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Context No. 680 of 4322 · 1 Chronicles

Context · Reflection

1 Chronicles 6:31-46: in context

31These are they whom David set over the service of song in the LORD’s house after the ark came to rest there. 32They ministered with song before the tabernacle of the Tent of Meeting until Solomon had built the LORD’s house in Jerusalem. They performed the duties of their office according to their order. 33These are those who served, and their sons. Of the sons of the Kohathites: Heman the singer, the son of Joel, the son of Samuel, 34the son of Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Eliel, the son of Toah, 35the son of Zuph, the son of Elkanah, the son of Mahath, the son of Amasai, 36the son of Elkanah, the son of Joel, the son of Azariah, the son of Zephaniah, 37the son of Tahath, the son of Assir, the son of Ebiasaph, the son of Korah, 38the son of Izhar, the son of Kohath, the son of Levi, the son of Israel. 39His brother Asaph, who stood on his right hand, even Asaph the son of Berechiah, the son of Shimea, 40the son of Michael, the son of Baaseiah, the son of Malchijah, 41the son of Ethni, the son of Zerah, the son of Adaiah, 42the son of Ethan, the son of Zimmah, the son of Shimei, 43the son of Jahath, the son of Gershom, the son of Levi. 44On the left hand their brothers the sons of Merari: Ethan the son of Kishi, the son of Abdi, the son of Malluch, 45the son of Hashabiah, the son of Amaziah, the son of Hilkiah, 46the son of Amzi, the son of Bani, the son of Shemer,

Chronicles retells Israel's whole history, and it does much of the telling through genealogies, because for the Chronicler the question of who belongs to which line is the question of who may serve. Chapter 6 is the tribe of Levi, and these verses single out a particular Levite office: the men David set over the service of song in the house of the LORD, once the ark had come to rest. They ministered with song before the tent until Solomon built the temple, and then they kept their posts.

Three names head the choirs, one from each of the Levite clans: Heman, Asaph, and Ethan. And the Chronicler gives them the full treatment, tracing each back through a long chain of fathers, exactly as he traces the priests. Heman's line runs back to Samuel and, further still, to Korah, whose sons had been spared to sing. The care is the point. In this book the singers are not hired for the occasion; they are an ordained ministry with a pedigree, and the offering of praise is a vocation handed down like any priestly one. David organized it by name, and the names still cling to the psalms.

Chronicles gives the temple singers a lineage as careful as the priests', treating praise as a rooted calling. Do I offer praise as a serious work handed to me, or as something to fit in once the real work is done?

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