1Levitical
Choirs and Music Development; Psalm 95:1
Psalm 95:1 NASB “O come, let us sing for joy to the LORD, Let us shout
joyfully to the rock of our salvation.”
We have so far looked at the basic word for worship in both the Hebrew
in the Old Testament and the Greek in the New Testament where two ideas stand
out: submission and service. We are to submit to God’s authority in every area
of life and there is no area that is left out. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians
that we are to take every thought captive for Christ. That means every single
area of life. Every single area of intellectual activity comes under the
authority of God; there is nothing that is neutral, and that includes music.
The song of Moses tells us something about the quality of the lyrics
that we should be singing in hymns to God, that these are not shallow,
superficial words that are just spontaneously written, but there is thought
that goes into this. The song of Deborah was a response to the new work of God
as he intervened in the history of
We need to note that in hymns the lyrics should be God-centred. The
focus on what God did, and as we go through the Psalms we see they focus on who
God is and what He does. Many of these hymns are hymns of joy, rejoicing on all
of the things that God has done for us. These hymns are the outgrowth of
experience and spiritual life, and they also show the deep reflection that has
gone on in the writer’s own spiritual life. As these songs are sung again and
again in the corporate worship of
We come to the next stage in rhe development of corporate worship and it
takes place under David. It takes place under David for two reasons: a) because
of the quality of David’s own spiritual life and because of his genius and
ability; b) because during the period preceding David there is such apostasy in
the land that there is no cohesiveness in the nation and there not a
theocentric focus. When David becomes king he is focused on God, he is
theocentric in his thinking, a man after God’s own heart.
When David came to transport the ark to
While the ark was stored in
At the time they are organising this David is going to divide the whole
dimension of singing and music into three basic groups, and he identifies three
key leaders. They are mentioned in 1 Chronicles chapter six which is a
genealogy related to the family of Levi. Chronicles was written after the
Babylonian captivity and the purpose was to provide continuity between the post-exile
and the pre-exile. The purpose was to match the worship in the Zerubbabel
temple back to the formats that were established by David. So there is a sound
biblical tradition here. The reason for making that point is that we hear in
the chronological arrogance of contemporary Christian worship the idea that not
only does the concept of a new song mean that every generation needs to write
hymns according to their own music, but that it is somehow wrong to sing the
hymns of past generations, and that we always have to do something new. What we
see in numerous places in the Old Testament—Hezekiah in 2 Chronicles 29; Ezra,
Nehemiah in the 5th century BC when they return—is that they
go back to the same forms and structures and hymns of David. They don’t try to
generate new things for their new generation of believers and try to make it
relevant in a contemporary sense.
This is what drives so much in contemporary church practice today, the
idea that we have to be relevant, that we have to somehow learn the beat and
the movement of the contemporary generation of teenagers so that we can reach
them; that if we don’t put it in the form that they like we are going to lose
the next generation. This is cultural relevance. It is ultimately destructive
to spirituality and destructive of the church.
So David is going to establish the basis for worship and he sets up
these three groups under Heman, Asaph, and Ethan. They are Levites and each
represent a different son of Levi. Three clans became the three basic clans of
Levitical priests and they are divided into various orders and each clan is
given different responsibilities in taking care of the furniture of the
tabernacle, the transportation of the tabernacle, all of the different things
that would be involved in moving the tabernacle through the wilderness. Heman
is a musician and he is also called a seer which means his ministry is related
to prophecy. There is a connection between being a prophet and music. It is
only mentioned in about three passages and it is never fully described, but we
see indications of this with Deborah who is called a prophetess, Miriam who is
called a prophetess, and what they did was sing hymns. So there is an element
of that word “prophet” that doesn’t have anything to do with prosecuting the
Law or foretelling the future, but it has to do with the writing and singing of
music. 1 Chronicles
Asaph is the second one mentioned. He is also appointed by David as one
of the chief leaders in the music ministry of the temple. He was a descendant
of Gershon, the son of Levi. He was responsible for the percussion section in
terms of the bronze cymbals. He was responsible for the ministry at temporary
resting place of the tabernacle at
Ethan is also called in some passages Jeduthun. He is a Levite from the
family of Merari. So each of the clans of Levi are represented by a musical
leader. He is called in 1 Chronicles 35:15 the king’s seer, so he also has this
prophetic role related to his singing.
These three men are used by David to organise and train those who would
sing in the worship of God. The principle that we learn from that is that
singing isn’t just something that is an adjunct to worship. Chronicles reveals
that this was done according to the instructions of Nathan and Gad, and God
revealed it to them. That is all it says, so there is unrecorded revelation
from God through Nathan the prophet and Gad the prophet to David for how to set
all of this up. So it isn’t something that has developed from David’s own initiative
but it is according to a divine revelation.
As they were preparing to move the ark up they composed several hymns
related to this. Psalm 24:7-10 NASB “Lift up your heads, O gates, And be
lifted up, O
ancient doors, That the King of glory may come in!
Psalm 47:5 reflects on this as well. NASB “God has ascended
with a shout, The LORD, with the sound of a trumpet. [6] Sing praises to God, sing praises;
Sing praises to our King, sing praises.
[7] For God is the King of all the earth; Sing praises with a skillful
[with understanding] psalm.” We don’t just slip into a sort of mindless thing
and sing the familiar hymns, we are to sing them because the purpose of the
words is to cause our thinking to focus on who God is and what he has done.
Another thing we learn in relation to the moving of the ark is that in 2
Samuel 6:5 David is using various musicians in this who procession of bringing
the ark into
2 Chronicles 29:25-30 takes place in a period when there is a
restoration of temple worship under Hezekiah. His father was evil and apostate
and when Hezekiah comes in there is a major overhaul, a restoration of the
temple, and he restores the temple worship. NASB “He then stationed
the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with harps and with lyres, according to
the command of David and of Gad the king’s seer, and of Nathan the prophet; for
the command was from the LORD through His prophets. The Levites stood with the
{musical} instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets. Then
Hezekiah gave the order to offer the burnt offering on the altar. When the
burnt offering began, the song to the LORD also began with the trumpets, {accompanied} by
the instruments of David, king of
Music