2 Chronicles 5:12 - Exposition

This verse, marked off in the Authorized Version in brackets, is most graphic. First all the priests , who were not hors de combat, i.e. all the "courses" of them together, thronged the arena; and now they are joined by all the Levites who were singers, of them of Asaph, of Heman, of Jeduthun ( 1 Chronicles 25:1-31 ), i.e. twenty-four choirs in one, with their sons and their brethren ; and this collected choir is arrayed in white linen; and they have three kinds of musical instruments— cymbals ( Psalms 150:5 ) and psalteries (or lutes) and harps ( 1 Chronicles 16:5 ; 1 Chronicles 25:1 ); and they take up their station at the east end of the altar , and still further a strong support flanks these of a hundred and twenty priests sounding with trumpets ( 1 Chronicles 16:6 ). So ends our inopportune Authorized Version parenthesis. But to what all this? It is a scene in a nation's history, in the universal Church's history; it is witnessed from heaven, and by Heaven's will recorded in the book on earth, which will endure through all generations, as long as the sun and moon endure, as ushering in the moment when, as described in the next verse, to the unanimous fervent adoration and praise of man, God bent a willing, gracious ear, and to earth the glory of heaven drew nigh. Cymbals . The word used here ( מְצִלְתַּים ), denoting strictly "pair of cymbals," occurs eleven times in Chronicles, once in Ezra, and once in Nehemiah. Another form of essentially the same word occurs once in 2 Samuel 6:5 and twice in Psalms 150:5 . This last passage notes two kinds of cymbals—the "loud" and the "high-sounding." It was the former of these that Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun used, and their use was probably to regulate or beat the time. Psalteries ( נֶבֶל ) . This word occurs twenty-eight times in the Old Testament, but of these it is translated (Authorized Version) four times as "viols" ( Isaiah 5:12 ; Isaiah 14:11 ; Amos 5:23 ; Amos 6:5 ); it is also once rendered "vessels of flagons " ( Isaiah 22:24 ), but the margin offers the version "instruments of viols." While the cymbal was, of course, an instrument of percussion, the psaltery was one of strings—its use was as an accompaniment to the voice. The first mention of it is very interesting ( 1 Samuel 10:5 ). Compare also David's and Solomon's psaltery in 2 Samuel 6:5 ; 2 Chronicles 9:11 . Harps ( כִּנּור ). This word occurs forty-two times, beginning with Genesis 4:21 . Trumpets ( חֲצֹצְרָה ). This word (including eleven of the personal forms of it, as e.g. the person blowing the trumpet ) occurs just forty times, beginning with Numbers 10:2 . It was the straight tuba, and was not, therefore, the same with the ram's-horn shaped buccina ( שֹׁפָר ), generally rendered in the Authorized Version "cornet," but sometimes "trumpet;" the specialty of the cornet being to blow a sound for a signal or summons of some sort, whether secular as in war, or sacred as for some festival. The trumpets of our verse evidently ( Numbers 10:8 ) were in a particular sense the instrument of the priests.