Psalms 150:4

Psa 150:4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.

Ver. 4. Praise him with the timbrel and dance] Or, pipe. But these are ancient things (as it is said in another case, 1Ch 4:22), and now out of date. When the use of these musical instruments crept into the Christian Churches (which was not till lately) great abuses crept in with it; the preaching of the word was changed into songs and anthems, little understood by those that sang them, and that grave and simple psalmody or singing of psalms (so much used of old and by this blessed Reformation restored to the Church) was jostled out, or rather turned in turpissimum lenocinium (as one justly complaineth), such as Nebuchadnezzar made before his golden image, Dan 3:1 Justin Martyr musices usum reprehendit qu. 107, ad Orthodox. Sic Theodoret Lib. de Sacrific. When Aristotle was asked what he thought of music, he answered, Iovem nec canere, nec citharam pulsars; thinking it an unprofitable art to men, that was no more delightful to God. Plato told the musicians who pressed into his company, that philosophers could do well enough without them. There is (no doubt) a lawful use of music, and great power it hath to move men’s minds one way or another, 2Ki 3:15 1Sa 16:23. But in God’s public worship it is dangerous to do anything without his special warrant, though we intend never so well in so doing; as we see in Uzzah. Temple music was part of the Jewish pedagogy, of the Levitical worship; and therefore cannot be retained without injury to Christ.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ver. 4. Praise him with the timbrel and dance. Associated with the deliverance at the Red Sea, this form of worship set forth the most jubilant and exultant of worship. The hands and the feet were both employed, and the entire body moved in sympathy with the members. Are there not periods of life when we feel so glad that we would fain dance for joy? Let not such exhilaration be spent upon common themes, but let the name of God stir us to ecstasy. Let us exult as we cry,

"In the heavenly Lamb thrice happy I am,

And my heart it doth dance at the sound of his name."

There is enough in our holy faith to create and to justify the utmost degree of rapturous delight. If men are dull in the worship of the Lord our God they are not acting consistently with the character of their religion.

Praise him with stringed instruments and organs. We have here the three kinds of musical instruments: timbrels, which are struck, and strings, and pipes; let all be educated to praise the Lord. Nothing is common and unclean: all may be sanctified to highest uses. Many men, many minds, and these as different as strings and pipes; but there is only one God, and that one God all should worship. The word translated "organs" signifies pipea simpler form of wind instrument than the more modern and more elaborate organ. Doubtless many a pious shepherd has poured out gracious pastorals from a reed or oaten pipe, and so has magnified his God.

Ver. 4. Stringed instruments. Minnim (which is derived from a root signifying "division", or" distribution", hence strings) occurs in Ps 45:8, and Ps 150:4, and is supposed by some to denote a stringed instrument, but it seems merely a poetical allusion to the strings of any instrument. Thus, in Ps 45:8, we would read, "Out of the ivory palaces the strings (i.e. concerts of music) have made thee glad"; and so in Ps 150:4, "Praise him with strings (stringed instruments), and ugabs." John Kitto.

Ver. 4. Organs. bgwe, 'ugab is the word rendered "organ" in our version. The Targum renders the word simply by abwba, a pipe; the Septuagint varies, it has kiyara in Genesis, qalmov in Job, and organon, in the Psalms. The last is the sense which the Arabic, Syriac, Latin, English, and most other versions have adopted. The organon simply denotes a double or manifold pipe; and hence, in particular, the Pandaean or shepherd's pipe, which is at this day called a "mouth organ", among ourselves. (Kitto.) A collection of tubes of different sizes, stopped at one end and blown at the other, forms the musical instrument known as Pan's pipes, in the Greek syrinx, surunx ...Was the'ugab a syrinx or an organ? As the former seems to have been the more ancient of the two, and as'ugab is included in the very first allusion to musical instruments in the Bible, it would seem reasonable to say at once that it was a syrinx, especially as this instrument was, and is to this day, commonly met with in various parts of Asia. Yet it would, indeed, be strange if such an instrument were selected for use in divine worship; and that the ugab was so used is proved beyond a doubt by its mention in Ps 150:1-6: "Praise him with the minnim and ugab." Its mention here in antithesis to a collective name for stringed instruments, surely points to the fact of its being a more important instrument than a few river reeds fixed together with wax. Let us not forget that we have but one and the same name for the single row of about fifty pipes, placed, perhaps, in a little room, and the mighty instrument of five thousand pipes, occupying as much space as an ordinary dwelling house. Each is an organ. May it not have been the case that the'ugab, which in Ge 4:21 is mentioned as the simply constructed wind instrument, in contrast to the simple stringed instrument, the kinnor, was a greatly inferior instrument to that which in Ps 150:1-6 is thought worthy of mention by the side of a term for the whole string power? J. Stainer.

