Psalm 139:16 - exegetical dialog

Psalm 139:16 - What was written down by God before our birth? Copied from discussion found on Pastors' & Bible Teachers' Forum Post by brianwagner on Feb 21, 2015 17:22:50 GMT -6 Ok, this should be a fun discussion! I chose it because I picked up somewhere that OT studies is your forte Daniel, so I thought you would like it. I also think that this is a good passage to use as an example to support the biblical hermeneutics that 1} we should not be dogmatic about a premise that is based on unclear grammar in Scripture nor 2} should we hold dogmatic views only from poetic passages of Scripture. Should we even be dogmatic about “days” as the content that was written about David (and by extension us) in God’s book before his birth? The KJV, and a few commentators, even Calvin, view that it was David’s “members” of his bodily substance that were written down. Was it his genetic code or just body parts? My guess, Daniel, is that you will agree with most modern commentators and translations and point to “days” being written. Was it a static plan for each day or the number of those days, or something else? There are more options than these, but you get the idea. And then, I am interested in solving why the Niphal imperfect for ‫ כתב‬in this verse is translated like a perfect. It is not consecutive. Is this just poetic theological license? My word-for-word translation works out to be : My embryo, your eyes saw, and on your book all of them shall be written – days [that] would be formed – and for him [there is] one in them. There are other issues of interest, like the choice between “not” and “to him” in the last phrase, and why the Masoretes divided the verse right before the last phrase, and what the last phrase even means. But this is enough to get the discussion going. My view? I lean towards seeing that this verse teaches that before our birth a book is begun which will record the events of our lives. It could even include an outline of what God‘s best possible plan would before our lives including the “one” day that would be our acceptance of His salvation, so that, in the end, the completed record of our lives could be compared against that best plan! Have fun! Post by CowboysDad on Feb 22, 2015 0:04:47 GMT -6 Yes, my strength is the Old Testament. The cantillation marks in the text are used in part to show phrasing which I've marked by a "/". The translation is my own. Combined together the text looks to read: "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)." To shape the Hebrew to more of a modern usage of language we might put it as follows: "Your eyes saw my embryo, and all my days were ordained--all of them would be recorded upon your scroll--when not (even) one of them existed." The Niphal imperfect--like all imperfects--can be translated as 1) a future; 2) a continuous or repeated action; or a modal. I take the imperfect here as a repeated action, but a repeated action may be in past time in certain contexts (as here, cf. the associated past tense of "days were ordained"), prompting me to translate it as above. Obviously I think that "days" is preferred over "members" and "not" is preferred over "to him." What does everyone think? Post by CowboysDad on Feb 23, 2015 0:21:46 GMT -6 Brian, what has influenced you to choose "and for him (there is) one in them"?

Also, when you asked why the Masoretes divided the verse before the last phrase, I presume you mean the atnach. I don't know if there is an answer to that one. I've never honestly studied any patterns in the placing of the atnachs. But for me it doesn't really affect the translation here in Psalm 139:16. Lastly, how do you write in a Hebrew font? - Daniel Post by brianwagner on Feb 23, 2015 7:52:20 GMT -6 I knew you would like this discussion! I appreciate your insights from your study of Hebrew! Your questions to me - I chose "to him" in agreement with the Qere (reading of the Masoretes) because I liked the idea! ;-) Also JP Lange's discussion of this situation was interesting, pointing out that ‫ ל ֹא‬is usually with verbs and one would expect ‫ אֵ ן‬here. Could it be a rhetorical question - "Is there not one in them" either for the birth of the embryo or the new birth opportunity in the plan of life or maybe an appointment for a day of death? You can add the Hebrew font by downloading and installing it from www.teknia.com/freehebrewfont. They have a Greek one also. It adds the Hebrew keyboard to your language toolbar on the bottom right and you can switch between languages with the key stroke left-alt shift or your mouse on that toolbar. My questions to you - 1. What examples can you show of the imperfect, not consecutive, being translated in past tense? I could not find any for ‫ כתב‬, but I am open to looking at some. The Holy Spirit could have used the perfect here just as easily to solidify the meaning that all was previously written down, but chose the imperfect instead. Doesn't there have to be some sense of incompletion. 