Question XII. Whether in that same last column, besides the seven priests before the ark, there were any [other] horn-blowers?

If we consult the 70 interpreters, behold the priests οἱ οὐραγοῦντες ὀπίσω τῆς κιβωτοῦ σαλπίζοντες [“bringing up the rear behind the ark, sounding [trumpets]”], as I touched once and again in the previous question. If we take up our Latin, behold v. 9: “The rest of the common people followed the ark, and made everything resound with the buccinae.” And v. 13: “The rest of the common people followed the ark, and sounded with the buccinae.” But if we examine the Hebrew text in each cited verse word for word, it is thus: that when it had been said [that] in the first place the armed go, in the second the seven priests sound with trumpets, in the third others carry the ark, in the fourth the last column go — it is always added [that they went] “going, and sounding with trumpets.” Does not, then, this last band seem to have gone in such a way that it too sounded trumpets? It seems it can be answered in two ways. First: that from the common people and the last column there were certain trumpeters, but with trumpets other than those which had been commanded to the seven priests. These [priests’] were the Jubilee-[trumpets]; but the people’s trumpets, of whatever [kind they were]. For “iobel” [the jubilee-blast] was added to the priests’ trumpets twice or thrice [in the text], as appeared (q. 4), [but] never to the [common] people’s. Then [secondly], that we may grant the trumpets to the priests alone: and then the Hebrew text is expounded in two ways. First, by the Chaldee, and by those following him, thus: “the priests going on, and sounding those buccinae.” Secondly, by Masius thus: “during the marching it was sounded with the buccinae.” And this sense pleases altogether. For, first, in the Hebrew tongue this repetition of infinitives — like the Latin gerunds — is not infrequent, [made] for greater force of speech. Secondly, that it was proper to the priests to sound the trumpets, several Hebrews and Latins teach — Theodoret too, the Greek (q. 15 on Numbers). Thirdly, to the same view the 70 and the Latin can be recalled; for the priests of the rear column were sounding, and the [common] crowd made the sound not of itself, but through the seven priests going before. For “what we do through others, we are said to do [ourselves],” as a certain rule of Law says; and the whole army sounds the clarions and trumpets, not through individual soldiers, but through a few clarion-players and trumpeters. And so the Latin rightly said, “all things resounded with the buccinae.” Fourthly, silence was commanded to the people at v. 10, so that they might receive the priestly trumpets as a voice sent by God (Numbers 10:9).