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Introduction 📜
Many Christians will use or cherrypick early Jewish verses, and often exaggerate it to make it look like it’s talking about Jesus, this is what many early church writers did. Psalm 22, which was not a prophecy, was not about the messiah, and doesn’t even talk about a person’s hands and feet being “pierced”. Psalm 22:16 is frequently mistranslated by Christians, but the verse talks about the speaker being harmed by dogs.
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Refutation 📜
Psalm 22 does not say that it is predicting what will happen to the messiah. It is a lament poem describing what the author, putatively King David, was experiencing himself. It was turned into a messianic prophecy when Christians, viewing Jesus as the “Son of David”, turned to all the Davidic psalms as source material on the life of Jesus, particularly the passages concerning (or which could be construed as concerning) David’s trial at the hands of Ahithophel. As such, new meaning is inevitably read back into the source texts. For instance, there is nothing in Psalm 22:16 that of itself concerns capital punishment or crucifixion per se. It doesn’t say that the messiah would be crucified. The text has to be read with this already in mind and with the subject (“me”) already referring to the messiah for such a reading to be possible. Taken on its own terms, Psalm 22 is very much akin to what is in Job which unlike Psalms was not exploited as a source of OT “prophecy” because it does not have “Davidic” credentials
More specifically, the content in Psalm 22 is closely paralleled by similar poems in Babylonian literature, such as the Ludlul Bel Nemeqi.
Compare:
“My brother became my foe, my comrade beame a malignant demon, … they assembled their host, together they came upon me … My flesh was a shackle, my arms being useless, my person was a fetter, my feet having given way … From writhing my joints were separated, my limbs were splayed and thrust apart …. Marduk, he restored me! He smote the hand of my smiter … It was Marduk who put a muzzle on the mouth of the lion that was devouring me, Marduk took away the sling of my pursuer and deflected his slingstone”. Psalm 22 is essentially a Hebrew attempt at this kind of text; it doesn’t in any way present itself as a prophecy of the future.
The text in v. 16 is also highly difficult and likely corrupt.
The MT has two variants in the verse: k-‘ry “like a lion” and k’rw, which is uninterpretable. The dominant MT reading (found also in Symmachus) yields the following: “Dogs have surrounded me, a band of evil men has encircled me, like a lion my hands and my feet”. This reading is awkward and likely wrong since the third clause lacks a verb (the Aramaic Targum supplies the missing verb “they bite” in order to improve the wording of the text). Or the three lines could be reparsed such that the verse is a bicolon (e.g. “As dogs a band of evil men has surrounded me, like a lion they encircle my hands and feet”). The spelling of ‘ry “lion” is also at variance with ‘ryh elsewhere in the same poem (v. 14, 22), suggesting that “lion” is not correct in v. 16. It is possible then that k’rw is older than k’ry and the latter was one solution influenced by the other references to lions in the poem. What makes k’rw uninterpretable is that no such root k’r exists in biblical Hebrew. The LXX interprets k’rw as deriving from the root krh or kwr “to dig”, which is probably not correct (as there is an extraneous aleph). The LXX version of the verse thus states that “they dug my hands and my feet”. This is the genesis of the “they pierced my hands and my feet” translation, which is biased by Christian crucifixion imagery, as “pierced” better fits the image of metal nails than “dug”, but the correct translation of the Greek (and of krh, the root that the LXX supposes) is indeed “dug”.
The Old Latin versions use foderunt “they dug” as well (cf. Tertullian, Cyprian, Lactantius, Augustine, and Cassiodorus). The imagery in the LXX is not that of crucifixion but of a pack of dogs “digging” at the poet’s hands and feet, clawing and biting at his limbs as he’s fending them off. This image is reinforced by v. 20 in which the poet begs for salvation “from the paw/hand of the dog (m-yd klb)”. Another possibility is that k’rw is either a corruption of kwrw “they bound, wrapped with cloth” (unattested in Hebrew but there is an Arabic root kwr “to wrap cloth around a body part, like a turban”) or a double corruption of ‘srw “they bound” (as in 1QH 5:37-38, which occurs in a similar poetic lament). Either of these is suggested by a third translation option (alongside “like a lion” and “they dug”) in the ancient versions; Aquila’s Greek version has epedésan “they have bound” in Psalm 22:16 and Jerome has Latin vinxerunt “they have bound” in his Psalterium Iuxta Hebraeos. If kwr existed as a Hebrew root which subsequently dropped out of the language (resulting in the confusion between versions), then the image is that of the hands being bound together with cloth (as fetters), and the same with the feet. But there is another fourth option that should also be considered.
