the animals for sacrifice. With Psa 118:19 the procession stands at the entrance. The second part (Psa 118:20-27) is sung by the body of Levites who receive the festive procession. Then Psa 118:28 is the answer of those who have arrived, and Psa 118:29 the concluding song of all of them. This antiphonal arrangement is recognised even by the Talmud (B. Pesachim 119a) and Midrash. The whole Psalm, too, has moreover a peculiar formation. It resembles the Mashal Psalms, for each verse has of itself its completed sense, its own scent and hue; one thought is joined to another as branch to branch and flower to flower.
Verses 1-18
The Hodu-cry is addressed first of all and every one; then the whole body of the laity of Israel and the priests, and at last (as it appears) the proselytes (vid., on Psa 115:9-11) who fear the God of revelation, are urgently admonished to echo it back; for “yea, His mercy endureth for ever,” is the required hypophon. In Psa 118:5, Israel too then begins as one man to praise the ever-gracious goodness of God. יהּ, the Jod of which might easily become inaudible after קראתי, has an emphatic Dagesh as in Psa 118:18, and המּצר has the orthophonic stroke beside צר (the so-called מקּל), which points to the correct tone-syllable of the word that has Dechî.[1]
Instead of ענני it is here pointed ענני, which also occurs in other instances not only with distinctive, but also (though not uniformly) with conjunctive accents.[2]
The constructions is a pregnant one (as in Psa 22:22; Psa 28:1; Psa 74:7; 2Sa 18:19; Ezr 2:62; 2Ch 32:1): He answered me by removing me to a free space (Psa 18:20).
- ↑ Vid., Baer's Thorath Emeth, p. 7 note, and p. 21, end of note 1.
- ↑ Hitzig on Pro 8:22 considers the pointing קנני to be occasioned by Dechî, and in fact ענני in the passage before us has Tarcha, and in 1Sa 28:15 Munach; but in the passage before us, if we read במרחביה as one word according to the Masora, ענני is rather to be accented with Mugrash; and in 1Sa 28:15 the reading ענני is found side by side with ענני (e.g., in Bibl. Bomberg. 1521). Nevertheless צרפתני Psa 17:3, and הרני Job 30:19 (according to Kimchi's Michlol, 30a), beside Mercha, show that the pointing beside conjunctive as beside disjunctive accents wavers between a& and a4, although a4 is properly only justified beside disjunctive accents, and צוּני also really only occurs in pause.
