Jack the Bodiless

Psalms 22:21 (KJV): "Save me from the lion's mouth..."

So there are still lions among the menagerie, apparently.

BTW, bulls lack opposable thumbs too. And, unlike lions, they don't tear at hands and feet: they gore, kick and trample.

Notsri

Jack, the psalmist undoubtedly has real flesh-and-blood adversaries in mind—a certain "company of evildoers" (v. 16). Bulls of Bashan, lions, etc., are used figuratively to represent that group, presumably to underscore its strength, ferocity, and so on.

For similar instances, one might cf. Amos 4.1:

Hear this word, you cows of Bashan, who are in the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy, who say to their husbands, 'Bring, that we may drink!'

Or Jeremiah 50.17:

Israel is a hunted sheep driven away by lions. First the king of Assyria devoured him, and now at last Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon has gnawed his bones.

Jack the Bodiless

But that only serves to make "pierced" even less likely, if anything. At least teeth might do that. But a bunch of humans surround a guy and... pierce his hands and feet?

I see that "bind" does make perfect sense here, however.

Notsri

I would tend to agree: "bind" does make good sense in the psalm. But on the other hand, it's also notable that the psalmist is frightened of "the horns of [these] wild oxen" (v. 21).

Incidentally, IIRC someone on the B-Hebrew list suggested not too long ago, that the Dictionary of Classical Hebrew affirms a possible translation of "pierced" for KRH. If anyone has access to that work, as I do not, it might be worth looking into, for the sake of this discussion.

Apikorus

It would be unusual to be gored in the hands, and very strange indeed to be gored in the feet.

I would modestly call your attention to my own novel solution: here.

Notsri

I suppose it would be unusual; but impossible, no. And in fact, I think Jack was on to something in that last post, something I seem to have glossed over a bit in my response.

In vv. 12-13, the psalmist grows terrified of the open mouths of these "strong bulls of Bashan," mouths that are "ravening and roaring like a lion." As Jack intimated before, the psalmist is afraid of the dangers posed by these ferocious teeth that now surround him.

The psalmist clearly returns to this theme in v. 21, where he's concerned for the "mouth of the lion." The psalmist paints an even more imaginative portrait here, though, in vv. 20-21, where, in parallelism with "mouth of the lion," he uses "horns of the wild oxen," "power of the dog," and "sword." That is, he's afraid of being bitten by the "dogs" and "lions" (cf. the Targum), or gored by the "oxen"—i.e. literally stabbed or, dare I say, pierced by the enemy's sword. In keeping with that imagery then, and given the psalmist's concerns, I think the "Christian" rendition of v. 16(17) works well:

Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet.

In that connection, I would say that, for me, anyway, your proposed solution, interesting though it may be, seems too elliptical, which weakens v. 16's connection to vv. 12-13, 20-21.

In any event, why would one's enemies stab their hands and feet? I don't know. Perhaps to hobble them, to make them live out the rest of their miserable life as a cripple (something akin to Zedekiah's fate: "They slew the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes, and put out the eyes of Zedekiah, and bound him in fetters, and took him to Babylon").

But now back to the question of whether KRH can legitimately be translated "to pierce" ...

gregor

Prax will be right back with that one. . .

Apikorus

Lions kill their prey by biting down on the neck, collapsing the trachea, leading to suffocation. Again, one is rarely gored in the hands and essentially never in the feet. Dogs usually attack the legs first. Swordsmen would never attack small fast-moving targets like hands and feet. So the imagery of being bitten or stabbed in the hands and feet is distinctly odd. Moreover, wounds to the hands and feet are rarely fatal.

Hobbling was generally done as a punishment to prisoners who were already restrained. The subject of Psalm 22 is being persecuted and pursued. Hobbling makes very little sense in this context.

The Christian reading is a manifestly tendentious one, apparently without a shred of philological merit. Its sole basis is to turn this psalm into a prophecy of Jesus' crucifixion.

Jack the Bodiless

It appears that the psalmist is using a thoroughly mixed metaphor, incorporating a variety of wild animals. As we're obviously not talking about real bulls surrounding and attacking a real person, they're quite free to morph into "lions" and attack as lions, as the preceding verse implies. And anyone attempting to fend off an attacking lion is likely to get their hands and feet bitten, even though this isn't a lion's preferred attack mode.

I'm wondering if the "missing verb" could be a deliberate contraction? If it really is "like a lion", then the "lion" is just doing what lions do: no need to spell it out.

But none of the animals specified have opposable thumbs: definitely no crucifixion!

Notsri

Whether or not the psalm describes (say) a lion's attack, in a sort of forensic manner, seems to me to miss the point. Certain aspects of reality are subordinate to the psalm's symbolism. The psalmist is afraid of his enemies' swords. The animals' teeth or horns correspond to the swords. If he were stabbed by his enemies' swords in the hands and feet, then the psalmist has only been true to the metaphor by having the dogs' (teeth) likewise pierce the hands and feet. That a dog might actually attack the legs first is beside the point.

Also, the psalmist seemingly is restrained. He's surrounded (vv. 12, 16). His clothing has been removed (v. 18). So hobbling still seems plausible to me.