Rosh Hashanah

He appointed it for Joseph for a testimony when he went forth1 etc. ‘On New Year the bondage of our ancestors ceased in Egypt’. It is written in one place, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians,2 and it is written in another place, I removed his shoulder from the burden.3 ‘In Nisan they were delivered’, as Scripture recounts. ‘In Tishri they will be delivered in time to come’. This is learnt from the two occurrences of the word ‘horn’. It is written in one place, Blow the horn on the new moon,4 and it is written in another place, In that day a great horn shall be blown.5 ‘R. Joshua says, In Nisan they were delivered, in Nisan they will be delivered in the time to come’. Whence do we know this? — Scripture calls [the Passover] ‘a night of watchings’,6 [which means], a night which has been continuously watched for from the six days of the creation. What says the other to this? — [He says it means], a night which is under constant protection against evil spirits. 7 R. Joshua and R. Eliezer are herein consistent [with views expressed by them elsewhere], as it has been taught: ‘In the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month.8 R. Joshua said: That day was the seventeenth day of Iyar, when the constellation of Pleiades sets at daybreak and the fountains begin to dry up, and because they [mankind] perverted their ways, the Holy One, blessed be He, changed for them the work of creation and made the constellation of Pleiades rise at daybreak and took two stars from the Pleiades and brought a flood on the world. R. Eliezer said: That day was the seventeenth of Marheshvan, a day on which the constellation of Pleiades rises at daybreak, and [the season] when the fountains begin to fill