Psalms 150:4

Praise him with the timbrel and dance,.... Or "pipe" (u); [See comments on Psalms 149:3]; praise him with stringed instruments; or divers "kinds" (w) of instruments not named, as R.

Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him with the timbrel and dance - (Psalms 149:3.) The timbrel accompanied the dance (Exodus 15:20; Psalms 68:25).

Psalms 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 But these are ancient things (as it is said in another case, 1 Chronicles 4:22), and now out of date.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, Daniel 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, 2 Kings 3:15 1 Samuel 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.

(4) Timbrel and dance.—See Psalms 149:3. Stringed instruments.—Minnîm. Literally, parts, so threads, so here, as in LXX. and Vulg., “with” or “on strings.” (See Note, Psalms 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.)

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 Psalms 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.

4. with the timbrel and dance] See on Psalms 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 Psalms 149:3. with stringed instruments and pipes] The word minnîm, ‘stringed instruments,’ occurs in Psalms 45:8 (R.V.): the ugâbh, mentioned in Genesis 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 Genesis 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.

Praise him with the timbrel - Hebrew, תף tôph. See this described in the notes at Isaiah 5:12.

4. Dance—A translation of doubtful propriety. The word in the text and in Psalms 149:3, stands classified as a musical instrument, and is translated “pipe” in the margin of our English Bible.