Musical Instruments in Divine Worship VIII.

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CHAPTER VIII.

INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC WITHIN THE LEVITICAL DISPENSATION.

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It is very important for the cause of instrumental music that its advocates should find within the Levitical dispensation a sanction for the use of instruments in the praise of God disconnected with ceremonial service, because of the claim that it belongs to “a moral and spiritual service” that needed not the aid of a cymbal or type. As it is one of the essential links in the chain of their argument, certain characteristics must necessarily belong to any examples that may be found of the use of instruments having no connexion with ceremonial service.

1st. It must be clearly shown to have been instrumentation in aid of a song or songs of praise to God. This in no case must be taken for granted. It must be expressed or there must be in the nature of the instrumentation that which necessarily implies a connexion of the song with the instruments.

2d. It must be free from those essential and inseparable features, which, being carried along with it, unfit it for being an example applicable to New Testament worship.

3d. It must be found in an act of ordinary worship, disconnected with any ceremonial service. We have examined the use of instruments as leading the dance of Miriam and the women, the dance in the celebration of Jephthah’s victory, that of the daughters of Shiloh, and that of the women in celebrating the victory of Saul and David, and have found them clearly desti-

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tute of these characteristics. We cannot but remark in passing how summarily the instances of the use of instruments, within the Levitical dispensation, are dismissed when once the mere fact of instrumentation is found. This is strikingly true in reference to the company of prophets noted in 1 Sam., x, 5. When Saul was anointed there was a school of the prophets probably at Naioth in Ramah. Saul, as Samuel had predicted, met these prophets coming down from what is called “the high place,” with a psaltery and a tabret, and a pipe and a harp before them, and they prophesied. Now, it is claimed that this prophesying could “only mean to sing inspired songs” with the aid of instruments. The high place from which they were going in procession is claimed to have been a place of worship. If it was it was a place where the Levitical ritual was dispensed, and would be fatal to the argument that is based upon it by the author of the pamphlet under notice. It was more likely as the ablest commentators assume, the place of the school of the prophets. The music in this case was by the prophets alone. They were not in the high place, but “coming down from it.” They were prophesying as they passed along. It is a mere assumption to affirm that the exercise consisted only in singing an inspired song with accompaniment. There is no allusion to a song of any kind. In 1 Chron., xxi, it is explained that the instrumentation was employed to prophesy “in giving thanks and praising the Lord—in the words of God, to lift up the horn—for song in the house of the Lord for cymbals,” &c. [This appears to be an erroneous reference. The material quoted or alluded to seems to belong to 1 Chron. xxv, especially vv. 3, 5–6, not 1 Chron. xxi.] But there is no reference here to song or thanksgiving or praise “in the words of God.”

There is one feature of the exercise that utterly precludes the idea that they were only singing an inspired song with accompaniment—the supernatural influence that came upon Saul when he met them. “The Spirit

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of the Lord will come upon thee, and thou shalt prophesy with them, and shall be turned into another man.” He became for the time a prophet like them, so that he was able to prophesy as they did, and could be reckoned as one of them. Now, there would have been nothing strange or marvellous in the whole matter if Saul had been able simply to join with them in singing an inspired song; but this was recognized as supernatural. “The people said one to another, What is this that is come upon the son of Kish?” It was reported abroad, and became a mark of distinction, that adhered to him to the day of his death—a proverb of which the people were continually reminded upon sight of him. “Is Saul also among the prophets?” It is proper to consider this in connexion with another occasion in which the same wonderful phenomena are manifested. The occurrence is recorded in 1 Sam., xix, xx, xxiv. David and Samuel were at Naioth where the prophets were. Saul sent messengers to take David. When they came where these prophets were engaged in prophesying the Spirit of God came upon them and they also prophesied. Messengers were sent a second and third time with the same marvellous results; but Saul in his persistent purpose to kill David in the face of these interpositions ventured to go himself, when the same influence came upon him and defeated his purpose. There can be no doubt that the exercise which produced these strange results was the same as Saul had witnessed before, and was the occasion of renewing the proverb respecting him, “Is Saul also among the prophets?” He and all his messengers were by an extraordinary exertion of power for the time being made prophets, and this was not that they became singers and players with the prophets, but were enabled to exercise the extraordinary gift of prophesy. That the influence enabled them merely to

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sing and to play in the use of an inspired song, we repeat, would be nothing strange in itself. It is the prophesying that gives these events a place in the divine record. The position that there is in the event a divine warrant for the use of instruments in the worship of God in the New Testament dispensation is simply preposterous, and the cause that employs it thereby indicates its conscious weakness. There is no evidence of the presence of Psalmody in either case, and it is utterly futile to attempt to explain the mysterious relation here exhibited between the playing upon instruments, and the result both upon the prophets themselves and upon Saul and his messengers.

