1 Chronicleschapter 25
31 verses · Ezra, by tradition · 450 to 400 BC · History
Key verse
Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was:
It stands in Prophesying with harps, psalteries, and cymbals, verses 1 to 8.
The chapter
Chapter summary
The choir gets the same treatment as the priesthood. The sons of Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun are separated for service, 'who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals': music is here classed as prophecy, under the hand of the king and under the hand of their fathers. Heman is called the king's seer 'in the words of God, to lift up the horn'; his fourteen sons and three daughters all sang in the house. Twenty-four courses of twelve are drawn by lot, and the Chronicler adds the detail that levels everyone in the room: they cast lots 'as well the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar.'
Context
History · Ezra · 1 Chronicles overview
The world behind this chapter
1 Chronicles 25The history
The chapter is David's again, working with three Levitical houses, Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun. Heman is called the king's seer, a title Chronicles elsewhere gives to Gad the prophet.
The place and the time are those of the chapters around it, the sanctuary courts in Jerusalem in the last year of the reign, about 970 BC.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
The occasion is the founding of a rostered ministry of music. The musicians are organised exactly as the priests were, twenty-four courses of twelve trained singers, 288 in all, with the wider body of Levites in training behind them. Lots were cast for the order, young and old alike, teacher as well as pupil, so a master took his turn in the rotation with his own apprentices.
A first hearer would have caught the verb the chapter uses and a reader today needs it pointed out. The three houses are set apart to prophesy with lyres, harps and cymbals, and the same verb returns of Jeduthun's sons at verse 3. Music in this house was treated as a form of speaking for God, and the men who did it were understood to stand in the prophetic line.
The instruments are the three that recur through the Psalms, the lyre, the larger harp and cymbals to mark the beat, with the priests' trumpets sounding as the offering went up.
One curiosity is worth naming rather than smoothing over. The last nine names in Heman's son list read, strung together in Hebrew, almost like a sentence of prayer. Many scholars hold that a fragment of a psalm has been preserved as a list of names, and others take them as names built from the ordinary vocabulary of Hebrew prayer.
What it meant to them
The community's hymnbook carried the names of Asaph, Heman and Ethan in its headings. This chapter told them those men headed a rostered ministry that was still running in their own day.
It also raised the standing of the choir. In a temple where the priesthood held the highest honours, the singers were set apart by the same lot, in the same public assembly, for work the text describes as prophecy.
Sources cited
- Roland de Vaux, Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions
- C. F. Keil and Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Books of Chronicles , 1872
Where the chapter sits
1 Chronicles 25 falls in David's reign: temple-framed (chapters 10–29). Saul's death framed as judgment; David's consolidation; the ark brought to Jerusalem; the Davidic covenant (ch. 17); the military victories; the census and the threshing-floor site (ch. 21); temple preparation; Solomon's charge; David's doxology.
Before it: Genealogies from Adam to Saul, chapters 1–9.
The whole shape of 1 Chronicles→The structure of this chapter
The heads below are this chapter's scenes. The numbered points under each are its verses.
A. Prophesying with harps, psalteries, and cymbals
1. (vv. 1-3)
1 Chronicles 25:1
“David and the captains of the host - The chiefs of those who formed the several orders: not military captains. Should prophesy - Should accompany their musical instruments with prayer and singing.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verseWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
1 Chronicles 25:1
“Not but that it is the greatest liberty and pleasure to be employed in praising God: what is heaven but that? But it intimates that it is our duty to make a business of it, and stir up all that is within us to it; and that, in our present state of corruption and infirmity, it will not be done as it should be done without labour and struggle.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 25:2
“Which prophesied - Sung hymns and prayed. But the Targum understands this of prophesying in the proper sense of the term; and therefore says, “Who prophesied by the Holy Spirit.” Jarchi is of the same opinion and quotes the case of Elisha, 2Ki 3:15; While the minstrel played, the hand of the Lord [i.e., the spirit of prophecy] was upon him.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 25:2
“It is probable that Heman, Asaph, and Jeduthun, were bred up under Samuel, and had their education in the schools of the prophets which he was the founder and president of; then they were pupils, now they came to be masters.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
1 Chronicles 25:3
“The sons of Jeduthun - six - That is, six with their father, otherwise, there are but five. Hence it is said, they were under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with a harp, etc.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
the captains of the host separated: David separates three families, Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun, to a service the chapter names with the verb it uses of the prophets: they should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals. The same verb returns of Jeduthun's sons in verse three, who prophesied with a harp to give thanks and to praise the LORD, so the chapter states its own doctrine in its own words rather than leaving a reader to infer it. Clarke notes the Targum reads the verb as prophesying by the Holy Spirit and cites Elisha calling for a minstrel before the hand of the LORD came upon him.
