Matthew 9:23

Matthew 9:23, ἐλθὼν … καὶ ἰδὼν, circumstantial participles leading up to what Jesus said, the main fact. τοὺς αὐλητὰς, etc.: the girl was only just dead, yet already a crowd had gathered about the house, brought together by various motives, sympathy, money, desire to share in the meat and drink going at such a time (so Lightfoot, Hor. Heb., ut ederent et biberent), and of course making a confused din. θορυβούμενον, the part. = a relative with finite verb = the crowd which was making a din. The crowd, besides the αὐληταί, tibicines, flute-players, would include some hired mourning women (Jeremiah 9:17), præficæ, whose duty it was to sing nænia in praise of the dead. Mourning, like everything else, had been reduced to system, two flutes and one mourning woman at the burial of a wife incumbent on the poorest man (Lightfoot, Hor. Heb.). The practice in Greece and Rome was similar; proofs in Grotius, Elsner, Wetstein. Vide also Marquardt, Handbuch der Röm. Alterthümer, vol. vii., p. 341, where it is stated that by the twelve Tables the number of tibicines was limited to ten, and that before the Punic war, at least, præficæ were employed.