Music
Jubal was the inventor of musical instruments (Gen 4:21). The Hebrews were much given to the cultivation of music. Their whole history and literature afford abundant evidence of this. After the Deluge, the first mention of music is in the account of Laban’s interview with Jacob (Gen 31:27). After their triumphal passage of the Red Sea, Moses and the children of Israel sang their song of deliverance (Ex 15:1–27).
But the period of Samuel, David, and Solomon was the golden age of Hebrew music, as it was of Hebrew poetry. Music was now for the first time systematically cultivated. It was an essential part of training in the schools of the prophets (1 Sam 10:5; 1 Sam 19:19–24; 2 Kgs 3:15; 1 Chr 25:6). There now arose also a class of professional singers (2 Sam 19:35; Eccl 2:8). The temple, however, was the great school of music. In the conducting of its services large bands of trained singers and players on instruments were constantly employed (2 Sam 6:5; 1 Chr 15:1–29; 1 Chr 16:1–43; 1 Chr 23:1–32;1 Chr 5:1–26; 1 Chr 25:1–6).
In private life also music seems to have held an important place among the Hebrews (Eccl 2:8; Amos 6:4–6; Isa 5:11, Isa 5:12; Isa 24:8, Isa 24:9; Ps 137:1–9; Jer 48:33; Luke 15:25).
From Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897), by Matthew George Easton.
