Psalm 22:16/17

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kwrandolph
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by kwrandolph »

Jason Hare wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 7:24 am
kwrandolph wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:05 pm My first question here is: why are you so hot on trying to prove that כרה must mean “to dig” when this thread is about כאר used as a verb in Psalm 22:17? And as a participle in Amos 8:8? Why do’t you open your arguments in a new thread?
Oh, wow. Are you proposing a hapax legomenon verb כָּאַר? I’d never read that from anyone.
How much have you been reading? I’ve heard it from multiple sources, including a thread on this forum back in the days when it was hosted by ibiblio (the ibiblio files have been heavily edited, deleting even complete threads, it may no longer be there).

Karl W. Randolph.
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by kwrandolph »

David:
ducky wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:53 am Hi Karl,
kwrandolph wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:05 pm My first question here is: why are you so hot on trying to prove that כרה must mean “to dig” when this thread is about כאר used as a verb in Psalm 22:17?
I saw it important to talk about the root כרה because of the fact that I see its English translation being confusing to the English speaker.
Irrelevant to the subject of this thread.
ducky wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:53 am And so, once I saw it, I took the opportunity to say my thoughts about this Hebrew root in this Hebrew forum.
There are other places in bhebrew where such things are discussed. May I suggest Etymological & Lexicographic Approaches to the Hebrew Bible?
ducky wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:53 am
kwrandolph wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:05 pm The principle here is what was the original reading? And what message was intended by the original text?
The principle that I was talking about is a general one. And it is not to see the equation of "older=more reliable" as the ultimate truth.
I don't say that is also false. But it is to be seen only as one of the factors of examination (and put on a scale together with the other factors).
And I answered with three factors, not just one.
ducky wrote: Mon Jan 02, 2023 11:53 am
kwrandolph wrote: Sun Jan 01, 2023 11:05 pm And as a participle in Amos 8:8?
The verse appears again in Amos 9:5
Can you please explain the difference?

Amos 8:8 וְאָבַל כׇּל יוֹשֵׁב בָּהּ וְעָלְתָה כָאֹר כֻּלָּהּ וְנִגְרְשָׁה [וְנִשְׁקְעָה] (ונשקה) כִּיאוֹר מִצְרָיִם
Amos 9:5 וְאָבְלוּ כׇּל יוֹשְׁבֵי בָהּ וְעָלְתָה כַיְאֹר כֻּלָּהּ וְשָׁקְעָה כִּיאֹר מִצְרָיִם
Because it’s a different verse. Just because it sounds similar does not mean that an exact match was intended.

What is written is what is written. What you will need to show is manuscript evidence that Amos 8:8 originally had כיאר. The Masoretic points don’t count.

Karl W. Randolph.
ducky
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by ducky »

Hi Karl,

Let's open a completely blank page.

Here is the part from Amos 8:8
ואבל כל יושב בה ועלתה כאר כלה ונגרשה ונשקה כיאור מצרים

Can you please explain your reading and understanding?
David Hunter
kwrandolph
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by kwrandolph »

David:

This is not a completely blank page, therefore I won’t answer you here. Open a new thread.

Karl W. Randolph.
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by kwrandolph »

This verse has been the subject of controversy for generations. One reason is the poetic division of the verse. Let’s start with the LXX.

οτι εκυκλωσαν με κυνες πολλοι συναγωγη πονηρευομενων περιεσχον με ωρυξαν χειρας μου και ποδας

This translation indicates that the original would have been divided into three parts:

כי סבבוני כלבים
עדת מרעים הקיפוני
כארו ידי ורגלי

With this division we expect כארו to be a verb. It has been so translated since the KJV if not before. That’s why Christians especially were excited to find the Nahal Heber scrap with the word as כארו being a verb. For this reason, many have commented on the Najal Heber scrap.

But is there a possibility of a different division of the verse, as follows:

כי סבבוני כלבים עדת מרעים
הקיפוני כארי ידי ורגלי

where עדת מרעים is an adjectival phrase describing כלבים? And כארי being a noun / participle plural in construct? If so, כארי would refer to those doing the action. עדת מרעים is singular, but the LXX combines it with the plural הקיפוני and many translations have followed the lead of the LXX. הקיפוני is also causative, “they cause to encircle me” with the plural referring back to כלבים.

Of course, the Masoretic points are worthless here, as usual.

That still leaves the question of what does כאר mean? David Hunter suggested it might be related to Talmudic Hebrew “ugly” and a professor years ago on this forum maybe it is related to “distort, twist out of shape” from a cognate language.

Any thoughts?

Karl W. Randolph.
ducky
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by ducky »

Hi Karl,

Please... If you're gonna use my name in your post, please be accurate.
I've never suggested that this word relates to "ugly" in this verse.

