Reading (Singing) Distinctly Gave the “Sense”-part 1

  Reading (Singing) Distinctly Gave the “Sense”-part 1 
            Nehemiah 8:8 states, “So they read in the book in the law of God distinctly, and gave the sense, and caused them to understand the reading.”  This passage of Scripture has troubled many Bible expositors for centuries.  They have often queried, “What made the reading of the scrolls of the Law “distinct”?  They have also wondered how the Levite musicians were able to “give the sense’ of the meaning of the Law?  It has also been a great mystery as to what type or rendering of the scrolls by the Levite musicians actually took place. 
            The Hebrew word which was translated read in the AV was qara (7121) means “to call out or pronounce”.  We know that the Levite musicians were among those who in some way made it possible for the people to understand the law more clearly, because Nehemiah 8:7explains very clearly that “Also Jeshua, and Bani, and Sherebiah, Jamin, Akkub, Shabbethai, Hodijah, Maaseiah, Kelita, Azariah, Jozabad, Hanan, Pelaiah, and the Levites, caused the people to understand the law: and the people stood in their place.”  Another word of note in this passage is the word is parash (6567) that also connoted specifity of the Levite rendering of this ancient scroll will be discussed in my Mayl 2 bog post.