524 VISIONS AND PROPHECIES OF ZECHARIAH
great Hosanna, the joy and excitement of the people reached their climax. The joyous crowds of worshippers on that day, seen from one of the flat roofs of Jerusalem overlooking the Temple area, would resemble a forest in motion, for all carried palm branches in their hands which were more than a man s height in length. Great silence would fall on the assembled throng as the choir of Levites commenced to sing the Hallel (the specially prescribed " Praise " for the great festivals, consisting of Pss. cxiii.- cxviii.), to each line of which the people had to respond with " Hallelujah." Soon the whole crowd fell into order, and, led by the priests, marched in procession round the altar. Seven times they encompassed it. As the singers reached vers. 25 to 29 of Ps. cxviii., and joined in the words, " Ana Adonai Hoshio-na!" ("Hosanna, make Thy salvation now manifest, O Lord!"), "Ana Adonai Hatslicha-na! " (" O Lord, send now prosperity! "), the people waved their palm branches and accompanied the song with loud exclamations of joy. And as they reached the words, " Blessed is He that cometli in tJie Name of Jehovah" the godly and spiritual among them would in their hearts greet the coming Messiah and King, to whom they well knew these words applied.
The joy accompanying this ceremonial was so great that it became a proverb. " He that hath not seen Simcliat-bet-Jia-Shdebkali, the joy of the drawing (and the pouring) of the water, hath not seen joy in this life." Now, though the Rabbis attached a symbolic significance to the ceremonial in connection with the dispensation of the rain, the amount of which for the year they imagined was determined by God at this feast ; and perhaps also a commemorative sense, as reminding them of the wonders God wrought in the wilderness in giving them water out of a rock, the main reference according to themselves, as already said, was to the future blessings to be bestowed on them in Messiah s time, and especially pointed to the pouring out of the Spirit ; as is to be inferred from the singing by the multitude of Isa. xii. 3, and from the distinct
