They Have Pierced My Hands and My Feet - Text of Psalm 22:16

Text of Psalm 22:16

This verse, which is Psalm 22:17 in the Hebrew verse numbering, reads in the Masoretic Text as: כארי ידי ורגלי ("like a lion my hands and my feet"). The full verse of the Masoretic text read: .ילגרו ידי ,יראכ ;ינופיקה ,םיערמ תדע :םיבלכ ,ינובבס יכ זי,בכ םיליהת

The syntactical form of the Hebrew phrase appears to be lacking a verb, and this is supplied in the Aramaic targum which reads "they bite like a lion my hands and my feet". The Septuagint has ωρυξαν χειράς μου και πόδας ("they have dug/pierced my hands and feet"), evidently taking the Hebrew to be based on the root ‏כרה, supported by the Dead Sea Scrolls, Hahal Hever (5/6Hev1b f8_9:12) ‏כרידי . 'Dig' has been understood in the sense of 'pierced' (as in Psalm 40:7/6), hence the rendering in the Syriac ("they have pierced my hands and feet").

Aquila of Sinope, a Christian convert to Judaism, undertook two translations of the Psalms from Hebrew to Greek. In the first, he renders the verse "they disfigured my hands and feet"; in the second he revised this to "they have bound my hands and feet". Jerome, translating the Psalms for the Latin Vulgate also made two versions. The earlier, from the Hexaplar Greek, reads "they have dug my hands and feet"; the later, made directly from pre-Masoretic Hebrew texts, reads with Aquila "they have bound my hands and feet".