As it turns out, “all the work of serving in the temple” includes its music services. We are not left to guess about the authority for the temple’s music. To understand the next references, we must move forward in history. After Solomon, the successive kings of Judah act something like a seesaw. They often swing alternately between bad kings and good kings. Bad kings destroy the worship of the true God. Then good kings must restore it. How do they go about this restoration? By trusting God enough to obey His revealed way to worship. Notice the authority behind Hezekiah’s reforms.
He [King Hezekiah] stationed the Levites in the temple of the LORD with cymbals, harps and lyres in the way prescribed by David and Gad the king’s seer and Nathan the prophet; this was commanded by the LORD through His prophets. (2 Chronicles 29:25)
Levitical use of instruments is “commanded by the LORD.” After Hezekiah’s time, most Israelites fail to follow the example set by David and Hezekiah. The people of Israel and Judah grow more wicked, which eventually results in their total defeat. The Babylonians destroy Jerusalem and its beautiful temple. They carry the captive Israelites into exile to distant lands. (From this sad period comes the familiar song of Psalm 137: “By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our lyres.”)
After seventy years in Babylonian captivity, Jews return to their homeland to build a new temple and re-start its services. How will they go about this restoration? By applying the lesson of the exile: We had our own way and destroyed ourselves. Now, let God have His way! Let God be God!