The case of the minstrel playing before Elisha, 2 Kings, iii, 15, is universally referred to in the same argument; but it only strengthens the position that there is no sanction in these instances for instrumental music in the worship of God. There is just the same principle involved here as in the case of the prophets and Saul, and that is the mysterious use of an instrument as a means of producing the inspiration of prophesy. It was a peculiar dispensation that cannot be employed as a general sanction for anything in any dispensation; for we have no evidence of its being generally employed by the prophets at other times for the same purpose. It was probably the recollection of the effect of the playing of the prophets upon Saul that led his servants to suggest such a player as David when the evil Spirit from the Lord troubled him. The peculiar nature of the dispensation upon Saul, and the curative power of the harp, are incomprehensible to us as are the playing by the prophets and the inspirational effect. It is very certain they furnish no authority for instrumental music in stated worship anywhere.

We have already considered to some extent the instrumentation of David and the people in removing

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the ark, in reference to a permissive warrant for the use of instruments, where we have shown that David attempted their use upon the principle of an optional sanction and was signally rebuked for it; but there are several important features that are exhibited by a comparison of the first and second efforts to remove the ark from Baalah to the city of David, which deserve special attention. We have the account of these efforts in 2 Sam., chapter 6, but more fully in 1 Chron., 13th and 15th chapters. We examine now the mode of the first attempt to remove the ark.

1. David consulted with the captains of thousands and hundreds and with every leader. And all the congregation gave their consent to the proposal. David seems to have gone no further than to obtain the mind of the people. Accordingly the people as a mass, with David as their leader, engaged promiscuously in the work.

2. They disregarded the specific command that only the Levites, under the supervision of the priests, should carry the ark. Hence they set it upon a cart as the Philistines had done, probably supposing that as that service had been accepted, it was now the proper mode of conveying the ark.

3. “David and all Israel played before God with all their might and with singing and with harps and with psalteries and with timbrels and with cymbals and with trumpets”—probably all the instruments that they judged to be suitable for the occasion.

4. God smote Uzzah, not merely as a judgment upon him for his rash and unlawful act in taking hold of the ark, but as a rebuke to David, the priests, Levites and all the people, and as an admonition to all future generations to take heed to the divine command in all the affairs of divine worship. In this act he gave signal proof that the whole proceeding was wrong. Had the

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offense consisted simply in placing the ark upon the cart, and Uzzah’s taking hold of it, the remedy was at hand. The priests and Levites were present with the multitude, and could have been immediately directed to take charge of the ark, but the whole service was rejected by God as dishonoring to him. David afterwards frankly acknowledges the disorder of the whole proceeding. 1 Chron., xv, 13. “For because ye did it not at the first the Lord our God made a breach upon us for that we sought him not after the due order.”

We now look at the second effort to bring the ark to the city of David, which occurred three months later. It may be safely taken for granted that what was omitted from the service in the first effort, and is specified as having been employed in the second, is intended to indicate just what divine authority required in order to render the service acceptable to God. Now the service of the second effort differed from that of the first in the following respects:

1st. David did not upon the second occasion ask the consent of “the captains of thousands and hundreds and every leader.” There is every reason to believe, however, that he consulted higher authority. Nathan, the prophet, and Gad, the seer, were his counsellors from the Lord. David was also himself a prophet. After the rebuke that had stricken the people with awe and led him to say, “How shall I bring the ark of God to me,” he would not likely undertake the work again without an express divine sanction. In that sanction would naturally be included the directions necessary for properly effecting the duty; but of this we propose to speak more particularly further on.

2d. Instead of employing the people as before, he calls upon the priests and Levites to sanctify themselves for the whole service. This, as we shall see, constituted not only an important feature of this occasion,

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but was the initiation of the permanent employment of the priests and Levites for the whole future praise service of that dispensation.

3d. After the Levites had gone six paces, bearing the ark, a sacrifice of seven bullocks and seven rams was offered to the Lord—a service which had been omitted in the first instance. No reason can be assigned for the sacrifice at such a juncture except the fact that the whole service was under special divine direction.