2. (vv. 4-6)
1 Chronicles 25:4
“Of Heman: the sons of Heman,.... The third chief singer: Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel; the same with Azareel, 1Ch 25:18. Shebuel; called Shubael, 1Ch 25:20. and Jerimoth, Hananiah, Hanani, Eliathah, Giddalti, and Romamtiezer, Joshbekashah, Mallothi, Hothir, and Mahazioth; in all fourteen, to whom came the sixth, ninth, eleventh, fifteenth, sixteenth, eighteenth, twentieth, twenty second, twenty fourth, seventeenth, nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty third lots, 1Ch 25:13.”
1 Chronicles 25:5
To lift up the horn - Some take this literally, and consider that Heman and his sons played on the born in the musical services; but there is no other evidence that the horn was so employed. Perhaps the most probable explanation is that it has been transferred from the next clause, where (as here) it followed the word “God,” with the sense that “God, to exalt Heman’s horn (or, increase his dignity), gave him fourteen sons and three daughters.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 25:5
“Heman the king's seer--The title of "seer" or "prophet of David" is also given to Gad (1Ch 21:9), and to Jeduthun (2Ch 29:14, 15), in the words (Margin, "matters") of God. to lift up the horn--that is, to blow loudly in the worship of God; or perhaps it means nothing more than that he presided over the wind instruments, as Jeduthun over the harp.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Bukkiah, Mattaniah, Uzziel, Shebuel: Heman carries a title Chronicles elsewhere gives to Gad, the king's seer in the words of God, so the man who leads the sacred music stands in the same office the book gives its prophets. His fourteen sons and three daughters are folded whole into the choir, set under his hand for song in the house of the LORD with cymbals, psalteries and harps. One king's order binds all three houses, Asaph, Jeduthun and Heman, into a single service rather than three separate guilds.
3. (v. 7)
1 Chronicles 25:7
“With their brethren - i. e., “with others of the tribe of Levi.” Each son of Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman, was at the head of a band of twelve skilled musicians, consisting partly of his own sons, partly of Levites belonging to other families 1 Chr. 25:9-31. The 24 band-leaders, together with their bands, formed a body of 288 persons (24 x 12 =288) Besides these, we hear of there being above 3,700 singers, who were probably divided, like the trained musicians, into 24 courses, which must have contained about 155 each 1Ch 23:5.”
was two hundred fourscore and eight: Two hundred eighty eight singers stood cunning enough to lead, a figure Gill and Barnes both derive from twenty four courses of twelve, the same structure chapter twenty four already gave the priests. The Levites' service in song is counted with the same precision Chronicles gives every other office in the house, a trained and numbered charge rather than an occasional overflow of feeling.
4. (v. 8)
1 Chronicles 25:8
“As well the small as the great - Compare 1Ch 24:31. The lot was not applied indiscriminately to all the 24 courses, but was only used to settle which course of Asaph, which of Jeduthun, and which of Heman, should on each occasion be taken. Asaph was given the precedence over his brethren, and his four courses were assigned the first, and then each alternate place. Jeduthun took rank next, and received alternate places, first with Asaph, and then with Heman, until his courses were exhausted.”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 25:8
“In the first catalogue given in this chapter the courses are classed according to their employment as musicians. In the second, they are arranged in the order of their service.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
the small as the great, the teacher as the scholar: The lot falls on the small as well as the great, the teacher as well as the scholar, so seniority and skill alike yield to the same casting that already set the priestly courses in chapter twenty four. Barnes notes the lot did not choose among all two hundred eighty eight singers individually but only ranked which course of Asaph, Jeduthun or Heman served in a given turn, with Asaph's four courses given precedence and the first place.
B. The twenty-four lots of the temple singersvv. 9-31
the first lot came forth for Asaph to Joseph: Verses nine through thirty one enact the lot of verse eight, name by name: twenty four courses of twelve voices each, the same multiple of twelve that already ordered the priests. Every name in the roll already stood in the family lists of verses two through four; the roster simply fixes the order the lot gave them, ward against ward. Gill and Keil both flag two of the twenty four as the same men under a variant spelling, Shubael of verse twenty for Shebuel of verse four and Azareel of verse eighteen for Uzziel of the same verse, a difference the roster itself never explains.
1 Chronicles 25:9
“Now the first lot came forth for Asaph to Joseph,....”
1 more voice on this verse
1 Chronicles 25:9
“For Asaph to Joseph - His first-born. The second to Gedaliah - The first-born of Jeduthun.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 25:10
“The third to Zaccur - The first-born of Asaph.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 25:11
“The fourth to Izri - The second son of Jeduthun.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 25:12
“The fifth to Nethaniah - The third son of Asaph. Thus we find the lot did not run in any particular kind of order.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 25:14
“Jesharelah - Supposed to be the same with Uzziel, son of Heman.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
1 Chronicles 25:31
“Romamti-ezer - Both these names belong to the same person. He is mentioned also 1Ch 25:4. With this immense parade of noise and show, (David’s own invention), Christianity has nothing to do.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
This page carries no textual note on 1 Chronicles 25. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
Sources for this chapter
The summary
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory; John Wesley, Notes on the Old Testament and Matthew Henry, Complete Commentary.
The exposition
Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes on the Old Testament; Jamieson Fausset and Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Keil, The Books of the Chronicles and Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible.