H738

• {"n":"Psalm 22:16","s":"They pierced my hands and my feet, or like a lion. One letter, and it is the wrong length in some copies.","u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/#id=psalm-22-16","r":"Psalm 22:16","b":[{"l":"How modern translations read it","t":"Almost every Christian English version reads pierced. Jewish publications read like a lion. The NIV footnotes both. The King James reads pierced without a note."},{"l":"First, in plain English","t":"Imagine two letters in your alphabet that differ only by how far the stroke comes down. A tired copyist in poor light makes one slightly short, and four hundred years later two communities are arguing about what the sentence says. Nobody had to be dishonest for that to happen."},{"l":"What you are seeing","t":"The Masoretic Text reads ka'ari, like a lion, which leaves the line with no verb. The Septuagint, the Peshitta, and Jerome's earlier Gallican Psalter (the version behind the standard Vulgate text) all read a verb meaning dug or pierced. A fragment from Nahal Hever, 5\/6HevPs, dated to roughly the middle of the first century, has the word ending in a vav rather than a yod, which makes it a third-person plural verb."},{"l":"Why translators split","t":"The difference is a vav against a yod, two letters distinguished mainly by length. This is not a translation problem at all. It is a copying problem, and English can only report the outcome."},{"l":"The rule to carry away","t":"When two communities read the same verse in opposite directions, find out whether the disagreement is about meaning or about letters. Here it is letters, which makes it checkable rather than merely arguable."},{"l":"Choosing between them","t":"The case for pierced: three ancient versions, the Nahal Hever fragment, the minority Masoretic notes, and the fact that the Masoretic reading leaves the clause without a verb. The case against: Nahal Hever is not Qumran and is later than the Qumran material, the fragment is faded and has been read both ways, the Targum supports the lion reading, and Aquila, Symmachus, and Jerome's later translation direct from the Hebrew (his Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos, a different edition from the Gallican Psalter cited above) all render the hands and feet as bound rather than pierced. Anyone who tells you this is closed has not read the other side."},{"l":"The word","t":"\u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0\u05b2\u05e8\u05d5\u05bc \/ \u05db\u05b8\u05bc\u05d0\u05b2\u05e8\u05b4\u05d9 ka'aru \/ ka'ari \u00b7 H3738 \/ H738"}],"src":["5\/6HevPs (Nahal Hever) Fragment 11, published by Peter Flint in Discoveries in the Judaean Desert, reads the word ending in vav","Septuagint oruxan, they dug; Peshitta and Vulgate agree","Masoretic ka'ari, like a lion, with ka'aru in a minority of manuscripts and in the Masoretic notes","Kristin Swenson argues for the lion reading and disputes the legibility of the fragment","Aquila, Symmachus and Jerome read the hands and feet as bound; the Targum supports the lion reading"]}