Is Psalm 22:16 About The Crucifixion?

Asher Chee |

Psalm 22:16 KJV For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

Psalm 22:16 is popularly understood by Christians as a prophetic prediction of Jesus’ death on the cross. The saying, “They pierced my hands and my feet,” is taken to be a depiction of crucifixion.

A Deliberate Mistranslation?

Of course, non-Christian Jews do not accept this Christian interpretation. Many Jewish theologians even accuse Christians of deliberately mistranslating and twisting the verse to fit the assertion that Jesus’ death on the cross is being prophetically predicted.

The Masoretic Text is used most widely by both Jews and Christians as the authoritative Hebrew text of the Jewish Scriptures (“Old Testament”). In the Masoretic Text, the significant sentence reads:

כארי ידי ורגלי

Like a lion, my hands and my feet.

Indeed, the sentence does not contain any word meaning “pierce”. Instead, the first word of the sentence, כארי, means “like a lion”. However, the sentence sounds quite awkward because it lacks a verb—not only in English but even in Hebrew. Some Jewish English translations have tried to smoothen out the sentence by adding a verb:

like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet. (JPS)

However, just as there is no word for “pierce” in the Masoretic Text, there is also no word or phrase in the Masoretic Text for “they are at”.

The Witness of the Septuagint

The Septuagint is a body of Greek translations of the Jewish Scriptures made by Jews during the second century BCE. In the Septuagint, the sentence is rendered:

ὤρυξαν χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδας.

They dug my hands and my feet.

The Septuagint translators cannot be reasonably accused of mistranslating the Hebrew text to fit Christian teachings, since the Septuagint was produced by Jews long before Jesus was even born!

The Septuagint’s translation shows that during the second century BCE, Jews had a Hebrew text which read “they dug” rather than “like a lion”. This is important because the Septuagint was produced more than 700 years earlier than the Masoretic Text. Therefore, in places where the Septuagint differs significantly from the Masoretic Text, it is possible that the Septuagint reflects the original Hebrew text better than the Masoretic Text.

The Witness of the Dead Sea Scrolls

The witness of the Septuagint is further supported by the witness of the Dead Sea Scrolls. In a fragment containing Psalm 22 from the first century BCE, the word written as כארי (“like a lion”) in the Masoretic Text is written as כארו (“they dug”), which is a form of the verb כרה, “to dig”.

Psalm 22:16 in a Dead Sea Scolls fragment.

The writers of this fragment cannot be reasonably accused of changing the Hebrew text to fit Christian teachings, since this fragment was produced by Jews long before Jesus was even born!

Some Jews argue that כארו cannot be a form of the verb כרה, “to dig”, because it is spelt with an extra letter, Aleph (א). However, even in the Masoretic Text, some verb forms are sometimes spelt with an extra Aleph:

The Original Reading of Psalm 22:16

There was no collaboration between the producers of the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet, both the Septuagint translators and the Dead Sea Scrolls community each seem to have had a Hebrew text which read, “they dug”. Therefore, this ancient independent agreement between the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scrolls makes it more likely that the Masoretic Text is mistaken, and that the original Hebrew text of Psalm 22:16 read כארו, “they dug”, rather than כארי, “like a lion”. Given how similar the two words look, it is not difficult to see how later copyists might have mistakenly copied כארו as כארי.

Conclusion

Even if this article is entirely mistaken, and the original Hebrew text actually read כארי, “like a lion”, it would still not rule out the possibility that Jesus’ death on the cross is being predicted here. However, if the reading of the original Hebrew text was indeed כארו, “they dug”, then Psalm 22:16 may very well be a prophetic prediction which describes the crucifixion of the Messiah hundreds of years before crucifixion was invented by the Romans.