02_Booij_351_351_374 30/10/15 13:01 Pagina 357 357 PSALM 118 AND FORM CRITICISM 357 that in this verse gx refers to the festal sacrifices 27. In Exod 23,18 the “fat” is indeed that of sacrificial animals, and the “dung” of sacrificial animals may be referred to in Mal 2,3; but this is not to say that in these texts gx is anything other than “festival”. In Psalm 118 it may be taken as “festal dance” or “dance procession” (cf. ggx as “reel” in 1 Sam 30,16; Ps 107,27, and see 2 Sam 6,14-17; Ps 42,5); on the analogy of hmxlm rsa, “join battle” (1 Kgs 20,14; 2 Chr 13,3), gx rsa can be understood as “open the festal dance”. Following Greek and Latin translators, we may take ~ytb[ as the plural of tbo[', “leafy”, which here would denote the bundles of twigs carried about, according to later traditions, at Succoth 28 (cf. Lev 23,40); the preposition b may be taken as “with” (cf. e.g. Josh 22,8; Judg 15,1). The preposition d[ in xbzmh twnrq-d[ cannot be meant here, logically, in a vertical sense. It serves, rather, to mark the end of the space within which participants in the procession had to line up (cf. Ps 26,6). The reason why the horns of the altar are mentioned is that they were eye-catching elements (cf. Ezek 43,15). For these reasons I contend that “up to the horns of the altar” stands for “as far as the place where the horns of the altar protrude”. The rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem was completed on 25 Elul 444 BC (Neh 6,15). So the psalm may have served at Succoth shortly after that date. The metaphor of the stone in Ps 118,22 may have been suggested by the recent building activities 29. III. Festal Rite, Festal Notion Succoth, a “festival of ingathering”, was celebrated in the autumn, after the harvesting of grapes and olives and before the 27 Thus e.g. J. GOLDINGAY, Psalms III: Psalms 90–150 (Grand Rapids, MI 2008) 364. 28 Symmachus: sundh,sate evn panhgu,rei puka,smata, “in the festal meeting tie up the leafy [branches]”. In that interpretation, ~ytb[ is to be read as ~yTibu[]. The Secunda transcribing the Taw in ~tyb[ as a double consonant confirms this reading. 29 See A.F. KIRKPATRICK, The Book of Psalms (Cambridge 1902) 693-694; COHEN, Psalms, 393; M.L. BRENNER, The Song of the Sea: Ex 15:1-21 (BZAW 195; Berlin – New York 1991) 62-65. M. BERDER, “La pierre rejetée par les bâtisseurs”. Psaume 118,22-23 et son emploi dans les traditions juives et dans le Nouveau Testament (Paris 1996) 89.