TEHILLIM LIGHT

Commentaries

Mizmor 022, Verse 001

לַ֭מְנַצֵּחַ עַל־אַיֶּ֥לֶת הַשַּׁ֗חַר מִזְמ֥וֹר לְדָוִֽד

Lammenatzeiach al-ayyeleth hashachar mizmor ledovid

For the conductor, on the ayeleth hashachar, a song of David.

MIDRASH TEHILLIM

1.....(22.1)
ayyeleth hashachar...
A.
The word "Ayyeleth" (Hind) is to be taken in the same sense as "Ayyelot" in - "God the Lord is my strength. He made my feet as the hind's [Ayyelot]..." (Habakkuk 3:19).
Rabbi Phinehas said, Scripture does not say here - like stags feet, but like hinds feet, because the feet of the female deer are surer than the feet of the male.
B.
...sang Moshe and the children of Israel this song unto the Lord (Shemot - Exodus 15:1). So "...ayyeleth hashachar..." (the hind of dawn" means upon the rising of the sun, song.
C.
..."Ayyeleth" (hind), when read as the plural [Ayyelot], maybe taken as referring to two women likend to hinds, to Deborah and to Esther.
To Deborah, who came from the tribe of Naphtali, Jacob meant her when he said: "Naphtali is a hind left loose" (Bereshit - Genesis 49:21).
In this Psalm, however, the hind of the morning refers to Esther.

RASHI

1.
ayeleth hashachar
A.
The name of a musical instrument.
B.
Concerning the nation of Israel, which is a beloved hind (אילת אהבים), who looks forth like the dawn (שחר) (Song 6: 10).
C.
Our Sages, however, interpreted it as referring to Esther (Mid. Ps. 22:1, Meg. 15b).
D.
Menachem (p. 22) interprets אילת as an expression of strength, as (verse 20): “My strength (אילותי), hasten to my assistance.” השחר is an expression of dawn, but Menachem (p. 172) interprets it as an expression of seeking, as (in Prov. 11: 27): “He who desires (שֹׁחֵר) good etc.” and as (ibid. 7:15) “to look (לשחר) for you.”

RADAK

1.
For the Chief Musician. Set to "The Hind of the Morning." A Psalm of David.
...
A.
There are interpreters (Targumist, Menahem, and others besides) who explain אילת from (אילותי in) My succour (אילותי), haste Thee to help me (infra, 20), meaning that this Psalm was uttered in the strength of the morning's dawn.
B.
Some interpret אילת as the name of the morning star. So we have in the words of our Rabbis of blessed memory (Jerushalami, Berakhoth 1:1; Yoma 3:2): "They call the morning star Ayyeleth."
C.
(Canticles Rabbah 6; Esther Rabbah 10 end; and Shoher Tob, ad loc.) say that this Psalm was uttered with reference to Esther and to Israel, who were in exile at that time. Some also interpret it of David while he was still a fugitive before Saul.
D.
The correct view is that the title The Hind of the Morning is used of the congregation of Israel while in this (present) exile, and the end of the Psalm proves this. It calls her a hind, just as the comparison is applied to her in the Song of Songs (2:7; 3:5): "among the roes or among the hinds of the field" The meaning also of השחר (the morning) is beauty and brightness, as it says concerning her (ibid. 6:10): "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning ?" And now she is in darkness in this exile, as if forgotten and abandoned; and she cries out from exile:

Rabbi HIRSCH

1.
shachar
...is a time of day's dawning, the time of "searching" at which objects, though not as yet clearly distinguishable from one another, can already be recognized if an effort is made to "search” for them.
Psalm 22 sings of the renewed vigor which a man, even though he is still surrounded by darkness, may derive from the knowledge that morning cannot be far away.

WORDS