Psalm 22:16 — “they pierced” or “like a lion”?
Psalm 22:16 is represented here as either they pierced my hands and feet or like a lion, my hands and my feet. The difference is one final Hebrew letter: vav or yod.
What the APB prints.
Every witness, on the record.
What a blind committee did here.
The APB's translation committee works blind: it is never told it is translating the Bible, never given a book name or a verse number, and it never sees the witnesses above. Whatever it did at this verse, it did on the language alone — and its record is public.
“Adopted the lion reading because the surrounding animal imagery requires a nominal parallel rather than the conflicting gloss to dig.”
The blind committee record identifies the phrase as segment_017 כארי. Its note says, “Adopted the lion reading because the surrounding animal imagery requires a nominal parallel rather than the conflicting gloss to dig.” The pericope audit verdict is “clean.” This records the committee's stated translation rationale at the segment, not a comparison with the listed witnesses.
The case for each reading.
If “they pierced”
Reading A rests on witnesses that take the disputed word as a verb. The Naḥal Ḥever Psalms scroll, a 1st century A.D. manuscript, reads כארו and is identified here as the oldest surviving Hebrew witness to this clause; its final letter is vav. The Septuagint, a translation, c. 2nd century B.C., reads ὤρυξαν χεῖράς μου καὶ πόδας, supplying a verb with hands and feet as its objects. Its rendering is dated centuries before the reading had Christian stakes. Jerome's Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos, a translation, c. A.D. 400, reads fixerunt. Together these witnesses support a verbal sense such as they dug or pierced.
If “like a lion”
Reading B is the reading of the Masoretic Text in the Westminster Leningrad Codex, a codex A.D. 1008 within a tradition centuries older. It reads כארי, pointed כָּאֲרִי at Ps 22:17, and the packet notes that the clause carries no verb. The site's APB accordingly prints like a lion, my hands and my feet after the surrounding references to dogs and evildoers. This reading retains a nominal phrase rather than making hands and feet the objects of a verb. The difference from Reading A is the final letter alone: yod rather than vav.
The supplied witnesses divide over whether the clause contains a verb or a nominal comparison, and the packet does not settle that division. One final letter changes the immediate wording and syntax. No doctrine is decided by this variant alone; doctrines rest on many passages. The packet identifies no doctrine that depends on choosing either reading.
Asked plainly.
What is the textual difference in Psalm 22:16?
The word is כארו in Reading A and כארי in Reading B. The difference is the final letter: vav in the first, yod in the second.
Which witnesses support they pierced?
The Naḥal Ḥever Psalms scroll, Septuagint, and Jerome's Psalterium iuxta Hebraeos support Reading A.
Why does the APB print like a lion?
Its blind committee record says it adopted the lion reading because the surrounding animal imagery required a nominal parallel rather than the conflicting gloss to dig.
More places where the manuscripts argue.
Witness readings for critical editions are quoted from the SBLGNT apparatus (CC BY 4.0); Hebrew text from the Westminster Leningrad Codex (Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible). Readings of ancient manuscripts and versions are cited as published scholarly fact with their sources linked above. Nothing on this page declares a winner — the evidence is the point.
Weigh it yourself.
The registry doesn't tell you which reading is true. It puts every witness on one page, shows what a blind committee did with the same language, and leaves the verdict where it belongs — with the reader.