Psalms 150:4

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, 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 pipe—a 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.

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; 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 the note on Psa 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 pope; 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.

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. […]

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