The root may well be Aramaic k’r “they soiled, marred” (= Hebrew k`r), which is precisely the correct philological form and thus it is possible that we have an Aramaism here. But this reading has no versional support like the others. So in the end, the meaning of Psalm 22:16 is very uncertain but in neither of the translation options is “crucifixion” really inherent in the text. Briggs’ commentary of the Psalms accepts the LXX reading “they dig into my hands and feet”, and notes that this refers to “the dogs with their teeth … The extremities are first gnawed by the dogs. This is the translation best sustained by the Vrss. and the context. EV ‘pierce’ is not justified by the Hebrew word, and was due to a desire for a specific reference to the crucifixion” (Vol. 2, p. 196).
Also worth noting that the earliest fragment of Psalm 22.16/17 that we have, from Naḥal Ḥever, reads “her hands” (or the nonsensical ידיח) — and I think either of these is an important clue to its Vorlage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY-HkUn0KQk&ab_channel=GnosticInformant
Dr. Kipp Davis makes a pretty convincing case in this video that the “pierced” translation is based on a typo or misreading. The word in the Masoretic text is כארי , like a lion. The proposed verb, כארו, on which the pierced translation is hypothetically based, isn’t actually valid Hebrew. Davis argues that the י and ו letters are easily confused in manuscripts, and the Greek translators just misread.
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https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2015/09/28/a-few-remarks-on-the-problem-of-psalm-2216/
Verse 16: The Main Textual Problem 📜
Verses 16–17 (Hebrew 17–18) are translated fairly literally by the Complete Jewish Bible (CJB) as follows:
Dogs are all around me,
a pack of villains closes in on me
like a lion [at] my hands and feet.
I can count every one of my bones,
while they gaze at me and gloat.
The main difficulty is the italicized phrase like a lion. This is the literal translation of the Hebrew word כארי (ka’ari) that appears here in almost all Masoretic Hebrew manuscripts. However, this text is generally regarded by scholars as unsatisfactory for several reasons:
- Contextually and syntactically, the phrase ought to have a verb there instead of a noun.
- The relationship of “hands and feet” with the rest of the sentence is ambiguous and hard to explain. How are the author’s hands and feet “like a lion”? The CJB attempts to improve the sentence by adding the preposition “at”, but that is not in the Hebrew.
- Our Masoretic manuscripts are all from the Medieval period or later, and early textual traditions in other languages (Greek, Latin, and Syriac) vary widely in their translations; only the Aramaic Targum has the word “lion” there. This confusion suggests that the Hebrew text became corrupt and ambiguous in meaning at an early stage.
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Verse 16 in the Greek Septuagint 📜
The Septuagint (LXX) has an odd translation that is quite different: “They have dug my hands and feet.” It is generally believed that the translator must have had a Hebrew original (Vorlage) that read כארו (ka’aru), which is very similar to the Masoretic כארי (the letters waw and yod are easily confused). The problem is that כארו doesn’t actually mean anything in Hebrew; but it does look a bit like a misspelling of כרו (karu), which would be the perfect tense of כרה (karah), meaning “to dig” (as in “to dig a well”). The translator thus assumed that the word meant “they have dug”. Early Christians, who used the LXX almost exclusively, were soon interpreting this passage as a prophecy about the crucifixion of Christ, whose hands and feet, according to John, were pierced with nails. (Never mind that digging and piercing aren’t quite the same thing.) Mainly for that reason, most Christian translations up until recently translated this phrase as “they pierced my hands and feet”, even though Hebrew manuscript support is flimsy, as we shall see.
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Masoretic Hebrew Variants 📜
A small minority of Masoretic (medieval) manuscripts read ka’aru instead of kaari—hence the assumption that this is what the LXX translator had before him. However, there are at least three problems with this variant: - As noted, its meaning is unclear. If it is supposed to be a conjugation of the root כרה (karah, “to dig”), then it should not have the aleph (א).
- It is unlikely that a word used for digging pits would be used to describe the piercing of someone’s hands and feet with nails. Hebrew has several words that would be more appropriate if “pierce” were intended.
- Crucifixion is not appropriate to the context of Psalm 22 or its historical setting.
