시편 6:1의 인용 해설

Your utterance: This is circumcision, that was given with saying, and not with speech: "And God said to Avraham, 'You shall keep My covenant'" (Genesis 17:9). And we have found that David was gladdened by it, as it is stated (in Psalms 6), "For the choirmaster, upon the sheminit (an eight-stringed lyre, but here taken as a reference to circumcision which happens on the eighth day)" - when he was in the bathhouse and he saw himself without Torah and without commandments; when (he gazed) at the circumcision, he was gladdened.

Ahaziah his son, Joash From Solomon to Joash were eight generations, and since David foresaw that his seed would perish in the days of Joash through Athaliah, as is written in this Book (II Chron. 22:10): “... she arose and destroyed (וַתְּדַבֵּר),” (from the expression of דֶּבֶר pestilence, through poison), he stood in prayer and uttered a psalm (Ps. 12): “For the conductor on the sheminith,” [alluding to an] eight stringed [instrument] (other editions: in number) “for the eighth generation.” (v. 2): “Save, O Lord, for the pious are gone, etc.” And Joash escaped, and from Joash to Josiah are eight generations, for David foresaw that Josiah and his sons would all go to their doom: this one was slain [i.e., Josiah. Perhaps he means Jehoiakim and Zedekiah’s sons as well] and this one’s eyes were gouged out [Zedekiah]. And he [David] prayed again on the sheminith, for the eighth generation (Ps. 6:1f.): “O Lord, do not rebuke me in Your anger,” and because of his prayer, the sons of Jehoiakim survived, and throughout the entire Book of Psalms, there are only these two mentions of the sheminith. And from Jeconiah (other editions: Jehoiakim) until (verse 24): “Anani seven,” which is [an allusion to] the King Messiah, as it is written: (Dan. 7:13): “... and behold, with the clouds of (עֲנָנֵי) the heavens,” are thirty eight sons, including both sons and generations of the sons. The Holy One, blessed be He, did this because he [David] recited thirty eight praises to Him, as it is written in the Book of Ezra (sic) (I Chron. 29:10 13). From “Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, etc.” until “and to strengthen,” are thirty eight words.

עיר קדש ישראל═קדש ישראל The city of the holy One of Israel. Comp. Ps. 6:1.¹⁵קדוש ישראל is the genitive; but it cannot be governed by ציון, because the latter is a proper noun, and proper nouns do not govern a genitive; wherever, therefore, this seems to be the case, another noun in apposition to it is supplied, as e. g. here, the word עיר city.

And Mattithiah and Eliphelehu, etc. with harps on the sheminith to conduct those musical instruments upon which they play the psalms entitled: “For the conductor, on the sheminith.”