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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - 2 Chronicles 5:11 - 5:11
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2Ch 5:11-13 describe the part which the priests and Levitical singers and musicians took in the solemn act of transferring the ark to the temple-a matter entirely passed over in the narrative in 1Ki 8:11, which confines itself to the main transaction. The mention of the priests gives occasion for the remark, 2Ch 5:11, “for all the priests present had sanctified themselves, but the courses were not to be observed,” i.e., the courses of the priests (1 Chron 24) could not be observed. The festival was so great, that not merely the course appointed to perform the service of that week, but also all the courses had sanctified themselves and co-operated in the celebration. In reference to the construction לִשְׁמֹור אֵין, cf. Ew. §321, b.
2Ch 5:12
All the Levitic singers and musicians were also engaged in it, to make the festival glorious by song and instrumental music: “and the Levites, the singers, all of them, Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun, and their sons and brethren, clad in byssus, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps, stood eastward from the altar, and with them priests to 120, blowing trumpets.” The לְ before כֻּלָּם and the following noun is the introductory לְ: “as regards.” On the form מחצררים, see on 1Ch 15:24; on these singers and musicians, their clothing, and their instruments, see on 1Ch 15:17-28 and 2Ch 25:1-8.
2Ch 5:13
2Ch 5:13 runs thus literally: “And it came to pass, as one, regarding the trumpeters and the singers, that they sang with one voice to praise and thank Jahve.” The meaning is: and the trumpeters and singers, together as one man, sang with one voice to praise. כְּאֶחָד is placed first for emphasis; stress is laid upon the subject, the trumpeters and singers, by the introductory לְ; and הָיָה is construed with the following infinitive (לְהַשְׁמִיעַ): it was to sound, to cause to hear, for they were causing to hear, where לְ c. infin. is connected with הָיָה, as the participle is elsewhere, to describe the circumstances; cf. Ew. §237. But in order to express very strongly the idea of the unisono of the trumpet-sound, and the singing accompanied by the harp-playing, which lies in כְּאֶחָד, אֶחָד קֹול is added to לְהַשְׁמִיעַ. By וגו קֹול וּכְהָרִים all that was to be said of the song and music is drawn together in the form of a protasis, to which is joined מָלֵא וְהַבַּיִת, the apodosis both of this latter and also of the protasis which was interrupted by the parenthesis in 2Ch 5:11 : “When the priests went forth from the holy place, for...(2Ch 5:11), and when they lifted up the voice with trumpets and with cymbals, and the (other) instruments of song, and with the praise of Jahve, that He is good, that His mercy endureth for ever (cf. 1Ch 16:34), then was the house filled with the cloud of the house of Jahve.” The absence of the article before עָנָן requires us thus to connect the יהוה בֵּית at the close of the verse with עֲנַן (stat. constr.), since the indefinite עָנָן (without the article) is not at all suitable here; for it is not any cloud which is here spoken of, but that which overshadowed the glory of the Lord in the most holy place.