Page:Annotated Edition of the Authorised Daily Prayer Book.djvu/36

xvi well as Immortality. Some modern versions therefore prefer the reading &quot;Blessed art Thou, O Lord, who callest the dead to everlasting life.&quot;

Who hast given to the cock intelligence (אֲשֶׁר נָתַן לַשֶֹּכְוִי בִינָה). In the Talmud (Berachoth 60 b) this benediction at cock-crow is prescribed. The Romans divided the night, from 6 P.M. to 6 A.M., into four watches, Evening, Midnight, Cock-crow and Morning. (There was another division into three watches.) The service of the Temple began with the cleansing of the altar, which took place at cock-crow (Mishnah, Yoma, i. 8). It is possible that the inclusion of this benediction was due to Persian influence (see Darmesteter, The Zend-Avesta, i. 193). But the whole idea in this part of the liturgy is the regular recurrence of daily phenomena and life. On awaking the worshipper expresses his sense of the order of Nature and of the marvellous regularity of her operations. Hence it is probable that this benediction is to be traced to Job xxxviii. 36, a passage eulogising the providence and power of God. Various translations have been given of this verse in Job, but the Rabbis (Talmud, Rosh Hashana 26 a) translate it: &quot;Who hath put wisdom in the inward parts (of man), or who hath given understanding to the cock?&quot; Thus both the intelligence of man and the instinct of the whole animal world are derived from the same divine source.

Pages 5 and 6. Who hast not made me a heathen...a bondman...a woman (שֶׁלֹּא עָשַֹנִי נָכְרִי...עָבֶד...אִשָּׁה). Plato or (according to some, Socrates) is recorded to have expressed his gratitude for three things, that he was a man and not one of the lower animals, a man and not a woman, a Greek and not a barbarian (Plutarch, Life of Marius, Diogenes Laertius, i. i. 7). Similarly, Darmesteter has shown that the Persians had a formula of the same kind. The threefold prayer is found with some variations in the Talmud (Jerus. Talmud on Berachoth ix. i : Bab. Talmud Menahoth 43 b, Berachoth Tosephta, ch. 6). Some liturgies (cf. Berliner Randbemerkungen, i. p. 15) give the formulæ positively (שֶׁעָשַׂנִי יִשׂרָאֵל who hast made