There is also a very rare variant כרו (karu, the correct way of writing “they have dug”), but by the textual-critical principle of lex difficilior (“the more difficult variant is to be preferred”), this is almost certainly a late Medieval correction to the text.
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Other Hebrew Variants 📜
Just one fragmentary copy of Psalm 22 has been identified among the Dead Sea Scrolls at Qumran. Unfortunately, this document, known as 4QPsf, becomes illegible at precisely this location in the text. The faded remnants of what may be כר (kr) are visible, but nothing definitive can be learned.
A somewhat later fragment called 5/6HevPs from a cave at Nahal Hever appears to read כארו (ka’aru), but several scholars who have examined the only published facsimile say the ink is too faded to be certain. (See citations for Swenson and Strawn below.)
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Other Greek, Latin, and Aramaic Translations 📜
Other ancient translations add to the confusion. The first Greek translation by Aquila (2nd century CE) read “they have disfigured”, while his second translation read “they have bound.” The Greek translation by Symmachus read “like those who seek to bind”. Jerome translated it initially into Latin as foderunt, “they have pierced”, in his Gallican Psalter (c. 387), but later in his Psalterium iuxta Hebræos (c. 391), he changed it to vinxerunt, “they have bound”—presumably having found a different or better Hebrew source.
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Some Modern Proposals 📜
“To bind” — Gregory Vall (Ave Maria University) proposes that the text originally said אסרו (’asaru), which means “they have bound”. He theorizes that an inadvertent swapping of two letters resulted in the meaningless סארו, which was then interpreted as כארו, and eventually “corrected” to כארי, as most extant manuscripts now read.
The advantage of this view is that it would explain why Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome all translated it as a verb meaning “to bind”.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3266745
“To become short/shriveled” — Michael L. Barré (St. Mary’s Seminary and University) recently revived an earlier proposal by J.J.M. Roberts, who proposed an otherwise unattested Hebrew verb כרי (kari) meaning “to become short/shriveled” on the basis of similar words found in Akkadian and Syriac. Barré concurs that not only did such a verb exist, but that כארו (ka’aru) would be a valid alternative spelling in late Hebrew.
Barré marshals additional evidence from Babylonian medical texts as well a Dead Sea Scroll (1QH) that contains similar language to Psalm 22. He concludes that the psalmist means to say his arms and legs are paralyzed and unable to move.
He proposes that the problem is compounded by a misunderstanding of the following line, “I can count every one of my bones”—a statement that is difficult to explain in context. The Syriac translation reads “all my bones have wailed”, and Barré concludes that the Hebrew verb in this line was corrupted at some point. He interprets this line, properly corrected, to express a lament on behalf of the psalmist’s impending death: “All my bones have intoned my funeral dirge.” He cites further parallels with Babylonian texts and shows how this makes greater sense of the overall psalm: the psalmist is surrounded by attackers, unable to defend himself (with his hands) or run away (with his feet), so he is bemoaning his impending death.
The advantage of this view is that is based on a known variant (ka’aru) and makes more sense of the passage than any other interpretation I have seen. The disadvantages are its need to propose an unattested verb and to emend the following line.
https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/9781575065519-017/html
“To pick/pluck” — Two earlier scholars, R. Tournay and M. Dahood, argued that the word was derived from ארה (’arah, “to pick, pluck”) with a preposition attached. In other words, the psalmist’s body has been “picked clean” by the “dogs” who encircle him, exposing his bones. More recently, James Linville has taken up the case, arguing not only that this is the correct reading, but also that the author has chosen a word that sounds like “lion” in Hebrew as a deliberate pun, since lions and other wild animals are mentioned elsewhere.
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA254098076&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=00219231&p=AONE&sw=w&userGroupName=anon~bfa21cbf
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The “Lion” Reading Reconsidered 📜
A few scholars have also recently lent support for the MT’s reading of “like a lion”. Brent A. Strawn has analyzed the chiastic structure of Psalm 22 and believes that a reference to a lion in v. 16 fits well. He proposes the addition of a missing verb, טרף (taraf), meaning “to tear”.
Kristin M. Swenson believes v. 16, which is currently divided into three phrases, should be a bicolon (two-part verse). Putting the divider in its correct location produces the following text:
Dogs surround me, a pack of wicked ones. Like a lion, they circumscribe my hands and feet.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/3268463
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Consensus amidst Discord 📜
These examples are just a few of the ways in which scholars reconstruct Psalm 22:17 in order to make sense of it. While there is no consensus as to what the original reading was—and barring a new manuscript find, there may never be one—a few general observations can be drawn:
- Most, though not all, critical scholars believe the majority Masoretic text is defective on syntactic grounds and probably not original.
