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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Psalms 81:1 - 81:1
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The summons in Psa 81:2 is addressed to the whole congregation, inasmuch as הָרִיעוּ is not intended of the clanging of the trumpets, but as in Ezr 3:11, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:3 is addressed to the Levites, the appointed singers and musicians in connection with the divine services, 2Ch 5:12, and frequently. The summons in Psa 81:4 is addressed to the priests, to whom was committed not only the blowing of the two (later on a hundred and twenty, vid., 2Ch 5:12) silver trumpets, but who appear also in Jos 6:4 and elsewhere (cf. Psa 47:6 with 2Ch 20:28) as the blowers of the shophar. The Talmud observes that since the destruction of the Temple the names of instruments שֹׁופָרָא and חֲצֹוצַרְתָּא are wont to be confounded one for the other (B. Sabbath 36a, Succa 34a), and, itself confounding them, infers from Num 10:10 the duty and significance of the blowing of the shophar (B. Erachin 3b). The lxx also renders both by σάλπιγξ; but the Biblical language mentions שֹׁופָר and חֲצֹצְרָה, a horn (more especially a ram's horn) and a (metal) trumpet, side by side in Psa 98:6; 1Ch 15:28, and is therefore conscious of a difference between them. The Tôra says nothing of the employment of the shophar in connection with divine service, except that the commencement of every fiftieth year, which on this very account is called שְׁנַת הַיֹּבֵל, annus buccinae, is to be made known by the horn signal throughout all the land (Lev 25:9). But just as tradition by means of an inference from analogy derives the blowing of the shophar on the first of Tishri, the beginning of the common year, from this precept, so on the ground of the passage of the Psalm before us, assuming that בַּחֹרֶשׁ, lxx ἐν νεομηνίᾳ, refers not to the first of Tishri but to the first of Nisan, we may suppose that the beginning of every month, but, in particular, the beginning of the month which was at the same time the beginning of the ecclesiastical year, was celebrated by a blowing of the shophar, as, according to Josephus, Bell. iv. 9, 12, the beginning and close of the Sabbath was announced from the top of the Temple by a priest with the salpinx. The poet means to say that the Feast of the Passover is to be saluted by the congregation with shouts of joy, by the Levites with music, and even beginning from the new moon (neomenia) of the Passover month with blowing of shophars, and that this is to be continued at the Feast of the Passover itself. The Feast of the Passover, for which Hupfeld devises a gloomy physiognomy,
(Note: In the first of his Commentationes de primitiva et vera festorum apud Hebraeos ratione, 1851, 4to.)
was a joyous festival, the Old Testament Christmas. 2Ch 30:21 testifies to the exultation of the people and the boisterous music of the Levite priests, with which it was celebrated. According to Num 10:10, the trumpeting of the priests was connected with the sacrifices; and that the slaying of the paschal lambs took place amidst the Tantaratan of the priests (long-drawn notes interspersed with sharp shrill ones, תקיעה תרועה וקיעה), is expressly related of the post-exilic service at least.
(Note: Vid., my essay on the Passover rites during the time of the second Temple in the Luther. Zeitschr. 1855; and cf. Armknecht, Die heilige Psalmidoe (1855), S. 5.)
The phrase נָתַן תֹּף proceeds from the phrase נָתַן קֹול, according to which נָתַן directly means: to attune, strike up, cause to be heard. Concerning כֵּסֶה (Pro 7:20 כֶּסֶא) tradition is uncertain. The Talmudic interpretation (B. Rosh ha-Shana 8b, Betza 16a, and the Targum which is taken from it), according to which it is the day of the new moon (the first of the month), on which the moon hides itself, i.e., is not to be seen at all in the morning, and in the evening only for a short time immediately after sunset, and the interpretation that is adopted by a still more imposing array of authorities (lxx, Vulgate, Menahem, Rashi, Jacob Tam, Aben-Ezra, Parchon, and others), according to which a time fixed by computation (from כָּסָה = כָּסַס, computare) is so named in general, are outweighed by the usage of the Syriac, in which Keso denotes the full moon as the moon with covered, i.e., filled-up orb, and therefore the fifteenth of the month, but also the time from that point onwards, perhaps because then the moon covers itself, inasmuch as its shining surface appears each day less large (cf. the Peshîto, 1Ki 12:32 of the fifteenth day of the eighth month, 2Ch 7:10 of the twenty-third day of the seventh month, in both instances of the Feast of Tabernacles), after which, too, in the passage before us it is rendered wa-b-kese, which a Syro-Arabic glossary (in Rosenmüller) explains festa quae sunt in medio mensis. The Peshîto here, like the Targum, proceeds from the reading חַגֵּינוּ, which, following the lxx and the best texts, is to be rejected in comparison with the singular חַגֵּנוּ. If, however, it is to be read chgnw, and כֵּסֶה (according to Kimchi with Segol not merely in the second syllable, but with double Segol כֶּסֶה, after the form טֶנֶא = טַנְא) signifies not interlunium, but plenilunium (instead of which also Jerome has in medio mense, and in Pro 7:20, in die plenae lunae, Aquila ἡμέρᾳ πανσελήνου), then what is meant is either the Feast of Tabernacles, which is called absolutely הֶחָג in 1Ki 8:2 (2Ch 5:3) and elsewhere, or the Passover, which is also so called in Isa 30:29 and elsewhere. Here, as Psa 81:5 will convince us, the latter is intended, the Feast of unleavened bread, the porch of which, so to speak, is עֶרֶב פֶּסַח together with the לֵיל שִׁמֻּרִים (Exo 12:42), the night from the fourteenth to the fifteenth of Nisan. In Psa 81:2, Psa 81:3 they are called upon to give a welcome to this feast. The blowing of the shophar is to announce the commencement of the Passover month, and at the commencement of the Passover day which opens the Feast of unleavened bread it is to be renewed. The לְ of לְיֹום is not meant temporally, as perhaps in Job 21:30 : at the day = on the day; for why was it not ביום? It is rather: towards the day, but בכסה assumes that the day has already arrived; it is the same Lamed as in Psa 81:2, the blowing of the shophar is to concern this feast-day, it is to sound in honour of it.