Qere/Ketiv

I arose early, when it was still night, and I cried out; I hoped for Your word. Psalm 119:147  Chabad

For Your word – Compare these three Hebrew renditions of this verse:

קדמתי בנשף ואשועה לדבריך יחלתי

קִדַּ֣מְתִּי בַ֖נֶּשֶׁף וָֽאֲשַׁוֵּ֑עָה לִדְבָֽרְךָ֥ (כתיב לִדְבָֽרְיךָ֥) יִחָֽלְתִּי

קִדַּ֣מְתִּי בַ֭נֶּשֶׁף וָאֲשַׁוֵּ֑עָה (לדבריך) [לִדְבָרְךָ֥] יִחָֽלְתִּי

Aside from the fact that the first version is not pointed (no vowel marking), did you notice that both the second and third versions include an extra word?  That word is לִדְבָֽרְךָ֥.  In the second and third versions there are indicators (parentheses and brackets) that something odd is happening with this word.  You’ll notice that one form of the word contains a yodwhile the other form does not.  This is a case of qere/ketiv, that is, written one way but read another way.  It doesn’t happen often in the Tanakh, but it happens enough to raise a question: Which way is the proper way of understanding these words?

The reason this happens is because the original text in the scrolls is written with a particular letter but read without that letter (the reverse of this is also true).  Tradition changes the way the text is read.  This is signaled by showing the form in parentheses or brackets.  But you will also notice that the first version doesn’t bother with indicating this change because it simply shows what is in the scroll.  All English Christian Bibles also skip over this because they do not follow Jewish tradition.  In this case, the yod is simply a grammatical issue.  The Hebrew possessive (“Your word”) is literally “word of You,” indicated by the combination of the pronoun and the preposition.  In the scroll, the word is plural (the yod), but it is read as if it is singular.  We might want to ask, “If it makes perfect sense to read the word as plural, why would tradition change it to be read as singular?”  There’s the orthodox answer and the not-so-orthodox answer.

The orthodox answer is that since the oral tradition was given to Moses and passed down orally through the elders to the rabbis, God knew that the text would be written one way but read another way.  This isn’t an answer as much as it is an anachronistic justification.  But some rabbinic commentators argue that the plural form means David expected a specificprophetic response based on previous promises, and it is read as singular because it refers to this specific prophecy.  Even though the text is written as “Your words,” what it means is “Your specific word,” and is therefore read as singular. This also seems to be anachronistic, and impossible unless we first accept the theological premise that the oral tradition was given at Sinai as a way of interpreting the text.

Christian translations do not begin with the assumption that the oral tradition is equally important, therefore, the NASB translates this as it is written, “Your words.”  This also raises a theological point.  “What is the difference, if any, between לִדְבָֽרְךָ֥ and לִדְבָֽרְיךָ֥?  The first question is about the accuracy of the scroll.  It would be easy to accidentally leave out the small letter yod, but not so easy to simply ignore it?  The explanation is theological, not linguistic.  If the text is accurate as it is written, then why would Jewish tradition change it?  If we don’t hold the assumption that both oral and written texts were given to Moses, do we have theological reasons for changing the text?  I would suggest the following: by reading the text as singular, I emphasize the entire corpus of God’s revelation, that is, I treat dābār as it is understood a thousand years later, as a collective noun, just as Christians often speak of “God’s Word” and mean the entire Bible.  This implies not only that the psalmist speaks of the revelation of God as if it had already been given in full in the past.  The verse becomes theological fodder for proving the equal importance of the oral law.

However, if I treat dābār as plural, then it appears that the psalmist is waiting for a personal conversation, a private communication with God.  While it is perfectly legitimate to read the text this way, it removes this verse from wider application.  Now the text isn’t for us.  It’s limited to the circumstances of the psalmist.  And that means, while I couldunderstand it in terms of my personal situation, it wasn’t intended for me.  Since religious believers love to apply the Psalms, this interpretation puts a dent (a small one) in that method.  It’s good exegesis, but it’s not very devotional.

So now that we’re aware of the choices, we discover something else that’s important.  Theological assumptions always lurk in the background, and often exert powerful influences on what we read.  It might be more obvious when we encounter a qere/ketiv, but that just makes it easier to spot.  The real danger is not realizing the assumptions are there when there aren’t any brackets.

Topical Index: qere/ketiv, dābār, word, Psalm 119:147