- There is widespread agreement among critical scholars (including all those surveyed here) that Psalm 22 is not a depiction of crucifixion, and that the Septuagint’s translation of “dig” is incorrect. It is best explained as a misunderstanding of the word כארו, which may or not have been the original Hebrew reading.
- Most solutions require emending the passage, and this must be done in a way that is sensitive to the passage’s poetic structure and the meaning of v. 16 in its larger context.
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English Translations of Psalm 22 📜
Historically, most Christian, church-oriented translations of Psalm 22 have deviated from the Masoretic text in this verse, preferring instead a christological interpretation inspired by the Septuagint.
KJV: For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.
RSV: Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet—
NASB: For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.
Recently, more ecumenical and academically-oriented translations have approached passages like Ps 22:16 with a clean slate. The NRSV, for example, adopts Roberts’ interpretation as the best one while stating in a footnote that the meaning of the Hebrew is uncertain:
For dogs are all around me; a company of evildoers encircles me. My hands and feet have shriveled;
The Jerusalem Bible gives more weight to the witness of Jerome, Aquila, and Symmachus:
A pack of dogs surrounds me, a gang of villains closes me in; they tie me hand and foot…
The recently completed Common English Bible (CEB) adheres to the majority Hebrew:
Dogs surround me; a pack of evil people circle me like a lion—oh, my poor hands and feet!
What should we consider to be a correct translation versus an incorrect one, if we cannot confidently reconstruct and interpret the original Hebrew? In part, it comes down to the stated intent of the translation. If a translation claims to be based on the Hebrew Masoretic text, then “like a lion” is probably the best translation. If a translation’s goal is to provide a “best guess” at what the original author intended, then there are many scholarly reconstructions that would suffice, and explanatory footnotes are in order as well. I regard the latter three examples (the NRSV, JB, and CEB) all to be adequate translations, though they differ completely from each other.
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Psalm 22:16 in the NIV 📜
The NIV purports to be based on the Hebrew Masoretic Text, though its translators also consult other ancient versions in places where the MT “seems doubtful”:
In Psalm 22:16, the NIV has not followed the standard Masoretic Text, even though Jewish translations and some English translations find it acceptable.
Dogs surround me, a pack of villains encircles me; they pierce my hands and my feet.
If the translators felt the MT was dubious, then fair enough. But did they choose in its place a textual witness that “appeared to provide the correct reading”, or did they simply acquiesce to Christian tradition and theological bias of what the verse should say?
Three of the sources they mention—Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome—interpret the psalmists hands and feet as being “bound”, without any reference to crucifixion or piercing. The Aramaic Targum supports the Masoretic reading of “lion”. Even the Septuagint can only be vaguely construed as meaning “pierced”. I would say that the NIV, having abandoned the Hebrew text, has chosen the least viable of the alternative interpretations available.
The NIV redeems itself somewhat by including a footnote:
Dead Sea Scrolls and some manuscripts of the Masoretic Text, Septuagint and Syriac; most manuscripts of the Masoretic Text me, / like a lion.
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Psalm 22’s Christological Interpretive Tradition in Light of Christian Anti-Jewish Polemic
https://muse.jhu.edu/article/9937
Psalm 22 has been central to christological readings of the Hebrew Scriptures since the gospels were written, if not before. Allusions to Psalm 22 appear in all the gospels, but they are most prominent in John. For instance, while Jesus is on the cross, the soldiers divide his clothing among themselves and cast lots for his tunic. This transpires, according to John, in order to fulfill the scripture of Psalm 22.19: “They will divide my clothing among them and for the things that I wear they will throw lots” (John 19.23–4).2 In Mark, Matthew and Luke, the onlookers, both commoners and priests, mock Jesus and challenge him to save himself perhaps reflecting the psalmist’s claim (Psalm 22.7–8) that “All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their heads. He committed his cause to the Lord; let him deliver him.”3 In addition, in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew Jesus cries out the opening line of Psalm 22: “My God, my God why have you forsaken me.”4 Psalm 22’s tormented voice clearly speaks of the Passion to the gospel writers.5
Later Christian writers, specifically Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Aphrahat, develop the gospels’ christological interpretation of this [End Page 37] psalm. Interestingly, these writers focus not on Psalm 22.1, 7–8 or 19, as the gospels do, but on Psalm 22.17. The third part of this verse, which is often translated as “They have pierced my hands and feet,” is fundamental to these writers’ exegesis. This image of pierced limbs describes for them Jesus’ exclusive experience on the cross. Why is this seemingly appropriate image unknown to the gospel writers? Why do they dwell on the divided clothing, the mocking spectators and the cry of despair but not the pierced hands and feet? Finally, why do only several geographically and linguistically diverse exegetes concentrate on the pierced hands and feet in the centuries beginning with Justin Martyr?