4th. The priests and Levites were not only sanctified and assigned the specific parts of the service designated by the law of Moses, but a new service was, upon this occasion, assigned them. “And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers, with instruments of music, psalteries, and harps, and cymbals sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.” Then follows, in the record, the names of the persons appointed and the particular parts of service assigned them.

5th. David, instead of wearing the kingly robes, as before, put on a priest’s garment—a linen ephod. Only Samuel, who ministered to Eli in Shiloh, and who was a Levite, had been made, before this, an exception to the rule, confining the ephod to the priests. The fact that David puts it on upon this occasion, shows that he was engaged in a peculiarly solemn service—that he was, indeed, officiating in the sanctuary of God.

6th. David, though noted as a skillful musician—“a cunning player on the harp”—did not engage with the priests and the Levites in playing upon this occasion, as he had done before. The priests blew with the trumpets, and the Levites sang and played upon the other instruments.

From the whole occasion of the successful removal of the ark to the city of David, there is the clearest evidence that David was under divine direction, and that the whole service was accepted of God, and followed by His blessing. Moreover, David, in the institution of songs of praise in the

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service with the instruments to accompany them, was now performing the part in his position which Moses performed in the inauguration of the tabernacle service. That service began under Moses, with the passover and its rites, and was completed in the building of the tabernacle and the consecration of Aaron and his sons to its service. In the institution of that ceremonial, Moses acted under specific command to “make all things according to the pattern showed him in the Mount.” In setting up this service he exercised the authority of a prophet, priest and king. It is in the same character that we find David acting here. As a king, he commanded; as a prophet, he received divine direction, and as a priest, he administered, so far as to make all those changes in the service which characterized the Temple dispensation. Moses built and consecrated the tabernacle as a tent, to be carried from place to place. It was by David, however, upon this occasion of fixing the abode of the ark at Jerusalem that God fulfilled his promise, made so long before, that He would choose a place out of all their tribes to put His name there. David began in fixing the abode of the ark in Jerusalem, those arrangements for the temple service which were committed to Solomon before his death, and which are so particularly described in 1st Chron. xxiii–xxvi chapters. In the 28th chapter we have an account of his assembling all the leaders of the people, and in their presence presenting to Solomon the pattern of the house, and its various departments, and furniture, and the courses for the priests and the Levites, for all the work of the service of the house of the Lord. This pattern “he had by the Spirit.” To indicate, emphatically, that all was by divine command, he formally declares: All this the Lord made me to understand in writing, by His hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern.” To add to the distinctness with which the divine command originating the institutions introduced by David into the temple service, we have it specifically stated, on the occasion of

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Hezekiah’s reformation, that “He set the Levites in the house of the Lord with cymbals, &c.” “And the Levites stood with the instruments of David, and the priests with the trumpets.” “Moreover, Hezekiah, the king and the princes commanded the Levites to sing praises unto the Lord, with the words of David and Asaph the seer.” And all this was said to be “according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king’s seer, and Nathan the prophet, for so was the commandment of the Lord by His prophets.”

The legitimate conclusions from the consideration of the subject thus far, in the light of the Old Testament revelation, may be thus stated:

1st. The first instance on record of the use of instruments in connection with the ordinance of praise in divine worship, was the rendering of a service that was not only not accepted, but, on the contrary, was signally rebuked, and this because it was not rendered by sanctified priests and Levites.

2d. The first acceptable use of instruments in the praise service of the Church was in the initiation of the temple worship by David, and it was exclusively employed in that worship. We have not another instance on record to the close of the canon of Scripture of its being used apart from the peculiar form given to it in its inauguration by David.

3d. Its distinctive features were, that it was required by Divine command, that it was performed by priests and Levites in conjunction, and that it was choral—both the singing and the instrumentation being performed by priests and Levites only. While it was settled as belonging to the system of temple worship, it was not necessarily confined to the temple, as in the case of the triumph of Jehosophat and his army (2 Chron., xx, 19–28,) though this is the only instance in which it was used elsewhere, and in this instance it was performed by Levites chosen for the purpose. When

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the temple worship, which had fallen into disorder, was restored by Hezekiah, it was so done under the authority of the original appointment by David, which was followed with scrupulous exactness. So was it when Josiah reformed it. 2 Chron., xxxv, 15. In the restoration from the captivity, there was again a restoration of the temple worship as appointed by David. See Ezra iii, 10, 11. We leave this branch of the subject with the simple remark that the appointment placing the music exclusively in the hands of the priests and Levites has a significance which the advocates of instrumental music, so far as we know, have not attempted to explain—a service which, in their position, they are under obligation to render.