תָּוָה

From the study of Psalm 78:41

Range of meaning

This exact verb form occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars have proposed two roots:

1. tāwâ II, 'to pain, hurt, vex'. Related words in Aramaic and Syriac mean 'to regret, be sorry, feel pain'. BDB and HALOT both list this verse under it. On this reading, hitwû means 'they caused pain to' or 'they wounded'.
2. tāwâ I, 'to make a mark'. This root is related to tāw, the last letter of the alphabet, which in early script was shaped like an X, a mark or signature. It occurs in Ezekiel 9:4 ('put a mark on the foreheads') and 1 Samuel 21:13 (David 'scribbling' on the gate). From 'set a mark' some interpreters reasoned to 'set a boundary', and so to 'limit'.

Against the English

KJV 'limited' and YLT 'have limited' follow the 'mark/boundary' line. BSB, WEB and ESV have 'provoked'. NASB has 'pained' and NIV 'vexed'. The difference is large: 'limited' puts the stress on restricting God's power, while 'pained/provoked' puts it on hurting him personally.

How it drifted

'Limited' is not a drift in English vocabulary. It was a scholarly guess made in the 16th and 17th centuries from the 'mark' root. Popular preaching then turned it into a slogan about human unbelief restricting what God is able to do.

Used elsewhere in the period

The Greek Septuagint (Ps 77:41 in its numbering) translates parōxynan, 'they provoked / angered'. The Latin Vulgate's Psalter, made from the Greek, follows it with a verb of provoking. So the oldest translations did not read 'limited'. Medieval Jewish interpreters discussed a link with tāw 'mark'. The KJV translators, who often drew on those interpreters, chose 'limited' (the Geneva Bible tradition before them did likewise, as far as I know). Modern lexicons (BDB, HALOT) favour 'pain'.