This paper will argue that Psalm 22.17’s exegetical development is intrinsically linked to early Jewish-Christian polemic and Christian self-identification. It is only with these three authors’6 apologetic and anti-Jewish polemical works that the image of pierced limbs appears. It is my contention that this passage’s christological interpretation is an extra-New Testament evolution and dependent on early patristic understandings of the Septuagint’s translation. It is an outcome of real, or perceived, early Jewish-Christian debates and most likely originates with Justin Martyr. This study helps illuminate the creation and dissemination of early standardized Christian exegesis for use in active and continuing anti-Jewish polemics throughout the first few centuries of the common era.
In order to understand this progression it is necessary first to outline the translation problems Psalm 22.17 has caused scholars and exegetes over the years. I will then discuss Justin, Tertullian and Aphrahat’s shared exegesis of Psalm 22.17 and finally its place within early Jewish-Christian polemics.
Walton Matthews & Chavalas (in The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament) write: “The understanding of the description of the hands and feet here has been problematic. The Hebrew verb, traditionally translated as ‘pierced,’ occurs only here, and can only be translated that way if it is emended. As it stands it indicates that the psalmist’s hands and feet are ‘like a lion,’ which some commentators have interpreted to mean that the psalmist’s hands and feet were trussed up on a stick as a captured lion would be. Unfortunately, despite all the lion hunting scenes that are preserved and described, no lion is shown being transported this way. If a verb is desirable here, a suitable candidate must be found among the related Semitic languages. The most likely one is similar to Akkadian and Syriac cognates that have the meaning, ‘shrink or shrivel’. Akkadian medical texts speak of a symptom in which the hands and feet are shrunken. Matthew 27 is of no help because it does not refer to this line.”
David Flusser (in Talmudic Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Prof. E.S. Rosenthal; Magnes, 1993) did propose that כאר (generally a late Aramaism found in Mishnaic Hebrew) was the root in question accepting כארו as the original form in Psalm 22:17, as attested in 5/6ḤevPsalms. However the semantics is less clear-cut. My understanding is that “to be ugly, disgusting, repulsive” is the general meaning in Hebrew, with “put to shame, despise” found in the Syriac cognate, although 4QpNahum may use the term in this sense. Flusser suggests something like “mar with wounds” or “disfigure”, and the metaphors in the psalm include lions tearing at their prey (v. 14), with the psalmist’s body poured like water and bones out of joint (v. 15), and with the psalmist facing swords, the horns of bulls, the mouths of lions, and the paws of dogs (v. 21-22). However there is also the notion of ridicule in v. 7-8, 18. As for αἰσχύνω, this was similarly polysemous with senses of “make ugly”, “tarnish”, “make ashamed” (the overwhelmingly dominant meaning in usage).
The reading of Nahum 3:6 in 4QpNahum also raises another possibility. This pesher takes כראי as כאורה with a simple letter exchange (metathesis of א and ר), so I wonder what happens if the reverse occurs in Psalm 22:17. “My hands and feet are (like) a spectacle (כראי, as in Nahum 3:6), I can count all my bones, they all look and gawk at me”. This seems to fit rather well. The limbs are something to gawk at, then the author himself looks at his (exposed?) bones, and finally everyone else is looking and gawking at the spectacle. I am also reminded of Isaiah 52:14, with the servant, with his appearance being so marred (משחת) that others were astonished to look at him. Interesting proposal about ידחו רגלי, but it means that it has the MT version arising from י replacing ח, and I don’t know how well-attested this kind of interchange is, as opposed to י/ו and ח/ה. Also this would have two adjacent verbs in the same colon, which seems unusual. Also since ידי ורגלי is no longer the object of כארו, it seems strange that you use the attested כארו form and not a form with a suffixed 1s object which the other two verbs in the verse do (e.g. סבבוני and הקיפוני), but indeed that is not what is attested.