2. What percentage possibility would you give me for my interpretation of what was begun to be written down? 3. What about the days do you think was written down, and with what percentage certainty? The atnach just makes for so many questions especially when one considers normal Hebrew parallelism in poetry, in my view. I wonder if this can be demonstrated as happening elsewhere, where a verse is divided between the first half with three verbs and the last half with none. Also, remember, I am trying to promote the idea that such unclear grammar should not be used to prove a dogmatic theological concept. I have heard this verse relied upon dogmatically as proof that God has preordained, in the sense of predetermined, our whole life in every detail, or that the number of our days are static and decided. Post by CowboysDad on Feb 23, 2015 17:49:33 GMT -6 How do you eat an elephant? As they say--one bite at a time. Well, regarding the atnach, this much I know, and obviously you know as well that it marks a pause in the text (something like a semi-colon, hyphen or comma), so clearly there is a pause before the final phrase ("when not one among them (was)"). As I've said earlier I don't know too much about the pattern of usage for the atnach. That's a pretty detailed topic and probably above my pay grade, but I'll give you all I know. In non-poetical books it does indeed mark a division between the first half of the verse and the last half of the verse, though the halves are not so much quantity as can be seen from Genesis 1:7 where the atnach appears before the final two words of a 16-word verse (14 words, then the atnach, then the final two). But the atnach does NOT divide the verses into two main divisions within the poetical books. It still marks a pause, but it is a secondary pause. The main divider in poetical books is the ole we yored. You can find it in the third table here: www.mechonmamre.org/c/hr/tables.htm. In Psalm 139:16, the verse technically divides after "they would be recorded."

Look for the ole we yored under that word. So, it would not be correct to say that the FIRST half of the verse has three verbs and the SECOND half none. Does that make sense? Thus, the atnach doesn't affect the parallelism as one might think. Thanks for explaining how to type the Hebrew in these dialog boxes. I'd never been successful before now, and your explanation helped me figure that out. - Daniel Post by CowboysDad on Feb 24, 2015 0:59:13 GMT -6 Bite #2: Allen P. Ross (my former prof) in his "Biblical Hebrew Handbook," regarding the syntax of the imperfect tense, writes, "The continuous action may be in the past time in a context. In that case the translation should reflect repeated action in the past time (customary action)." To my delight he gives one and only one example: ‫ יכתב האיש‬-- "The man used to (would) write." [Note: the words in parenthesis are not my additions, but belong to his quote.] My translation tried to capture the repeated action of the imperfect when I wrote, "All of them would be recorded upon your scroll." But obviously many Bible scholars, in an attempt to smooth out the translation, coordinating it with "all my days WERE ORDAINED," choose to write it LIKE a simple perfect tense. I'm actually ok with that because--from our perspective--"All of them WERE RECORDED upon your scroll." You are right that an imperfect doesn't receive a past tense translation, but that's not technically what's happening here. Take a look too if you will at Judges 14:10. The HCSB actually translates the final phrase, "as young men were accustomed to do." I think it's another good example of an imperfect that receives a past tense translation in some English Bibles though again, strictly speaking, it's not a past tense. - Daniel Post by CowboysDad on Feb 24, 2015 9:22:46 GMT -6 Bite #3: Yes, it is indisputable that ‫ לא‬is widely (but not exclusively) used with verbs. Interestingly, J. Wash Watts writes in "A Survey of Syntax in the Hebrew Old Testament" (a book I inherited from my dad), "Occasionally it appears before a noun or adjective (Deut. 32:6, 21), giving a meaning like the prefixes un-, in, and im-. Perhaps the Hebrews thought of it in these situations as followed by the verb to be." That's what we have here--a phrase with a "to be" verb (albeit implied), fitting the common pattern noted by Watts. Post by brianwagner on Feb 24, 2015 13:37:40 GMT -6 I am enjoying your input and research, Daniel. I would still like to see an actual example in the OT were the imperfect between two perfects should be seen in the past time, though I am content with your explanation. How does this sound - "My embryo your eyes saw, and on your book all of them were being written - days that would be formed - and [is there] not one in them? As you can see, I am still struggling with the meaning of the last phrase. Isn't it possible to be a rhetorical question even without a interrogative pronoun or ‫?ה‬ I think translating ‫ יָצַ ר‬as "were ordained" is too theological. Could the Pual perfect hint at a future completion of the forming of each day, since not one of them has happened yet, though a plan for all of them could still be written down ahead of time, but not in a deterministic way necessarily? Also, your helpful instructions on the ole we yored break in this verse have caused me to rethink what is being written. Could this hapax noun be plural in its meaning like "deer" is in English, and thus expecting all the members of it to be individually written down? This would take the "all" away from "days" and perhaps opens up the idea of the days being completed one at a time or special days being planned ahead of time -

