake or spring).

Having said this, I would not rule out an intuitive understanding of rising mountains by folks who lived thousands of years ago. If you have ever stood on a clear day at the edge of the Judean wilderness looking east over the Jordan rift valley, it does not take much imagination to see the layers on the other side and imagine they at one time touched where you are standing and were ripped apart in the past with the Dead Sea floor falling to its present depth (430m below sea level). It is hard for me to say if I am able to be objective here. Perhaps I am projecting my understanding of large-scale geologic activity on a writer 3 millennia ago.

Fifth, I was happy to see a Qumran/Dead Sea Scrolls witness to this verse. Here is an image of it from the Dead Sea Scrolls digital library at www.deadseascrolls.org.il.

https://www.deadseascrolls.org.il/explore-the-archive/image/B-284262

My first observation here is that this scribe was not the best. I am in no way an expert or even trained in epigraphy, but other scroll materials are easier to read. Fortunately, even I can see in the above highlighted verse what I needed to see: the masculine plural ending for “go down” and feminine plural ending for “valleys”.

So why do around half of all English translations understand this verse as the mountains going up and the valleys going down? I cite the Hebrew poetry. When the Greek (and Latin?) translators went about their work, they were careful to be as literal as possible. In the syntax of Hebrew prose, the verb precedes the subject which precedes the object - partly opposite of English. English: God tests them. Biblical Hebrew: Tests God them. So taking this verse in isolation, it literally reads:

“They go up the mountains. They go down the valleys.” But knowing Hebrew prose syntax is the way it is, we “correct” this to say, “The mountains go up; the valleys go down.” Unfortunately this is a mistake in this context. The fact that we are dealing with an inclusio within a poem, we need to seek outside of this line to find our unstated subject - the waters. That leaves the mountains and valleys to be the objects of the action, not the subjects.

I want to be clear that I am not saying the Greek translation of the Hebrew is wrong. It’s not wrong; it’s perfectly fine. I have stated at the outset that the Greek is itself somewhat open to interpretation. Rather, I am saying that English translations that rely on the Greek are the mistaken ones.

To wrap this up: what is the image we should be thinking about when we read or hear this verse? Naturally minus all the meteorological terms, something like this:

King David, or whomever the author of this psalm was, was a keen observer of the natural world. I am reminded of the episode after Elijah destroys the priests of Ba’al when the country is drought-stricken. Elijah tells his servant to go look to the western horizon of the Mediterranean Sea from the top of Mount Carmel. His servant comes back and said, “There is nothing.” Then Elijah said, “Go again seven times, and return to me seven times.” So it came to pass that on the seventh time the servant said, “Behold, a little cloud, like the footprint of a man, bringing up water.” So Elijah said, “Go up, say to Ahab, ‘Make ready your chariot and get down from here before the rain overtakes you.’” Thus it came to pass that the sky darkened with black clouds and wind, and there was a heavy downpour of rain. (3 Kingdoms 19:12).

Both the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Septuagint versions of Psalm 145 (LXX #144) include a verse that is missing in the Masoretic Text (MT). Much debate back and forth has transpired in support of this additional verse being included as Holy Scripture or excluded. Most printed versions today include it, although with a footnote and without its own verse number. The stalwart King James Version excludes the verse.

I have discovered a structure in the Psalm that (in my mind) all but proves with certainty that the verse was part of the original. I have checked leading sources of academic studies of this psalm, and as far as I know, this structure has not been seen (at least fully).

To refresh your memory, Psalm 145 is an acrostic. Each verse of the Hebrew begins with a subsequent letter of the Hebrew alphabet. Using the ABC’s of Hebrew in this way was a helpful way to memorize the psalm, and several other psalms are acrostic. From aleph to tav, each of the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet is represented in order. But in the MT, the 14th letter/verse - the letter nun - is absent. There are fairly good explanations given by defenders of the MT as to why the original author would have skipped this verse. Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), a majority opinion in the West would have sided with the MT over the LXX. But even with the inclusion of the nun verse in the DSS, there are still many who contend it was an awkward addition 2000+ years ago.

My observation should put that contention to rest.

To the point…

Pretty much every scholarly treatment of Psalm 145 attempts to see structure in it, usually thematic. A few writers have noticed how there is a switching back-and-forth in the psalm regarding how the Lord is addressed: 2nd-person (you) versus 3rd-person (he). I noticed this 2nd/3rd switching myself and decided to map it out. Here’s what it looks like in Hebrew and English:

In the middle of this image I have indicated whether the Lord is being referred to in the 2nd or 3rd person. I have included verse numbers to the right of the verses, calling the 14th verse “vNUN”. Bibles that include the verse just tack it on to verse 13. Click on the image to download and enlarge it.

Excluding the easily recognizable prelude and postlude, there is a 4-2-2-1:1-2-2-4 back-and-forth between 2nd-person and 3rd-person address of the Lord that only materializes if the nun verse is included. Eliminate the nun verse, and this structure crumbles (which may, in fact, explain why nobody else has seen this).

But why this structure in the first place? What purpose did it serve? Consider that this psalm has been central to Jewish prayer and corporate worship for thousands of years (and also in Orthodox Christian services, too). I believe it was used in corporate worship in ancient times, perhaps going back to the First Temple period. I speculate that the blue highlighted portions of the psalm (2nd person) were recited by the worship leader, and the other verses were recited by the congregation (3rd person). Responsive psalm reading (or singing/chanting). The postlude was perhaps recited by all involved, given its 1st-person voice and reference to “all flesh” blessing His holy name forever and ever.

If you are interested in additional background, explanation and scholarly references, you can download a PDF of a longer presentation here.

These attached images illustrate the structure. I see well over a dozen solid points of chiasm and antimetabole. There have been other attempts to see chiasm on small scale in the Suffering Servant passage. Nothing of the encompassing scale I see. In a later post, I will narrate how each of these structural elements works. Some of them will be obvious in English; others will be obvious in Hebrew; others take some explanation. You may see more still, or you may want to put the second line of the introduction with A, or make other adjustments. What I am quite confident of is the center point, Isaiah 53:6. Everything else anchors around that nicely, and of itself this verse is solidly chiastic, as others have written.

If you are wondering what the header image in my publication represents, it is my own forms of the orthography of Isaiah 53:6(a) from the Great Isaiah Scroll. After staring at column 44 for many hours and practicing that scribe’s letters, I was able to finally learn to read his writing.

The colorful shapes surrounding words and phrases show you how there is an association between one side of the song and the other. They are not perfectly mirrored. They rarely are and need not be for the structure to be clear. At the very center of the structure is Isaiah 53:6, “All of us like sheep have gone astray. Each has turned his own way. And the LORD put on him, the sin of all of us.”

For this initial post on this last Isaiah servant song, I will highlight just two of the examples of chiasm in this passage. This pivotal verse begins and ends with “all of us” (kulanu) depicted in orange outlined shapes. The repetition of kulanu emphasizes that none of us is exempted from the curse of sin or from the behaviors and attitudes that are listed as belonging to the servant’s detractors.

At the center of the verse, the first word of the bi-colon’s 2nd half is the tetragrammaton, the holy name of the Lord. In both the Masoretic text and the scroll of 1QIsa(a), there are almost exactly 100 words that come before the holy name and 100 words that come after. That seems well balanced to me. When combined with the beginning and ending “all of us” words, Isaiah 53:6 makes a strong anchor from which the first and second halves of the song pivot clearly.

The next post will elaborate on some of the other structural elements present in this passage.

Thanks for reading,

Tom Jull