Psalms 150:5*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. (Psa 150:4) Praise him with timbrel and dance! Praise him with strings and pipe! The three great classes of instruments are here distinctly mentioned, namely, wind, stringed, and pulsatile. The last, represented by the drum or timbrel, still called by a kindred name in Arabic, is here accompanied by its inseparable adjunct dancing, which might seem misplaced in a list of instruments, and those employed in sacred music, but for the peculiar usages and notions of the ancient Hebrews, with respect to this external sign of joy. See above, on Psa 30:11; Psa 149:3. The common version of the last word (organ) is derived through the Vulgate from the Septuagint, where it denotes a system or combination of pipes. The Hebrew word, according to the Jewish tradition, means a simple pipe, and is so rendered in the Prayer Book version. It here represents the whole class of wind-instruments. See above, on Psa 68:25, and compare 2Sa 6:5.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 4. Praise him with the timbrel] תף toph, drum, tabret, or tomtom, or tympanum of the ancients; a skin stretched over a broad hoop; perhaps something like the tambarine. Anglo-Saxon; [A.S.] the glad pipe. Taburne; Old Psalter.

And dance] מחול machol, the pipe. The croude or crowthe: Old Psalter; a species of violin. It never means dance; See Clarke on Ps 149:3. Crwth signifies a fiddle in Welsh.

Stringed instruments] מנים minnim. This literally signifies strings put in order; perhaps a triangular kind of hollow instrument on which the strings were regularly placed, growing shorter and shorter till they came to a point. This would give a variety of sounds, from a deep bass to a high treble. In an ancient MS. Psalter before me, David is represented in two places, playing on such an instrument. It may be the sambuck, or psaltery, or some such instrument.

Organs.] עוגב ugab. Very likely the syrinx or mouth organ; Pan's pipe; both of the ancients and moderns. The fistula, septem, disparibus nodis conjuncta, made of seven pieces of cane or thick straw, of unequal lengths, applied to the lips, each blown into, according to the note intended to be expressed. This instrument is often met with in the ancient bucolic or pastoral writers.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(4) Timbrel and dance.—See Psa_149:3.

Stringed instruments.—Minnîm. Literally, parts, so threads, so here, as in LXX. and Vulg., “with” or “on strings.” (See Note, Psa_45:9.)

Organs.—Heb., ‘ugab, which has been variously identified with the syrinx, or Pan’s pipes, of the Greeks, with the “bagpipe,” and even with a rude instrument embodying the principle of the modern organ. (See Bible Educator, 2:70, 183, 229.)

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

4. with the timbrel and dance] See on Psa_149:3. The P.B.V. cymbals seems to be a slip of Coverdale’s, which was not corrected in the Great Bible, as he renders tôph correctly by tabret, i.e. a small drum, in Psa_149:3.

with stringed instruments and pipes] The word minnîm, ‘stringed instruments,’ occurs in Psa_45:8 (R.V.): the ugâbh, mentioned in Gen_4:21; Job_21:12; Job_30:31, was probably the syrinx or Pan’s-pipes, a wind instrument consisting of a collection of reeds or pipes. See Stainer, Music of the Bible, Ch. vi. The two terms may include string and wind instruments generally, as “harp and pipe” in Gen_4:21; and as the words are not elsewhere used in connexion with religious ceremonies, they may be meant to suggest that all instruments, secular as well as sacred, should be enlisted in this service of praise. The A.V. organs follows the LXX and Vulg.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Praise him with the timbrel and dance,.... Or "pipe" (u); See Gill on Psa 149:3;

praise him with stringed instruments; or divers "kinds" (w) of instruments not named, as R. Saadiah Gaon; and which, as Aben Ezra says, had all one sound or note; what they were is not known, as also many of them that are particularly mentioned;

and organs; which have their name from the loveliness of their sound; these are of ancient original and use, Gen 4:21; but were not of the same kind with those now in use, which are of much later invention.