"days were fashioned for me". I am still interested in how possible you think these understandings are and how sure you are of your own. :-) No rush! But it is a big part of my motivation for this discussion. Thanks. Post by CowboysDad on Feb 25, 2015 0:02:04 GMT -6 Mini-bites: a) But the pual is a stem of intensity. The qal would be "to fashion or shape." The piel/pual would intensify the fashioning or shaping--an ordering perhaps. Ordaining doesn't seem inappropriate to me given that God is the One ordering the days. The context is theo-centric and so theo-logical to me. b) The range of translation values for the pual perfect doesn't include a future completion. It would no longer be a pual perfect. c) Yes, certainly there can be a rhetorical question without an interrogative ‫ ה‬or an interrogative pronoun, but the context would make that clear. I don't see anything here in the context that would suggest a question in the absence of a marker. d) I don't see "embryo" being modified by "they." It's grammatically unwarranted given what we know. e) As I keep looking at the grammar and syntax, I feel very confident in my first attempt at translation. That doesn't usually happen. I almost always second guess my translations, but although I don't dare say that I've nailed it, I simply don't see any alternative translation thus far that poses a significant threat to it. I know you like percentages, and being a former mechanical engineer, so do I, but I don't see anything in my studies as yet that would knock me off my spot or even cause any significant imbalance. "Your eyes saw my embryo, and all my days were ordained--all of them would be recorded upon your scroll--when not one of them existed." I've been trying to focus on the Hebrew without considering any implications of meaning in the verse. Perhaps I can weigh in on that a bit as well now that I've established a working translation. Post by brianwagner on Feb 27, 2015 6:59:05 GMT -6 Nope... I not sold yet on "were ordained" for ‫ יצר‬. :-) I can go with "intricately planned" (to bring out the intensity of the Pual) like an architect's blue-print, but "ordained" has a predestinarian finality about it that I do not think fits the word or the tenor of Scripture. The example of the potter in Jer. 18:1-11 comes to mind. The divine Potter certainly has a detailed picture of what He wants to make but if the clay does not respond accordingly He is willing and able and free to make it into something else that fits His overall plan and is consistent with His nature... That sounds theo-logical to me! (I liked your nuance there with that word! It's like what I do with response-able, which will eventually come up in this discussion or the next!) I am also looking more into seeing if there are other instances in the OT of a composite noun being used with "all of them", but it will have to wait until later this weekend. It still intrigues me that Calvin sees "all of them" to be the parts of the body. And the last prepositional phrase - ‫ בָ הֶ ם‬still intrigues me also. I guess "not one among them, the days written, even existed" is a reasonable meaning if the plan for the days was what was written down. It just that "one among them" sounds a little awkward, since days are consecutive and the first one would be expected to be mentioned here. I am thinking for ‫" אֶ חָ ד‬not the first among them" might work better. As a side comment, I found it interesting that the LXX translated the last two verb as future tense and so did

the Vulgate! In my thinking that means a majority of Christians in the first 1500 years of Christianity saw those verbs that way. Post by CowboysDad on Feb 27, 2015 9:46:06 GMT -6 There is, of course, a difference between translating the Hebrew and interpreting the Hebrew. The word is fashion, form, plan or order (ordain). There is no qualifier in the Hebrew. I had a church member years ago in Louisiana who loved to tell me that he didn't believe in predestination. I would always reply, "You HAVE to believe in predestination because the word is in the Bible. We might disagree about what it means, but you HAVE to believe in it." He would growl and shout to his wife, "Honey, bring the preacher boy another bowl of jambalaya." Bible teachers will find themselves on different sides of the theological debate regarding whether the planning or ordering (ordaining) of our days is fixed or not, but in translation our goal is to avoid any unwarranted interpretive wording. I don't dislike "ordered," "ordained" or "planned." For me I don't hear much difference in the terms. I can go with any of them. I don't see any need to add "intricately" perhaps for the same reason you don't like "ordained," i.e., it sounds to you like I may be sharpening a theological axe. In any event the Potter is as much in charge of the shaping of the clay as he is with the ordering of our days. That the Potter reshapes the clay says more