[142] It is true that the word is used of “surrounding” a table in the Hebrew of Ecclus. xxxv. 1 (xxxii. 1 in Greek), but it would be precarious to cite this late Hebrew meaning of it in support of the R.V. rendering of the word in 1 Sam. xvi. 11. In Ecclus. ix. 9 it is used of “mingling” strong drink.
[143] Cp. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, p. 340, note 2: “The festal song of praise (tahlil) properly goes with the dance round the altar (cp. Ps. xxvi. 6 sq.), for in primitive times song and dance are inseparable.”
[144] Psalms (Intern. Crit. Com.), II. 408 (1907).
[145] Cp. Job xxvi. 10: “He hath worked out a circle (ḥôq ḥāg) upon the face of the waters”; or perhaps better: “He hath circumscribed a boundary....” This illustrates the root meaning of ḥag, “a circle”; and this is the formation of the festival dance. See, further, Driver and Gray, Job, Part II., Philological Notes, pp. 154, 180 (1921); Budde, Hiob, p. 146 (1896); Ball, The Book of Job, p. 322 (1922). See also Prov. viii. 27, and cp. Isa. xix. 17: “And the land of Judah shall be for a reeling (ḥagga’) to Egypt,” i.e. Egypt will become giddy through fear at the sight of Judah, and will thus “reel.” Ḥagga’ “may either be from an original sense of ḥāgag, or it may be equivalent to being excited as at a ḥag” (Oxf. Hebr. Lex.). More probably it is simply a derivative from ḥag, giddiness as a result of going round at the festival dance; it is used in Isa. xix. 17 in a metaphorical way.
[146] Mishnah, Sukkah, iv. 2.
[147] See above, [pp. 48 ff.] The prince-poet Imra-al-Kais refers in one of his poems to girls, gown-clad, going swiftly round the Davar (EB, I. 998).
[148] Nili Opera, Narrat. III. 8 (in Migne, Patrol. Graec. LXXIX. 612 f.) “In later Arabia, the ṭawâf, or act of circling the sacred stone, was still a principal part of religion; but even before Mohammed’s time it had begun to be dissociated from sacrifice, and became a meaningless ceremony,” Robertson Smith, op. cit. p. 340.
[149] “Damit wäre dann der kultische Tanz als Produkt der altorientalischen Vorstellungswelt erwiesen” (de la Saussaye, Religionsgeschichte, I. 380 [1905]).
[151] De Dea Syria, XLIX.; see Strong and Garstang, The Syrian Goddess, and Garstang’s notes on pp. 83 f. (1913).