B-Hebrew: The Biblical Hebrew Forum

I am discussing Psalm 139:16 with a colleague. Here is my attempt at translation.

"Your eyes saw my embryo / and upon your scroll / all of them would be recorded / days were fashioned (ordained) / when not one among them (was)" or more smoothly "Your eyes saw my embryo, and all my days were planned--all of them would be recorded upon your scroll--when not one of them existed."

He suggests that "my embryo" (גלמי) is a collective noun and that "all of them" refers not to "days" but to "embryo," particularly because he cannot find support for the third person plural pronoun referring to anything other than an antecedent--never to a noun that follows. Likewise, Calvin apparently liked the translation that it was David's bodily "members" that were written down--not his days. Jastrow in his Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature notes that we should read the plural form "embryos."

Can you shed any light on this topic?

Hebrew text:
גלמי ראו עיניך ועל ספרך כלם יכתבו ימים יצרו ולאק אחד בהם

We are dealing with poetry, so not finding "conventional" uses of Hebrew shouldn't come as much of a surprise.

FWIW, the LXX agrees more or less with Hebrew, taking a more or less literal approach to each word:

τὸ ἀκατέργαστόν μου εἴδοσαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί σου, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ βιβλίον σου πάντες γραφήσονται· ἡμέρας πλασθήσονται, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐν αὐτοῖς.
My uninformed shape your eyes saw, and upon your book all shall be written, for days they shall be formed, yet nothing [is] in them.

The Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) reads something a little different (differences underlined in translation):

גלמי ראו עיניכה ועל ספריכה כולם יכתבו ימים יצרו ולו באח מהמה

My embryo your eyes saw, and in your books all of them were written, the days [of] its formation also/even for it(?) with a companion from them all.

I'm not quite sure exactly what the DSS is attempting to say, but it does seem to agree more with the "all of them" being in regards to the days rather than the embryo. The DSS Hebrew appears to be talking more about the days for the formation of the body, rather than a predestinitive "my days [of life] were written in your books".

The root גלם 'form, shape, hold together, enclose, encase', ( of which the post-biblical גלימה GLIYMAH, 'wrap-around, cloak', related to כלימה, 'shame', as in Ps. 109:29), is a variant of חלם, 'dream, form by the inner eye, realize in the confines mind'.
In the previous verse Ps. 139:15, which sheds light on the next, we read
לֹא נִכְחַד עָצְמִי מִמֶּךָּ אֲשֶׁר עֻשֵּׂיתִי בַסֵּתֶר רֻקַּמְתִּי בְּתַחְתִּיּוֹת אָרֶץ
NIV: "My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth."
where the root רקם is, interestingly enough, a variant of רחם, of which we have רֶחֶם 'womb, entrails, viscera'.

I would dare read נִכְּחַד, not the chocked NIXXAD, the lack of dagesh not withstanding.

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Thanks for your responses! They have perhaps only deepened the uncertainty of my question. Which sense do you gentlemen or others prefer based on the Hebrew text? That the referent of כלם is the embryo (despite being singular) or the days? Care to lean one way or the other? And what would be your strongest argument in favor of your choice?

CowboysDad wrote:Thanks for your responses! They have perhaps only deepened the uncertainty of my question. Which sense do you gentlemen or others prefer based on the Hebrew text? That the referent of כלם is the embryo (despite being singular) or the days? Care to lean one way or the other? And what would be your strongest argument in favor of your choice?

Well, it's safe to say that we probably have a corrupt text here in Psalm 139:16 (especially in light of the DSS reading), so I wouldn't worry about the uncertainty of your question too much

For me, I would take the כלם as referring to days rather than embryo, more based on context rather than anything else. As I mentioned, this is poetry, so unconventional uses of words in poetry are common in every language (see the discussion on Prov 23:7 as an example - viewtopic.php?f=6&t=533). I also see no evidence at all to think of גלמי as a collective noun or that it should be a plural.

Furthermore, looking at the placement of ימים in the verse, I think that it's a deliberate one, in that I would read it as each phrase before and after as a reference to ימים.

But then, I could quite easily be wrong. Biblical Hebrew can be quite unforgiving at times

I think one may understand it this way:
גָּלְמִי רָאוּ עֵינֶיך "your eyes observed my raw form." (even though I was still tucked hidden in my mother's belly. Compare תְּסֻכֵּנִי בְּבֶטֶן אִמִּי of verse 13, and אֲשֶׁר עֻשֵּׂיתִי בַסֵּתֶר of verse 15.)
וְעַל סִפְרְךָ כֻּלָּם יִכָּתֵבוּ "Every unborn is being inscribed in the heavenly book of human inventory."
יָמִים יֻצָּרוּ "In all, It takes many days of gestation for the completion of the creation of of the new life. יֻצָּרוּ are the fetuses not the days.
ולא (וְלוֹ) אֶחָד בָּהֶם "not one fetus is disregarded."

Isaac Fried, Boston University

Where can I view the Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) that is referenced?