Asaph

The name Asaph is borne in the Old Testament by several distinct figures. The most prominent is Asaph the Levite singer appointed by David, whose sons carry a temple-music house through the Chronicler, the post-exilic returns, and the Psalter superscriptions. Around him cluster several smaller bearers of the name: a recorder's father in Hezekiah's court, a Levite ancestor in a post-exilic Jerusalem genealogy, and the Persian-period keeper of the king's forest who supplied Nehemiah's beams.

Father of Joah the Recorder

In Hezekiah's court an Asaph stands at the head of the recorder's line. When Sennacherib's Rabshakeh demands a parley at the wall, the king sends out "Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebnah the scribe, and Joah the son of Asaph the recorder" (2 Ki 18:18). Isaiah's parallel narrative repeats the trio twice, both at the embassy's outset — "Then came forth to him Eliakim the son of Hilkiah, who was over the household, and Shebna the scribe, and Joah, the son of Asaph, the recorder" (Isa 36:3) — and at its return to Hezekiah, "with their clothes rent" (Isa 36:22). The verses identify Asaph only as Joah's father; the recorder's office passes through him without further detail.

The Levite Singer Appointed by David

The Asaph of the Chronicler is set in office at the bringing-up of the ark. David charges the chief of the Levites to appoint singers with psalteries, harps, and cymbals, "sounding aloud and lifting up the voice with joy" (1 Ch 15:16), and the Levites name a triad: "Heman the son of Joel; and of his brothers, Asaph the son of Berechiah; and of the sons of Merari their brothers, Ethan the son of Kushaiah" (1 Ch 15:17). The three are then specifically appointed "with cymbals of bronze to sound aloud" (1 Ch 15:19).

At the new tent in Jerusalem the rank is sharpened. "Asaph the chief, and second to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mattithiah, and Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obed-edom, and Jeiel, with psalteries and with harps; and Asaph with cymbals, sounding aloud" (1 Ch 16:5). On the same day David "first appointed to give thanks to Yahweh, by the hand of Asaph and his brothers" (1 Ch 16:7).

David and the captains afterward "set apart for the service certain of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals" (1 Ch 25:1). The Asaph house is enumerated by name: "Zaccur, and Joseph, and Nethaniah, and Asharelah, the sons of Asaph, under the hand of Asaph, who prophesied after the order of the king" (1 Ch 25:2). The triad appears together in the order, "Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman being under the order of the king" (1 Ch 25:6), and when lots are cast for the courses, "the first lot came forth for Asaph to Joseph" (1 Ch 25:9).

The line carries forward into Solomon's temple. At the dedication "the Levites who were the singers, all of them, even Asaph, Heman, Jeduthun, and their sons and their brothers, arrayed in fine linen, with cymbals and psalteries and harps, stood at the east end of the altar" (2 Ch 5:12). Long afterward, at Josiah's passover, "the singers the sons of Asaph were in their place, according to the commandment of David, and Asaph, and Heman, and Jeduthun the king's seer" (2 Ch 35:15). And Nehemiah, looking back from the second temple, grounds the singer-and-thanksgiving institution in deep precedent: "For in the days of David and Asaph of old there was a chief of the singers, and songs of praise and thanksgiving to God" (Ne 12:46).

Asaph the Seer and Composer

Hezekiah's cleansing of the temple draws the Asaph house in twice. Among the Levites who gather to sanctify themselves are, "of the sons of Asaph, Zechariah and Mattaniah" (2 Ch 29:13). When the burnt-offering is restored, the king and the princes command "the Levites to sing praises to Yahweh with the words of David, and of Asaph the seer" (2 Ch 29:30). Asaph stands here beside David himself as the named source of the words by which the Levites praise.

Twelve Psalm titles in the UPDV preserve the same attribution. "A Psalm of Asaph" heads Psalm 50, opening "The Mighty One, God, Yahweh, has spoken, And called the earth from the rising of the sun to the going down of it" (Ps 50:1). At the head of Book III the title returns: "BOOK III. A Psalm of Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel" (Ps 73:1). The eleven Psalms 73–83 are all titled to Asaph in some form — "Maschil of Asaph" (Ps 74:1; Ps 78:1), "A Psalm of Asaph, a Song" set to Al-tash-heth (Ps 75:1) and on stringed instruments (Ps 76:1), "A Psalm of Asaph" "after the manner of Jeduthun" (Ps 77:1), and the laments and judgments of Ps 79:1, Ps 80:1, Ps 81:1, Ps 82:1, and Ps 83:1.

The Asaphite Singers and Their Descendants

The "sons of Asaph" continue as a named guild. In Jehoshaphat's crisis the prophetic word comes through one of them: "Then on Jahaziel the son of Zechariah, the son of Benaiah, the son of Jeiel, the son of Mattaniah, the Levite, of the sons of Asaph, came the Spirit of Yahweh in the midst of the assembly" (2 Ch 20:14). At the foundation of the second temple "they set the priests in their apparel with trumpets, and the Levites the sons of Asaph with cymbals, to praise Yahweh, after the order of David king of Israel" (Ezr 3:10). The return-lists count the guild: "The singers: the sons of Asaph, a hundred twenty and eight" in Ezra (Ezr 2:41), and "a hundred forty and eight" in Nehemiah's parallel (Ne 7:44). And the Asaphite line still supplies the overseer: "The overseer also of the Levites at Jerusalem was Uzzi the son of Bani, the son of Hashabiah, the son of Mattaniah, the son of Mica, of the sons of Asaph, the singers, over the business of the house of God" (Ne 11:22).

A separate Levite genealogy tucked into the Chronicler's post-exilic Jerusalem list traces another line through the same name: "Mattaniah the son of Mica, the son of Zichri, the son of Asaph" (1 Ch 9:15). Whether this Asaph at the head of the genealogy is the singer of the David-era roster or a distinct earlier Levite the text does not explicitly say; he is catalogued as a separate figure.

A fourth Asaph is sometimes listed as a Kohath Levite at 1 Ch 26:1, but the UPDV at that verse reads "of the sons of Ebiasaph," not Asaph. Without an "Asaph" reading in UPDV, this identification is not asserted here.

Keeper of the King's Forest

The last Asaph serves under the Persian king. When Nehemiah asks the king for safe passage and timber, he requests "a letter to Asaph the keeper of the king's forest, that he may give me timber to make beams for the gates of the castle which pertains to the house, and for the wall of the city, and for the house that I will enter into" (Ne 2:8). Asaph here is a royal officer of the western forest; the verse closes with Nehemiah's acknowledgment that "the king granted me, according to the good hand of my God on me" (Ne 2:8).