(u) "et tibia", Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus. (w) "varia symphonia", Cocceius.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Praise him with the timbrel - Hebrew, תף tôph. See this described in the notes at Isa 5:12. It is rendered tabret and tabrets in Gen 31:27; 1Sa 10:5; 1Sa 18:6; Isa 5:12; Isa 24:8; Isa 30:32; Jer 31:4; Eze 28:13; timbrel and timbrels in Exo 15:20; Jdg 11:34; 2Sa 6:5; 1Ch 13:8; Job 21:12; Psa 81:2; Psa 149:3; and in the margin in Jer 31:4. The word does not occur elsewhere. It was an instrument that was struck with the hands.

And dance - See this word explained in the notes at Psa 149:3. Dancing among the Hebrews seems to have accompanied the timbrel or tabret. See Exo 15:20,

Praise him with stringed instruments - מנים minniym. This word means strings, from a verb which means to divide; and the proper reference would be to slender threads, as if they were divided, or made small. It is nowhere else applied to instruments of music, but might be properly applied to a harp, a violin, a bass-viol, etc. The word strings is indeed applied elsewhere to instruments of music Psa 33:2; Psa 144:9; 1Sa 18:16; Isa 38:20; Hab 3:19, but the Hebrew word is different. Such instruments were commonly used in the praise of God. See the notes at Psa 33:2.

And organs - Hebrew, עוגב ‛ûgâb. See this word explained in the notes at Job 21:12. It occurs elsewhere only in Gen 4:21; Job 21:12; Job 30:31; in all of which places it is rendered organ. The word is derived from a verb meaning to breathe, to blow; and would be applicable to any wind-instrument. It here represents the whole class of wind-instruments. The word organ is a Greek word, and is found in the Septuagint in this place; and hence, our word organ has been introduced into the translation. The Greek word properly denotes

(a) something by which work is accomplished, as a machine;

(b) a musical instrument;

(c) the material from which anything is made;

(d) the work itself. (Passow, Lexicon).

Our word organ, as used in music, suggests the idea of a combination of instruments or sounds. That idea is not found in the Hebrew word. It denotes merely a wind-instrument. Neither the Hebrews nor any of the ancient nations had an instrument that corresponded with the organ as we now use the term.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

4. Dance—A translation of doubtful propriety. The word in the text and in Psa_149:3, stands classified as a musical instrument, and is translated “pipe” in the margin of our English Bible. In Psa_30:11, it seems evidently used in a figurative sense for joy, and the same in Lam_5:15. Jer_31:4; Jer_31:13, might also be taken in the same sense. The same noun in the feminine (מחולה) is more commonly taken in the literal sense of dancing, or, as the etymology suggests, “dancing in a circle,” probably because, in the literal sense, females only or chiefly practised it. These “dances,” though embracing a religious sentiment, were not connected with the regular worship, but belonged to occasions of rare national joy and triumph. In the text, and in Psa_149:3, the word stands connected with earnest, spiritual, and universal praise and worship; and though it is more in harmony with the connexion and scope to take it as an instrument of music, still, if understood of dancing, it can give no countenance to that movement as a common mode of worship, much less to modern social dancing, which is not only practiced without a religious object, but in antagonism to all true religious sensibility. See note on Psa_30:11

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Praise him with the timbrel and dance. (comp. Psa_149:3) Praise him with stringed instruments and organs; literally, with strings and pipe. "Organs" are, of course, out of the question. The "pipe" intended is probably the double pipe so often represented on the monuments of Egypt, Assyria, and Phoenicia.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

with stringed instrument and flute Heb. במנים ועגב. They are kinds of musical instruments.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.