by the Levite youths, who stood below the suggestus at
the feet of the Levites (vid. on Ps. xlvi). The daily (
Hebrew characters)
(i. e. the week-day psalm which concluded the morning sa-
crifice) was sung in nine (or perhaps more correctly 3[1]) pau-
ses, and the pauses were indicated by the trumpet-blasts of
the priests (vid. on Ps. xxxviii. lxxxi. 4). Beside the seven
Psalms which were sung week by week,.there were others ap-
pointed for the services of the festivals and intervening days
(vid. on Ps. Ixxxi), and in Biccurim 3, 4 we read that when
a procession bearing the firstfruits accompanied by flute
playing had reached the hill on which the Temple stood and
the firstfruits had been brought up in baskets, at the entrance
of the offerersinto the Azara, Ps. xxx was struck up by the
Levites. This singing was distinct from the mode of deliver-
ing the Jefilla (vid. on Ps. xliv ad fin.) and the benediction of
the priests (vid. on Ps. Ixvii), both of which were unaccom-
panied by music. Distinct also, as it seems, from the mode
of delivering the Hallel, which was more as a recitative, than
sung (Pesachim 64a, (Hebrew characters)). It was probably similar
to the Arabic, which delights in aifieling: long-winded, tril-
ling, and especially also nasal tones. For it is related of one
of the chief singers that in order to multiply the tones, he
placed his thumb in his mouth and his fore finger pon V2
(between the hairs, é. e. according to Rashi: on the furrow
of the upper lip against the partition of the nostrils), and thus
(by forming mouth and nose into a trumpet) produced sounds,
before the volume of which the priests started back in aston-
ishment.[2] This mode of psalm-singing in the Temple of He-
rod was no longer the original mode, and if the present ac-
centuation of the Psalms represents the fixed form of the
Temple song, it nevertheless does not convey to us any im-
- ↑ This is the view of Maimonides, who distributes the 9 trampet-
blasts by which the moming sacrifice, according to Succa 535, was ac-
companied, over the 3 pauses of the song. The hymn Haazinu, Dent. xxxii,
which is called (
Hebrew characters) par excellence, was song at the Sabbath
Musaph-sacrifice — each Sabbath a division of the hymn, which was
divided into six parts — so that it began anew on every seventh Sabbath,
vid. J. Megilla, sect. iii, ad fin.
- ↑ vid. B. Joma 386 and J. Shekalim v. 3, comp. Canticum Rabba on Canticles iii. 6
