Psalm 119:120 (118:120 LXX) – Nail down my body?
Our translation says:
‘Nail down my body…’
Many ‘Church Fathers’ quoted these words as a Messianic Prophecy, although they used the words ‘fasten my flesh with nails’. Jesus was, of course, impaled on the lumber by having nails driven down into his flesh, before being raised up.
The word that we translate as ‘nail down’ is a single Greek verb (action word), Καθήλωσον/Kathēlōson, which is made up of:
- καθ- / kath- = An inflection of κατα, a prefix which means ‘against’ or ‘fully’ or ‘downwards’.
- -ἧλος- / -(h)elos- = a noun meaning a nail.
- -ον = an inflective word ending that can be nominative, accusative, or imperative. We assume it’s an imperative – making the word a command to someone else.
So it’s a compound word, coming together to form a verb.
The Hebrew sources, however, say something completely different in this verse:
‘My flesh trembles in fear of you’ (NIV)
One Deas Sea Scrolls fragment, believed to be from around 30-50 AD, says:
‘My flesh trembles for fear of you.’ (11Q5 Psalmsa)
Indeed, the passage as a whole is different, with different inflections referring to different persons.
So the question is: Is this a Messianic Prophecy or not? Well, we have three big problems.
- The Dead Sea Scroll fragment (dating to the 1st century AD) which contains these words, reads just like the Hebrew text does today – they don’t contain this Messianic Prophecy!
- These words are not quoted by the New Testament writers, which may seem strange in itself, as it’s very specific and graphic. You would think it was so perfect that someone would have quoted it.
- Some Koine Greek experts today disagree with translating the word as ‘nail down’ and believe it means something like ‘cast me down’.
So this text is in dispute. We can’t be sure that it is a Messianic Prophecy. So what is our reason for thinking that this might be a prophecy?
- It was widely believed to be so by the so-called ‘Church Fathers’ – and they were often native speakers of Koine Greek who lived in the ancient era. We can’t just dismiss their opinion.
- Augustine of Hippo even wrote about how to correctly translate the word for ‘nail down’ into Latin.
- The early Church felt so certain about this that they even included it in the Latin Vulgate.
- Thanks to discoveries like the Dead Sea Scrolls, that variants existed of the Hebrew text. It’s possible that the Septuagint translators were working from a now-lost Hebrew variant, perhaps even the original.
- The Septuagint text of the Psalms was probably translated in the 2nd century BC, approximately 200 years before the Dead Sea Scrolls fragment featuring the verse was written (11Q5 Psalmsa).
So there are arguments both ways.
We are simply waiting for some new evidence to come to light.