ARE WOMEN MUSICIANS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE? Part 4

ARE WOMEN MUSICIANS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE? Part 4

            At this point in our discussion it would be helpful to clear up some misconceptions concerning the use of women in the Temple.  They are never mentioned as part of the professional Levite musicians.  I Chronicles 25:5b states, "And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters."  Many Bible commentators and writers on church music have taken this as evidence that Heman's three daughters were Levite musicians.  They were, of course, Levites, but they were not used in the Temple as musicians.  Verse 7 gives the total number of Levite musicians as 288 and verses 8-31 give the twenty-four divisions of musicians, each under the direction of a man, his sons, and his brethren.  None of the three daughters of Heman are mentioned.

            Statements in Ezra 2:64-65 and Nehemiah 7:66-67 refer to the number of those who returned from Babylon - 42,360 of the congrega­tion and an additional 7,337 servants.  Out of this group of servants there were from 200 to 245 singing men and singing women.  They were all servants, not Levites.  Likewise, the musicians mentioned in II Samuel 19:35 and II Chronicles 35:25 were public professional singers and mourners, not Levite musicians who performed a part of Temple worship.

            The use of the Hebrew word alamoth (5961) in I Chronicles 15:20 and in the title of Psalm 46 is often mistaken for the use of women in Temple music.  The word alamoth (5961) is the plural form of almah (5959), which is always, translated virgin, maid, damsels, and virgins.  A correct rendering of 5961 is probably soprano-like, in the range of maidens, soprano, or falsetto like.  The word probably should be rendered an octave higher that the voice of a man.  The subject of the use of a seven or eight note scale has been discussed more thoroughly in Chapter VIII of my book Music of the Bible in Christian Perspective.

Though for the Day

It is surprising that for centuries so many scholars of ancient music stubbornly resisted the thought that ancient music utilized octaves.