about the clay than what the poet has said of his days. But I'm good with "planned" although I like the intensity of "ordered" or "ordained" even better. "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." Post by brianwagner on Mar 2, 2015 8:36:44 GMT -6 Ok... Here is some more evidence countering the idea that ‫" ֻּכלָם‬all of them" refers to "days". I did a quick search of this construction in the OT and found that the third person plural pronoun in those instances points to an antecedent. I could not find an instance where it introduces or points to a noun that follows (though I may have missed one). I also found a number of references where the antecedent was a collective noun in the singular, (e.g. people, rich, house, Babylon, earth). I am thinking that ‫" גֹ לֶם‬substance" here leans heavily towards being a collective noun also. I think Calvin and other scholars must have seen this grammatical idea that a personal pronoun points back more naturally and chose "substance" as the antecedent of "all them". But I am interested, Daniel, if you know of instances in the OT where such pronouns could point forward and be clarified by a noun that follows, which would help support your interpretation here? I won't be at the college to check my Hebrew grammars in my office till tomorrow, and I will let you know if I discover anything else. Post by brianwagner on Mar 8, 2015 7:05:46 GMT -6 Looking forward to your added input, Daniel. I was also thinking about the time context of the main verbs and wondering if they should be seen as sequential. It appears that David was talking about after he was conceived and not about a time before creation. "God saw my embryo, then He was writing my genetic code in a book (a figure of speech perhaps guaranteeing resurrection)and then He fashioned days (a plan for my life)even before the first one (my birth)took place." Post by CowboysDad on Mar 14, 2015 20:30:24 GMT -6 Some raw data as I continue to poke around on this topic:

1) With poetry I wouldn't look to conventional patterns of grammar as a guide. Typically there are few "rules" in poetry. Perhaps the placement of "days" is quite intentional (despite its unconventional placement) as a way of poetically referring both to what preceded it and what followed. 2) The LXX looks to follow the pattern of the Hebrew: τὸ ἀκατέργαστόν μου εἴδοσαν οἱ ὀφθαλμοί σου, καὶ ἐπὶ τὸ βιβλίον σου πάντες γραφήσονται· ἡμέρας πλασθήσονται, καὶ οὐδεὶς ἐν αὐτοῖς. "Your eyes saw my unformed shape, and all shall be written upon your scroll, for days shall be formed, yet nothing [is] in them." 3) The Great Psalms Scroll (11QPsa) reads a little different: ‫גלמי ראו עיניכה ועל ספריכה כולם יכתבו ימים יצרו ולו באח מהמה‬ "Your eyes saw my embryo, and all of them were written upon your scrolls, the days [of] its formation also/even for it(?) with a companion from them all." A very convoluted rendering at best, but "all of them" seems to refer to days rather than to embryo; however, it reads here as a reference to the days of the formation of the body. Is this a smoking gun? 4) Jastrow in his Dictionary of Targumim, Talmud and Midrashic Literature gives a plural form of "embryos," so one does exist and it is not necessary to read the singular form of embryo as a collective. Post by brianwagner on Mar 15, 2015 19:42:03 GMT -6 Great stuff Daniel! You're working hard! I especially like the information from 3 & 4! But I am still thinking "embryo" may be collective, since other collective nouns like ‫" ָעם‬people" can be used in the plural (cf. Is 2:3). Does Jastrow give all the instances of this word "embryo" in other Jewish literature to see if it is ever used as a collective with a plural pronoun? And the Dead Sea Scrolls could still be pointing to the parts of the embryo. Where did you get the text for 11QPsa? The translation must not be yours, for it does not seem to fit the Hebrew. The noun "formation" is spelled the same as the Hebrew verb "were formed", so why make it a noun. And the differences in the last phrase are really interesting! I could not find ‫ באח‬anywhere else in the OT. The closest was ‫בְּ אָ חִ יו‬ "with his brother". And can't the ‫ ולו‬still be translated "and not"? Also, the "all" at the end seems added. The LXX is no help to your view, because days are feminine and "all", the subject of "written", is masculine. I agree with the idea that poetry may throw rules of grammar into a tail-spin sometimes, so I would be more open to a pronoun preceding its antecedent in Hebrew poetry if you could show me another instance or two. I couldn't find one for the construction "all of them", but maybe something similar can be found. This is fun... but remember, I chose it to try to prove that poetic passages such as this one can not be used to prove a pet doctrine, such as the pre-determination of all things! :-) Post by CowboysDad on Mar 16, 2015 at 1:21am Still ongoing research certainly! The target seems to move the more I aim, perhaps adding credence to your point that it is not wise to build strong opinions on poetical works. I agree that it would be great to find other examples of the "poetical" use of the pronoun as a "bridge." I admit I haven't gone down that path yet. Jastrow does not speak about a collective, but interestingly, he does write with regard to Psalm 139, "read ‫ "גולמים‬without any explanation, evidently meaning that he considers the singular form to be a corruption. You can find his dictionary here (http://www.tyndalearchive.com/tabs/jastrow/). Here's the text of the Psalm Scroll (https://archive.org/stream/TheBiblicalQumranScrolls/61301866-The-Biblical-Qumran-Scrolls-Eugene-

