Dovid HaMelech's And And And

Na'ar hayiti,

vegam zakanti,

velo ra'iti tzadikne'ezav,

vezar'o mevakesh lachem.

~

The line cited above was written by King David, "I was once young, and I have also grown old/wise, and I have never witnessed a righteous man who was abandoned, his children asking for bread." This is a favorite line of people use an excuses to attack and question the Tanach.

I think that key word here is ne'ezav - abandoned. Being abandoned is not an objective reality, it is an emotional feeling. Dovid HaMelech is not saying that he never saw a poor tzadik, but that he never saw a tzadik - even in a situation where his children were wanting for bread - who emotionally experienced this situation as marking abandonment from G-d. (Perhaps, also, the word mevakesh reflects a certain kind of questioning to which there is no answer. Dovid HaMelech may be saying, in the latter part of this verse, that in a vein similar to the parents' attitude the offspring never sense despair.)

I thought of this explanation some time ago and it came back to me as I read Gil Student's recent post, which cites another take on this pasuk. The suggestion he passes on is that the word to see is being used here in novel manner - that it doesn't mean to simply see but to see in an uncaring way. I think (in contrast to re-explaining ra'iti in an unusual way) my take offers a plausible, sensible way to explain the word ne'ezav here and elsewhere.

Another verse which includes the word ne'ezav is, "Al kein yaazov ish et aviv ve'et imo..." - "Therefore a person should abandon his father and mother and cleave to his wife." Would G-d tell a person to abandon his/her parents? The word is reflecting and penetrating the way the parents - to varying extents - will feel.

P.S. Dovid uses the word "and" (the connective letter vav) three times in this verse.