Biblica_1_Layout 1 20/01/12 11:44 Pagina 488 488 JOHN MAKUJINA where #rp means something abrupt and menacing like “bursting forth” (see also #rpy in Exod 19,22.24), perhaps resembling the Eng- lish “explosion”. If applied in this way to Ps 144,14, #rp would de- note a sudden calamity with broad or narrow applications. 3. Reproductive Definition: tacwy The participle tacwy, when understood as “miscarriage”, presents a fourth barrier to the cogency of this proposal 31. The problem is that birth fatalities conveyed by acy not only are uncommon but are ordi- narily specified with accompanying modifiers: Num 12,12; Job 3,11; and Exod 21,23, if “harm” applies to the child as well as the mother. Therefore, the absolute use of tacwy (Ps 144,14) in this capacity would have to be considered exceptional, as would its only parallel, Exod 21,22, where the sense “miscarry” is also hotly disputed 32. One could rejoin, however, that we should expect an abbreviated version in a colon famous for its concision, thereby alleviating tacwy from the constraints of modification required elsewhere. But this re- sponse fails to recognize that the prospect of miscarriage in Ps 144,14 is, in the first place, largely dependent on the dubious trans- lation of ~ylbsm wnypwla as “our cattle are heavy with young”; that is, this particular understanding of v. 14a is necessary to establish a context for the comparatively obscure, natal definition of tacwy 31 tacwy, functions here as an abstract noun, “going out”, rather than mo- difying a particular (elliptical) feminine noun (vis-à-vis Jer 25,32ab). For this characteristic of feminine participles, see GKC 394. 32 Cfr., GOLDINGAY, Psalms 90-150, 690, n. 20. For a summary of this ex- tended controversy and a defense of the premature birth position, see R.M. DA- VIDSON, Flame of Yahweh. Sexuality in the Old Testament (Peabody, MA 2007) 493-497. HALOT 403, 426, appears to have influenced L. Allen’s and H.-J. Kraus’ decisions for “miscarriage”. ALLEN, Psalms 101-150, 360; KRAUS, Psal- men, II, 941. As far as I am aware, the earliest translation of tacwy as “miscar- riage” is Felix Pratensis’ nō est faciens abortiuū. F. PRATENSIS, Psalterium ex Hebræo ad Verbum Translatum (n.c. 1515) 166. The ancient versions either choose the martial perspective, or translate tacwy literally: LXX, die,xodoj, “going out”; Symmachus, evkfora,, “carrying out”; Jerome, egressus; Vulgate, transitus; Peshitta, )t(rwt, “breach”, “breaking in”; Tg. Pss., avyb aqpm, “sad exit”. G.M. LAMSA, trans., The Book of Psalms. According to the Eastern Version (Philadelphia, PA 1939) 126; STEC, Targum of the Psalms, 240.