Or as translated in the Revised Standard Version Psalm 22:16-
“Yea, dogs are round about me; a company of evildoers encircle me; they have pierced my hands and feet.”
As Scholars have long known, the phrase ‘they have pierced’ does not really represent the Hebrew text (Masoretic Text) To achieve that translation, scholars have to change the Hebrew text for it to make sense. Instead of ‘they have pierced’ the actual Hebrew text has a Hebrew word, ‘ry’, which is best translated as ‘lion’, and which is preceded by a Hebrew preposition, meaning ‘as’ or ‘like’. Thus, if one did use the actual Hebrew text, the verse may be translated Literally as:
“Yea, dogs are round me: a company of evildoers encircle me, Like a lion my hands and feet.”
The problem is that there seems to be a verb missing in that last line. Even if we understand the verse to say’ my feet and hands are like a lion’ the whole clause seems incompatible with the attack being depicted. Thus many scholars simply change ‘like a lion’ into a verb such as ‘pierce’, ‘dig’, or ‘shrivel’, as in the NRSV- ‘my hands and feet are shriveled’
Of course, it would be more honest to translate the text as it is found, but that only recalls our argument that translations often are meant to hide biblical infelicities rather than to expose them. Indeed, it is difficult to avoid the implication that ‘they pierced my hands and feet’ often has been retained because it historically has served Christian arguments that Jesus’ crucifixtion is being prophesized in that Psalm. The apologetic use of this Psalm, in fact can be traced at least as far back as the debates between Trypho the Jew and Justin Martyr in the second century.
This from ‘The End of Biblical Studies by Hector Avalos.
