Asaph (Hastings' Dictionary)

The father of Joah, the 'recorder' or chronicler at the court of Hezekiah (2 K IS'-" etc.) 2. The keeper of the king's forest,' to whom king Artaxerxes addressed a letter directing him to supply Nehemiah with timber (Neh 2*). 3. A Korahite (1 Ch 26'), same as Abiasaph (wh. see). 1. The eponym of one of the three guilds which conducted the musical services of the temple in the time of the Chronicler (1 Ch 15'"- etc.)

The latter traces this arrange- ment to the appointment of David, in whose reigii Asaph, who is called 'the seer' (2 Ch 29*"), is supposed to have lived.

We really know practi- cally nothing about the worship in the first temple, although the probability that the musical service was even then to a certain extent organised, is witnessed to by the fact that at the return from exile 'the singers, the sons of Asaph' (Neh "'", Ezr 2"), are mentioned as a class whose functions were recognised and well established.

At first the Asaphites alone seemed to have formed the temple choir, and in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah (wherever we have the memoirs of the latter in their original form) they are not yet reckoned among the Levitts. At a later period they share the musical service with the ' sons of Korah ' (see KORAHITES). When the latter become porters and doorkeepers, the guild of Asaph appears supple- mented Dy those of Heman ana Ethan ; and as, in the estimation of the Chronicler (c. 250 B.C.)

, Levitical descent is necessary for the performance of such functions, the geneaJogies of Asaph, Heman, and Ethan are traced respectively to Gershom, Kohath, and Merari, the sons of Levi (1 Ch 6»-"). W. R. Smith (OTJC p. 204, n.)

remarks that the ' oldest attempt to incorporate the Asaphites with the Levites seems to be found in the priestly part of the Pentateuch, where Abiasaph, " the father of Asaph," or in other words the eponym of the Asaphite guild, is made one of the three sons of Korah (Ex 6").' Pss 50 and 73-83 have the superscription Ifx^ which means in all probability that they once belonged to the hymn- book of the Asaphite choir (see PsALMS). LiTEBATUBl!.— Kuenen, Bd. of Irrael, Ii. 204, ili.

77: Onif, OrschUIU. H. da A.T. 223, 239 ff.; Wellhausen, GesdlichU, 162, n. ; Herzfeia. GeschichU ilea VUka Isra-l, I. 887 f. ; Schllr»r, UJP u. 1. 225 f., 271 f. ; Cheyne, Origin of Ptalter, 101, 111. J. A. Selbib. ASARA ('Acrapd, AV Azara), 1 Es 5".— His sons were among the temple servants or Nethinim who returned under Zerubbabel : omitted in the parallel lists in Ezr and Neh. H. St. J. THACKERAY. ASARAMEL asce:nsion Ibl