.כ”ט The Divine Hand

והתועים על דעתך ישפטו ועל הרשעים תניף ידיך

There is something that struck me as slightly odd about this pharse. ידיך is clearly in the plural form. I am not by any means an expert with the full of knowledge of all Jewish texts at my fingertips but to my limited recollection, it seems that whenever we refer to the Divine Hand it is in the singular form, as in היד החזקה and וירא ישראל את היד הגדולה. I can’t recall any instance where we refer to HaShem’s having hands. And it would stand to reason. Any limb which we would attribute to the Divine through anthropomorphosis should be perfect and not need a companion.

Perhaps I’m on to something. Speaking of היד החזקה, I was intrigued to explore how the text of this תפילה is presented in the later works. It is not uncommon to see the text of the גמרא undergo a certain degree of metamorphosis in the פוסקים (e.g. the תפילה for the בעל הבית in ברכת המזון.) While the ערוך השלחן preserves the spelling of ידיך I found that רמב”ם הל’ תפלה ב:ג (ironically, the author of the יד החזקה) has ידך without the יו”ד!

I would be most interested to hear any arguments for or against my assertion above.

Update: When I mentioned this to my brother he almost instantaneously pointed me to the .גמרא כבובות ה which references מקדש ה' כוננו ידיך and discusses why, in fact, it is in the plural form. Nevertheless, I still maintain that it is an exception and the norm is to refer to יד in the singular. The גירסא in the רמב"ם still supports that assertion.