They Pierced My Hands and Feet (revisited)

Again, structure backs the Septuagint over the Masoretic Text

There is a fairly new Bible translation in Protestant circles called the New English Translation (NET). I have a bone to pick with it today. This translation abandons two millennia of traditional understanding of a well-known verse, and in the process compromises its messianic interpretation. To quote the King James Version,

“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. As far as I have reviewed. Would like to know if someone is aware of a reference other than the MT that speaks of “lions” in verse 16/17.