When you told us about an old suggestion that was given here a long time ago with the meaning of "distort, twist out of shape" and that you didn't remember anything else about it, I thought that maybe this same suggestion that was given here was based on the Mishnaic root כאר with the relation of "ugly".

I never said that I think that this is what we see here.
I actually said that this is not a verb at all.
And that this noun כארי was turned to כארו in popular versions to try to avoid the confusing syntax.


By the way, If I did believe that this is a verb כארו, I would try to understand it with the meaning of "roundness".
(since this is the basic meaning of these letters כר in most cases), and so it would fit the other verbs in that context with the meaning.
That is what I think happened when the word was "changed" into a verb.
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Jason Hare
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by Jason Hare »

Why not just read it as two phrases?
כי סבבוני כלבים
עדת מרעים הקיפוני כארי ידי ורגלי

For dogs have surrounded me;
a band of evildoers have encircled me like a lion [would encircle] my hands and my feet.
If you were pinned in by a lion, you would not be able to move a hand or a foot without it being attacked. What’s the problem as it is written? Hebrew often expresses poetic concepts with ellipsis.

Agreement between עדה and הקיפו is easily explained by constructio ad sensum. There’s nothing to force grammatical agreement.
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by Jason Hare »

Karl,

We use הִקִּיף to mean “draw a circle” when we tell children to identify the correct answer on an exam. It is not “causative.” That is importing too much information from the hiphil binyan. Just like הִשְׁמִין can mean “get fat” (in addition to “make fat”), so הִקִּיף simply means “encircle” (that is, “make a cirlce”) and הֵבִין can mean either “understand” or “make someone understand.” It is unjustifiable to make the assertion that all hiphil verbs mean “cause x to do something.”

סָבַב and הִקִּיף are frequently used in conjunction when describing the seige of a city. For example:
Joshua 6:3 (MT)
וְסַבֹּתֶ֣ם אֶת־הָעִ֗יר כֹּ֚ל אַנְשֵׁ֣י הַמִּלְחָמָ֔ה הַקֵּ֥יף אֶת־הָעִ֖יר פַּ֣עַם אֶחָ֑ת כֹּ֥ה תַעֲשֶׂ֖ה שֵׁ֥שֶׁת יָמִֽים׃
You shall go around (וְסַבֹּתֶם qal perf wacons 2mp) the city, all the men of war. Encircle (הַקֵּיף hiph impv 2ms) the city once. Thus shall you do (תַעֲשֶׂה qal impf 2ms) for six days.
It certainly doesn’t intend to instruct the Israelites to make the city go in a circle or some nonsense. It means to make a circle around the city. This is what the psalmist is describing, that evildoers are making a cirlce around him, as if they were a lion preventing him from moving in any direction.

Also, note that the first verb is plural, whereas the imperative is singular, as well as the “thus shall you do” statement. With our hindsight, we might have altered the entire sentence to read:
וְסָבְבוּ אֶת־הָעִיר כֹּל אַנְשֵׁי הַמִּלְחָמָה יַקִּ֫יפוּ אֶת־הָעִיר פַּ֫עַם אֶחָד כֹּה יַעֲשׂוּ שֵׁ֫שֶׁת יָמִים׃
And all the men of war shall surround (וְסָבְבוּ qal perf wacons 3mp) the city. They shall encircle (יַקִּ֫יפוּ hiph impf 3mp) the city one time. Thus shall they do (יַעֲשׂוּ qal impf 3mp) for six days.
This would keep the whole thing 3mp and dropping the imperative for a modal “they shall/should/will/must encircle.” Likewise, we could make the whole thing 2mp by continuing it throughout the verse (וְסַבֹּתֶם ← הַקִּ֫יפוּ ← תַעֲשׂוּ). We have to deal with the fact that the Hebrew Bible often changes person or number unexpectedly and not make a big issue out of such things.
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kwrandolph
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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by kwrandolph »

Jason Hare wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:26 am Karl,

We use הִקִּיף to mean “draw a circle” when we tell children to identify the correct answer on an exam. It is not “causative.”
Don’t confuse Biblical Hebrew with modern Israeli Hebrew. There are so many things that are different between the two languages and what you illustrate here is one of them.
Jason Hare wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:26 am
סָבַב and הִקִּיף are frequently used in conjunction when describing the seige of a city. For example:

