VOL. 



^l^y'] PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL MUSEUM. 297 



of the king and the aiiiiouuceinent of his victory over some other tribe 

 or faction were one and the same event. 



When .Vbsalom was engaged in the revolt against his fatlier lie ,S(Mit 

 si)ies among all the tribes of Israel announcing his intentions and in- 

 Ibrmingthem that when they heard the shofar wsonnded they might say 

 that he had become king. (II Samuel xv, 10.) 



In tlie <lirections given with regiird to tlie coronation oi' Solomon the 

 use of the shofar is expressly mentioned (I Kings, i,.'U and .SD), and its 

 sound aftVighted Adonijah and guests at their banquet. (I Kings, i, 

 41.) 



The overthrow of the house of Ahal) and tln^ coronation of Jehu 

 were ])roc]aimed in the same way. (II Kings, ix, 13.) 



ETYMOLOGY. 



The etymology of shofar is not ;\t all clear. Gesenius derived it 

 from the stem sha/ar " to be bright, clear, beautiful — i)ossibly on ac- 

 count of its clear sound," but this is hardly satislactory. The editors 

 of the eleventh edition of (lesenius retain tlie san)e explanation.* 



Nothing can be learned from Arabic sabbirrA This is simply l)or- 

 rowed from the Talmudic form kippnra or Hppur, the b in Arabic repre- 

 senting the Hebrew j), as the Arabic ])()ssesses no p, but only f.f 



The ti'umpet now used by the Ai-abs of Asia Minor, which they call 

 seifuVj is a metallic instrument. It is ])ossil)le, however, that tlie word 

 was originally ap])lied by the Arabs to ;in instrument of horn. § 



The Arabian Jews <'alled the shofar s<((i/ar. We may, however, get 

 some light from Assyrian. || 



According to Stade (Grammar, par. L'lSa) the Hebrew shofar staiuls 

 for a form suppar, and exactly this form has been found in Assyrian. 

 In a cuneiform list of animals (II Kawlinson, VI, 6 cd) we find, following 

 atudu, "he goat," the word sapparu, which is accordingly the name of 

 an animal, possibly of the goat order. The word also occurs in a 



*TLey say parenthetically that the shofar was the shape of a horn and possibly 

 made of horn. 



tWetzstein, ]». TA, ]troi)Ose8 an Arabic etymology; .s«/V« and m/ir in Arabic mean 

 edge or corner, and it is probjibly his idea that they bear the same relation to siiofar 

 that corner bears to Latin cnritn. The late Prof, de Lagarde compared shofar with 

 Armenian nhifora (Armi'tinche Sludicii, ]). 117, No. 1()931). 



ICf. Si(*f»nnind Fraeniiel, Die Aramaischen Fremdworter im Jrahisclivn, Leyden, 

 1888, p. 24. 



§ See Mnsical Instruments and their Homes, by Mary E. Brown and William 

 Adams Brown (New York, 1888), p. 196. It is principally interesting because it 

 resembles the trumpet played by an Assyrian warrior on a bas-relief of Nineveh and 

 the Hebrew trumpet represented on the arch of Titus at Rome. This latter is not 

 identical with the shofar; it is the straight metallic trumjx't or harovcia whicli is 

 represented on the arch of Titus (Engel, p. 24). 



II Fr. Delitzsch, I'rolet/oiucna eineH nenen Hebraisch-Aramaischen W'orUrhucltia zitm 

 AlteM Testament, Leipzig, 1886, p. 125. 