Charles-Ulrich#page/n733/mode/1up). Yes, the translation of the Scroll is not my own. I decided also this week to contact four Hebrew scholars/colleagues to ask for their translations. Three are liberal. One is conservative, and he is the only one who has not yet responded. Thus far all three give no credence to the use of a collective for "embryo." All three likewise argue that the pronoun modifies days, based on context. Two deny any intimation of predestination: the first renders it "days of formation," the second "days of gestation." The third believes that it speaks clearly of predestination, though I am quite certain that he does not hold to predestination. I'm still hoping to hear back from my conservative friend to hear what he has to say. Whew! Post by brianwagner on Mar 16, 2015 at 12:06pm Great Stuff, my Brother! Thanks for the links! Post by CowboysDad on Mar 23, 2015 at 12:37am Brian, The more I research the more I feel confident with my initial translation. But certainly one must be careful not to build theological towers on poetical foundations. In any event I wrote a Hebrew professor who I've learned quite a bit from over the years. He replied with the following: In almost any language (maybe all) most pronominal references are going to point backward to something already mentioned but cataphoric references do exist, especially in poetry. In this verse I would say that the evidence favours a cataphoric reference (pointing forward to days) for the following reasons: - it makes more sense contextually, - the anaphoric references does not match in number. If you want to take embryo as a collective it would require some evidence other than the pronominal reference here which would be circular reasoning. "Embryo" here is a hapax legomenon so I don't know if there is much to go on. - the cataphoric reference is not a distant one; it's only two words later. - the argument from silence that one can't find any other cataphoric pronominal suffix references is weak, because cataphoric references are rare to begin with and we have a limited corpus with the Hebrew Bible. Post by brianwagner on Mar 23, 2015 at 1:59pm Thanks Daniel for your continued work. I love learning new grammatical terms. I hope, even with my old age, that I can hang on to this term in my memory for future use to impress my students! :-) I do think we will need to find one other example from the OT before I adopt this verse as an example of cataphora. Recently I also was wondering if the antecedent might even go back earlier to verse 15, and the word ‫ עֹ צֶ ם‬, though, if it does, I am still in the same bind, viewing that word as a collective noun (bones) though I have not been able to find enough proof to show it as a collective noun either. Post by CowboysDad on Mar 23, 2015 at 5:02pm I'll see what I can find. Post by CowboysDad on Apr 7, 2015 at 12:22pm Haven't found any cataphora that are similar to Psalm 139, but I've not searched extensively. Been sidetracked lately by taxes in my spare time. Not sure I will find anything since I know you've looked too. In the end we will likely have to decide what weight to give to a possible cataphoric reference vs. the need for

harmonizing the numbers (singular and plural). Post by brianwagner on Oct 30, 2015 at 1:46pm Hey Daniel, I had this discussion on another site with a friend and he pointed to Isaiah 56:10 as an example of cataphora that he could find. He did point out that there is not the same verb problems however that Psalm 139:16 has, with one verb in between the pronoun and its referent and one verb after the referent. Also found was Lev 25:33. Though it is a little bit of a stretch as an example of cataphora, for it seems similar to a predicate nominative construction “it is their possession”. But I guess you could say it is an example of cataphora since the pronoun comes before the noun that it is referring to. K&D tried to point to Isaiah 43:14 as an example, in there discussion of Ps 139:16, especially since it used the “all of them” combination. But in that verse there is a conjunction before the noun that is supposed to be the referent being pointed forward to. There is also a plural substantival adjective with a preposition, “among the ones fleeing”, immediately before this pronoun phrase “all of them” that could easily work as its antecedent, and also the composite noun – Babylon, as the subject of the sentence, could also be the antecedent. NKJV “…For your sake I will send to Babylon, And bring them all down as fugitives– The Chaldeans, who rejoice in their ships.” It is interesting that this verse also has a funny last phrase, like Ps 139:16, without a main verb! I personally think “with cries of anguish” fits better than “who rejoice” here is Is 43:14. :-)