Joshua 6:3 (MT)
וְסַבֹּתֶ֣ם אֶת־הָעִ֗יר כֹּ֚ל אַנְשֵׁ֣י הַמִּלְחָמָ֔ה הַקֵּ֥יף אֶת־הָעִ֖יר פַּ֣עַם אֶחָ֑ת כֹּ֥ה תַעֲשֶׂ֖ה שֵׁ֥שֶׁת יָמִֽים׃
You shall go around (וְסַבֹּתֶם qal perf wacons 2mp) the city, all the men of war. Encircle (הַקֵּיף hiph impv 2ms) the city once. Thus shall you do (תַעֲשֶׂה qal impf 2ms) for six days.
I always read הקיף את העיר is used as an adverbial phrase modifying סבתם, not a verb, in this verse.
Jason Hare wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:26 am
This is what the psalmist is describing, that evildoers are making a cirlce around him, as if they were a lion preventing him from moving in any direction.
That’s a very strange action for a lion. What’s the probability that the ancients, who still had lions around them, would have had that meaning? How does that fit with hands and feet as written?
Jason Hare wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:26 am
Also, note that the first verb is plural, whereas the imperative is singular, as well as the “thus shall you do” statement. With our hindsight, we might have altered the entire sentence to read:

וְסָבְבוּ אֶת־הָעִיר כֹּל אַנְשֵׁי הַמִּלְחָמָה יַקִּ֫יפוּ אֶת־הָעִיר פַּ֫עַם אֶחָד כֹּה יַעֲשׂוּ שֵׁ֫שֶׁת יָמִים׃
And all the men of war shall surround (וְסָבְבוּ qal perf wacons 3mp) the city. They shall encircle (יַקִּ֫יפוּ hiph impf 3mp) the city one time. Thus shall they do (יַעֲשׂוּ qal impf 3mp) for six days.
This would keep the whole thing 3mp and dropping the imperative for a modal “they shall/should/will/must encircle.” Likewise, we could make the whole thing 2mp by continuing it throughout the verse (וְסַבֹּתֶם ← הַקִּ֫יפוּ ← תַעֲשׂוּ). We have to deal with the fact that the Hebrew Bible often changes person or number unexpectedly and not make a big issue out of such things.
Here you go, changing things to fit your understanding.

If you really want to understand Biblical Hebrew, don’t change it to fit modern expectations. The reason the Masoretic points are so untrustworthy is because they changed the text through their points and Ketib / Qere pairs in order that their understanding would match the Tiberian Hebrew that they knew at that time. What is written is what is written. Analyze deeply what is written before emending the text.

Did you address my proposed division of the verse? If so, I didn’t recognize it.

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Re: Psalm 22:16/17

Post by Jason Hare »

kwrandolph wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:23 pmDon’t confuse Biblical Hebrew with modern Israeli Hebrew. There are so many things that are different between the two languages and what you illustrate here is one of them.
I’m not “confusing” anything except to say that your knowledge of Hebrew is insufficient because it isn’t a living language for you. Biblical and modern Hebrew use the word the same word לְהַקִּיף “to make a circle around something.” Simply stating that we use a word in modern Hebrew doesn’t discount what the word means. You don’t experience Hebrew as a language for yourself, to your detriment. Perhaps if you could speak Hebrew, you’d have a place to criticize others from and could make a distinction for yourself, rather than just saying that knowing modern Hebrew discounts what we see in the biblical language. This is a tired and baseless accusation.
kwrandolph wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:23 pmI always read הקיף את העיר is used as an adverbial phrase modifying סבתם, not a verb, in this verse.
In this instance, הַקֵּיף is an imperative (that is, הַקֵּף). The vav-consecutive perfect is also used as a sort of imperative.
kwrandolph wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:23 pmThat’s a very strange action for a lion. What’s the probability that the ancients, who still had lions around them, would have had that meaning? How does that fit with hands and feet as written?
A strange action for a lion to move right and left around the prey that it has trapped, not allowing it to move without being in danger of a strike? Now you make me question your experience of the real world. The psalmist is saying that he feels trapped. That if he moves a hand, it will be attacked. If he moves a foot, it will be attacked. What’s odd about this?
kwrandolph wrote: Fri Jan 06, 2023 10:23 pmHere you go, changing things to fit your understanding.

If you really want to understand Biblical Hebrew, don’t change it to fit modern expectations. The reason the Masoretic points are so untrustworthy is because they changed the text through their points and Ketib / Qere pairs in order that their understanding would match the Tiberian Hebrew that they knew at that time. What is written is what is written. Analyze deeply what is written before emending the text.

Did you address my proposed division of the verse? If so, I didn’t recognize it.
As I said: “We have to deal with the fact that the Hebrew Bible often changes person or number unexpectedly and not make a big issue out of such things.” The text itself shifts from second to third person. If you read it all in third person or in second person, it will make perfect sense how the grammar should be approached. This is a hypothetical reconstruction, not an altering of the text. A skill that students learn when learning living language is to paraphrase a text that they’ve just read. Paraphrasing is not emending the text. We can re-word texts without destroying the text itself.

Why do I always forget that you’re a dishonest interlocutor and cannot have a conversation without saying unfounded and ignorant things? You don’t know how to recognize an imperative, to determine what a verb is, or even to speak any form of the language that you want to claim expertise in, and yet you act like your approach to the text is better than that of anyone else.
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