What Does 1 Chronicles 15:16 Mean in the King James?
And David spake to the chief of the Levites to appoint their brethren to be the singers with instruments of musick, psalteries and harps and cymbals, sounding, by lifting up the voice with joy.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word rendered “sounding” means making heard, so joy here becomes audible and shareable.
THE MEANING
Voices and instruments take their places together, and joy rises into a sound shared among hearers. A raised voice gives joy a shape others can hear. The verse holds arrangement and celebration in the same moment.
THE ROOT
מַשְׁמִיעִים
mashmi'im
GROWS FROM
שמע
sh-m-ʿ
Hear, listen.
“sounding” in this verse is mashmi'im. The form here means making something heard. The same root appears in words for hearing and listening, so the music is not just sound produced: it becomes an experience shared by those who receive it.
ALSO GROWS
shama: Hear, listen.
שָׁמַע
This is the root verb beneath the word for sounding; it shows that the music is directed toward hearers.
shemu'ah: Report, news, something heard.
שְׁמוּעָה
This branch shows how what is heard can carry meaning, as the music gives joy a public voice.
לְהָרִים
leharim
GROWS FROM
רום
r-w-m
Rise, be high; raise.
“lifting up” in this verse is leharim. The voice is given upward motion: it is raised. A related word, terumah, names a contribution lifted up, so the shared root lets this joyful sound carry the feel of something offered into the common space.
ALSO GROWS
ram: High, elevated.
רָם
This branch makes the upward movement in lifting the voice explicit.
terumah: Contribution, something lifted up.
תְּרוּמָה
It connects the raised voice with something brought forward for others to share.
דָּוִיד
David
GROWS FROM
דוד
d-w-d
Beloved; loved one.
David’s name carries the sense of belovedness. The verse’s gathering of voices into joyful sound unfolds under a name that holds relationship and affection within it.
ALSO GROWS
dod: Beloved; beloved one.
דּוֹד
This is the related word that gives David’s name its sense of belovedness.
dodim: Loves, beloved affections.
דּוֹדִים
This related form extends the name’s root into the language of love and affection.
THE PATTERN
Joyful praise takes audible form through shared voices, instruments, and song.
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up their voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, saying, For he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: that then the house was filled with a cloud, even the house of the LORD;Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord;THE THREAD
There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.The musicians here are described with a form of שמע, “to make heard”; Psalm 19:3 uses that same root for the voice heard across speechless creation. Together, they reveal sound carrying meaning even before it becomes words.
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