1 Chronicles 13:8

And 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.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Played.—Were dancing (to music).

With all their might, and with singing.—So LXX. and Syriac. Samuel has “with all woods of cypresses;” a strange expression, probably due to confusion of similar letters, and transposition. The LXX. there has “in strength.”

Cymbals and trumpets.—Samuel (Hebrew) has sistrums (a kind of rattle) and cymbals. The former word only occurs there. The Chronicle has a later term for cymbals (meçiltayim for çilçeţlîm).

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

13:6-14 Let the sin of Uzza warn all to take heed of presumption, rashness, and irreverence, in dealing with holy things; and let none think that a good design will justify a bad action. Let the punishment of Uzza teach us not to dare to trifle with God in our approaches to him; yet let us, through Christ, come boldly to the throne of grace. If the gospel be to some a savour of death unto death, as the ark was to Uzza, yet let us receive it in the love of it, and it will be to us a savour of life unto life.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Shihor - See the marginal reference and the 1 Kings 8:65 note.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

6-14. David went up, and all Israel, to Baalah—(See on [376]2Sa 6:1-11).

whose name is called on it—rather, "who is worshipped there" (2Sa 6:2).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

So David gathered all Israel together,.... The principal of them, even 30,000 select men, 2 Samuel 6:1.

from Shihor of Egypt; or the Nile of Egypt, as the Targum and other Jewish writers, called Shihor from the blackness of its water, see Jeremiah 2:18 though some think the river Rhinocurura is meant, which both lay to the south of the land of Israel:

even unto the entering of Hamath; which the Targum interprets of Antiochia, which lay to the north of the land; so that this collection of the people was made from south to north, the extreme borders of the land:

to bring the ark of God from Kirjathjearim; where it then was, and had been a long time, see 1 Samuel 7:1, from hence to the end of the chapter the account is the same with 2 Samuel 6:1, see the notes there; what little variations there are, are there observed. See Gill on 2 Samuel 6:1, 2 Samuel 6:2, 2 Samuel 6:3, 2 Samuel 6:4, 2 Samuel 6:5, 2 Samuel 6:6, 2 Samuel 6:7, 2 Samuel 6:8, 2 Samuel 6:9, 2 Samuel 6:10, 2 Samuel 6:11

Geneva Study Bible

And David and all Israel played before {d} God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets.

(d) That is, before the Ark, where God showed himself: so that the sign is taken for the thing signified, which is common to all sacraments both in the old and new testaments.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. played] The Heb. word means to sport, to dance (cp. 1 Chronicles 15:29).

with all their might, and with singing] A better reading than that of 2 Samuel 6:5, with all manner of instruments made of fir wood.

and with singing] R.V. even with songs.

psalteries] The instrument here meant (Heb. nçbhel) “is generally identified at the present day with an instrument called the santir still in use among the Arabs. This consists of a long box with a flat bottom covered with a somewhat convex sounding-board over which the strings are stretched.” (Nowack, Hebräische Arckäologie, I. 275.) The “harp” (Heb. kinnôr) was a simpler instrument, a lyre rather than a true harp.

For a full discussion of nçbhel and kinnôr see Driver, Amos, p. 234.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - Played before God. The Hebrew word is the Piel of שׂחק, the root of which, from the simplest meaning of "to laugh" (and with the two appropriate prepositions used for laughing with an expression of derision or contempt), through the two further meanings of "sporting" and "jesting," passes to the signification of dancing" (1 Samuel 18:7; Jeremiah 31:4). Its deepest idea seems to be "to make merry," and to savour of the very same ambiguity attaching to that idiom with ourselves. The parallel of this passage exhibits "before the Lord." With all their might. See the evident mistake of the parallel ("on all manner of instruments made of firwood," literally, with all firwoods) through similarity of the Hebrew characters. Cymbals and... trumpets. Of the five names of musical instruments, the same in number in both passages, the first three are the same in the Hebrew, but these last two are different words, וּבִמְצִלְתַּיִם וּבַחֲלֺצצְרות here for וּבִמנַענִעים וּבְצלְצליִם A variation of this particular kind again indicates with some decisiveness the different character and the number of the sources from which the writers of the Books of Samuel and those of Chronicles took. 1 Chronicles 13:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

As the whole assembly approved of David's design (כּן לעשׂות, it is to do so equals so much we do), David collected the whole of Israel to carry it out. "The whole of Israel," from the southern frontier of Canaan to the northern; but of course all are not said to have been present, but there were numerous representatives from every part, - according to 2 Samuel 6:1, a chosen number of 30,000 men. The מצרים שׁיחור, which is named as the southern frontier, is not the Nile, although it also is called שׁחר (Isaiah 23:3 and Jeremiah 2:18), and the name "the black river" also suits it (see Del. on Isaiah, loc. cit.); but is the שׁיחור before, i.e., eastward from Egypt (מצרים על־פּני אשׁר), i.e., the brook of Egypt, מצרים נחל, the Rhinocorura, now el Arish, which in all accurate statements of the frontiers is spoken of as the southern, in contrast to the neighbourhood of Hamath, which was the northern boundary: see on Numbers 34:5. For the designation of the northern frontier, חמת לבוא, see on Numbers 34:8. Kirjath-jearim, the Canaanitish Baalah, was known among the Israelites by the name Baale Jehudah or Kirjath-baal, as distinguished from other cities named after Baal, and is now the still considerable village Kureyeh el Enab; see on Joshua 9:17. In this fact we find the explanation of י אל ק בּעלתה, 1 Chronicles 13:6 : to Baalah, to Kirjath-jearim of Judah. The ark had been brought thither when the Philistines sent it back to Beth-shemesh, and had been set down in the house of Abinadab, where it remained for about seventy years; see 1 Samuel 6 and 1 Samuel 7:1-2, and the remarks on 2 Samuel 6:3. שׁם נקרא אשׁר is not to be translated "which is named name," which gives no proper sense. Translating it so, Bertheau would alter שׁם into שׁם, according to an arbitrary conjecture of Thenius on 2 Samuel 6:2, "who there (by the ark) is invoked." But were שׁם the true reading, it could not refer to the ark, but only to the preceding משּׁם, since in the whole Old Testament the idea that by or at the resting-place of the ark Jahve was invoked (which שׁם אשׁר would signify) nowhere occurs, since no one could venture to approach the ark. If שׁם referred to משּׁם, it would signify that Jahve was invoked at Kirjath-baal, that there a place of worship had been erected by the ark; but of that the history says nothing, and it would, moreover, be contrary to the statement that the ark was not visited in the days of Saul. We must consequently reject the proposal to alter שׁם into שׁם as useless and unsuitable, and seek for another explanation: we must take אשׁר in the sense of ὡς, which it sometimes has; cf. Ew. 333, a.: "as he is called by name," where שׁם does not refer only to יהוה, but also to the additional clause הכּרוּבים יושׁב, and the meaning is that Jahve is invoked as He who is enthroned above the cherubim; cf. Psalm 80:2; Isaiah 37:16. - On the following 1 Chronicles 13:7-14, cf. the commentary on 2 Samuel 6:3-11.