Question XIX. The circuits — how many were they?

Summarily, that they were all fourteen, is the opinion of Radak, of the Rabbis. For on the seventh day he posits one, which was at first light [dawn], then seven others — so that on that day all the circuits were eight. His reason is that v. 15, in the Hebrew, word for word, is thus: “And it was on the seventh day, and they rose early when the dawn ascended, and they went round the city, according to this ordinance, seven times.” For he thinks that, when it is said “according to this ordinance,” the morning circuit is referred to, so that the [other] seven should be made according to its manner and, as it were, [its] exemplar. But [rather] the custom and manner of circling is referred to, which had been observed in the circuits of the previous six days. For of these it had been treated in the preceding v. 14 — as if he said, “they circled seven times in the same manner and mode”; or rather (which comes to the same) the ordinance, or custom, is referred to, which the Lord had prescribed, and which had been kept up to that day. And our interpreter [the Vulgate] signified this when he translated: “they went round the city, as it had been arranged, seven times.” And because that was clear enough, we see [it] omitted by the 70. It is confirmed: first, because it is immediately added in the Hebrew, “On that day alone they went round the city seven times” — but it would have had to say “eight times” [were Radak right]. Secondly, this is the opinion of the Latins, the Greeks, and all other Hebrews. Thirdly, even today, in their synagogues, the Jews, on the seventh day of Tabernacles [Scenopegia], in memory of this sevenfold circuit, seven times go round the “ambo” [bimah] — which they have in the middle of them — in the manner of a procession; as is noted by Paul of Burgos in the additions to Matthew ch. 26, and by the Latin interpreter of the Hebrew calendar, and likewise recently by Ernst Ferdinand [Hess] (book 2 of the Scourge of the Jews, ch. 8). Summarily, therefore, the circuits [were] thirteen.