Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 150:4
Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
4. with the timbrel and dance ] See on Psa 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 tph correctly by tabret, i.e. a small drum, in Psa 149:3.
with stringed instruments and pipes] The word minnm, ‘stringed instruments,’ occurs in Psa 45:8 (R.V.): the ugbh, mentioned in Gen 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 Gen 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.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Praise him with the timbrel – Hebrew, toph. 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 – 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, ugab. 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. (Passow, Lexicon).
Our word organ, as used in music, suggests the idea of a combination of instruments or sounds. That idea is not found in the Hebrew word. It denotes merely a wind-instrument. Neither the Hebrews nor any of the ancient nations had an instrument that corresponded with the organ as we now use the term.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 4. Praise him with the timbrel] 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] machol, the pipe. The croude or crowthe: Old Psalter; a species of violin. It never means dance; See Clarke on Ps 149:3. Crwth signifies a fiddle in Welsh.
Stringed instruments] 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.] 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.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
4. organsor pipe, a windinstrument, and the others were used in worship.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Praise him with the timbrel and dance,…. Or “pipe” u;
[See comments on Ps 149:3];
praise him with stringed instruments; or divers “kinds” w of instruments not named, as R. Saadiah Gaon; and which, as Aben Ezra says, had all one sound or note; what they were is not known, as also many of them that are particularly mentioned;
and organs; which have their name from the loveliness of their sound; these are of ancient original and use, Ge 4:21; but were not of the same kind with those now in use, which are of much later invention.
u “et tibia”, Tigurine version, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Gejerus. w “varia symphonia”, Cocceius.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(4) Timbrel and dance.See Psa. 149:3.
Stringed instruments.Minnm. Literally, parts, so threads, so here, as in LXX. and Vulg., with or on strings. (See Note, Psa. 45:9.)
Organs.Heb., ugab, which has been variously identified with the syrinx, or Pans 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.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
4. Dance A translation of doubtful propriety. The word in the text and in Psa 149:3, stands classified as a musical instrument, and is translated “pipe” in the margin of our English Bible. In Psa 30:11, it seems evidently used in a figurative sense for joy, and the same in Lam 5:15. Jer 31:4; Jer 31:13, might also be taken in the same sense. The same noun in the feminine ( ) is more commonly taken in the literal sense of dancing, or, as the etymology suggests, “dancing in a circle,” probably because, in the literal sense, females only or chiefly practised it. These “dances,” though embracing a religious sentiment, were not connected with the regular worship, but belonged to occasions of rare national joy and triumph. In the text, and in Psa 149:3, the word stands connected with earnest, spiritual, and universal praise and worship; and though it is more in harmony with the connexion and scope to take it as an instrument of music, still, if understood of dancing, it can give no countenance to that movement as a common mode of worship, much less to modern social dancing, which is not only practiced without a religious object, but in antagonism to all true religious sensibility. See note on Psa 30:11
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 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, 1Ch 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, Dan 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, 2Ki 3:15 1Sa 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.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
timbrel = drum. See note on Exo 15:20.
organs = pipe, or reed (singular, never pl).
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
with the timbrel: Exo 15:20
dance: or, pipe, Psa 149:3, *marg.
stringed: Psa 33:2, Psa 92:3, Psa 144:9, Isa 38:20, Hab 3:19
organs: Job 30:31
Reciprocal: Jdg 11:34 – his daughter Jdg 21:21 – dance 2Sa 6:14 – danced 1Ch 15:16 – the singers 1Ch 15:29 – dancing Psa 30:11 – dancing Luk 15:25 – he