Thus, therefore, מנצּח is one who shows eminent ability in any department, and then it gains the general signification of master, director, chief overseer. At the head of the Psalms it is commonly understood of the direct of the Temple-music. מנצּח est dux cantus - Luther says in one place - quem nos dicimus den Kappellenmeister the band-master, qui orditur et gubernat cantum, ἔξαρχος (Opp. lat. xvii. 134 ed. Erl.). But 1st, even the Psalms of Asaph have this למנצח at the beginning, and he was himself a director of the Temple-music, and in fact the chief-director (חראשׁ) 1Ch 16:5, or at any rate he was one of the three (Heman, Asaph, Ethan), to whom the 24 classes of the 4000 Levite singers under the Davidico-Salomonic sanctuary were subordinate; 2ndly, the passage of the chronicler (1Ch 15:17-21) which is most prominent in reference to this question, does not accord with this explanation. According to this passage the three directors of the Temple-music managed the cymbals להשׁמיע, to sound aloud; eight other musicians of high rank the nablas and six others the citherns לנצּח. This expression cannot mean “to direct,” for the direction belonged to the three, and the cymbals were also better adapted to it than the citherns. It means “to take the lead in the playing”: the cymbals directed and the citherns, better adapted to take the lead in the playing, were related to them, somewhat as the violins to the clarinets now-a-days. Hence מנצּח is not the director of the Temple-music but in general the master of song, and למנצח addresses the Psalm to him whose duty it is to arrange it and to train the Levite choristers; it therefore defines the Psalm as belonging to the songs of the Temple worship that require musical accompaniment. The translation of the Targum (Luther) also corresponds to this general sense of the expression: לשׁבּחא “to be sung liturgically,” and the lxx: εἰς τὸ τέλος, if this signifies “to the execution” and does not on the contrary ascribe an eschatological meaning to the Psalm.[1]
- ↑ Thus e.g., Eusebius: εἰς τὸ τέλος ὡς ἂν μακροῖς ὕστερον χρόνοις ἐπὶ συντελείᾳ τοῦ αἰῶνος μελλόντων πληροῦαθαι, and Theodoret: σημαίνει τὸ εἰς τὸ τέλος ὅτι μακροῖς ὕστερον χρόνοις πληρωθήσεται τὰ προφητευόμενα, with which accords Pesachim 117a ניצוח ונגון לעתיד לבא, i.e., Psalms with למנצח and בנגינות refer to the last days. Gregory of Nyssa combines the different translations by rendering: εἰς τέλος ὅπερ ἐστὶν ἡ νἰκη. Ewald's view, that τέλος in this formula means consecration, celebration, worship, is improbable; in this signification it is not a Septuagint word.
