The singers - Singing had long been recognized as appropriate to religious ceremonies Exodus 15:21; Judges 5:1; 1 Chronicles 13:8; but this is the first occasion on which we find the duty of conducting musical services expressly laid on the Levites. Henceforth, the services of the tabernacle and the temple were regularly choral, and a considerable section of the Levites was trained in musical knowledge, and set apart to conduct this portion of the national worship.

And David spake to the chief of the Levites,.... The six before mentioned, 1 Chronicles 15:11.

to appoint their brethren to be the singers; before the ark, as they brought it up:

with instruments of music, psalteries, and harps, and cymbals; which were used in those times, see 2 Samuel 6:5.

sounding by lifting up the voice with joy; the instrumental music was to be attended with vocal music, and that very sonorous and loud, and performed with all tokens of inward joy and gladness, as the occasion required.

David gave the princes of the Levites a further charge to appoint singers with musical instruments for the solemn procession, which they accordingly did. שׁיר כּלי, instruments to accompany the song. In 1 Chronicles 15:16 three kinds of these are named: נבלים, nablia, ψαλτήρια, which Luther has translated by psalter, corresponds to the Arabic santir, which is an oblong box with a broad bottom and a somewhat convex sounding-board, over which strings of wire are stretched; an instrument something like the cithara. כּנּרות, harps, more properly lutes, as this instrument more resembled our lute than the harp, and corresponded to the Arabic catgut instrument el ‛ûd (l-cûd); cf. Wetzstein in Delitzsch, Isaiah, S. 702, der 2 Aufl., where, however, the statement that the santir is essentially the same as the old German cymbal, vulgo Hackebrett, is incorrect, and calculated to bring confusion into the matter, for the cymbal was an instrument provided with a small bell. מצלתּים, the later word for צלצלים, cymbals, castanets; see on 2 Samuel 6:5. משׁמיעים does not belong to the three before-mentioned instruments (Berth.), but, as is clear from 1 Chronicles 15:19, 1 Chronicles 15:28, 1 Chronicles 16:5, 1 Chronicles 16:42, undoubtedly only to מצלתּים (Bttcher, Neue krit. Aehrenlese, iii. S. 223); but the meaning is not "modulating," but "sounding clear or loud," - according to the proper meaning of the word, to make to hear. The infinitive clause וגו להרים belongs to the preceding sentence: "in order to heighten the sound (both of the song and of the instrumental music) to joy," i.e., to the expression of joy. לשׂימחה is frequently used to express festive joy: cf. 1 Chronicles 15:25, 2 Chronicles 23:18; 2 Chronicles 29:30; but also as early as in 2 Samuel 6:12; 1 Samuel 18:6; Judges 16:23, etc. - In 1 Chronicles 15:17, 1 Chronicles 15:18 the names of the singers and players are introduced; then in 1 Chronicles 15:19-21 they are named in connection with the instruments they played; and finally, in 1 Chronicles 15:22-24, the other Levites and priests who took part in the celebration are mentioned. The three chief singers, the Kohathite Heman, the Gershonite Asaph, and the Merarite Ethan, form the first class. See on 1 Chronicles 6:33, 1 Chronicles 6:39, and 1 Chronicles 6:44. To the second class (המּשׁנים, cf. המּשׁנה, 2 Kings 23:4) belonged thirteen or fourteen persons, for in 1 Chronicles 15:21 an Azaziah is named in the last series who is omitted in 1 Chronicles 15:18; and it is more probable that his name has been dropped out of 1 Chronicles 15:18 than that it came into our text, 1 Chronicles 15:21, by an error. In 1 Chronicles 15:18 בּן comes in after זכריהוּ by an error or transcription, as we learn from the w before the following name, and from a comparison of 1 Chronicles 15:20 and 1 Chronicles 15:25. The name יעזיאל is in 1 Chronicles 15:20 written עזיאל, Yodh being rejected; and in 1 Chronicles 16:5 it is יעיאל, which is probably only a transcriber's error, since יעיאל occurs along with it both in 1 Chronicles 15:18 and in 1 Chronicles 16:5. The names Benaiah and Maaseiah, which are repeated in 1 Chronicles 15:20, have been there transposed. All the other names in vv.18 and 20 coincide.

And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with {g} instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.

(g) These instruments and other ceremonies which they observed, were instructions of their infancy, which continued to the coming of Christ.

16-24. David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint . the singers with instruments-These eminent Levites were instructed to train the musicians and singers who were under them, for the solemn procession. The performers were ranged in three choirs or bands, and the names of the principal leaders are given (1Ch 15:17, 18, 21), with the instruments respectively used by each. "Ben" (1Ch 15:18) is omitted (1Ch 15:20). Either it was used merely as a common noun, to intimate that Zechariah was the son of Jaaziel or Aziel, or Ben is the same as Azaziah [1Ch 15:21].

15:1-24 Wise and good men may be guilty of oversights, which they will correct, as soon as they are aware of them. David does not try to justify what had been done amiss, nor to lay the blame on others; but he owns himself guilty, with others, of not seeking God in due order