The Levites Are Sought Out To Play Their Part In The Celebrations (Nehemiah 12:27-29).
The emphasis at the commencement of the passage on the calling together of all the Levites from all around Judah brings out that the celebratory nature of the events is being emphasised. The prime emphasis is to be on joy and gladness, thanksgiving and singing. The aim was to make the celebrations a time of ‘gladness -- thanksgivings -- singing' (Nehemiah 12:27).
This can be seen as an echo of Isaiah 51:3, ‘YHWH has comforted Zion, -- joy and gladness will be found in it, thanksgiving and the voice of singing'. And it is especially an echo of Jeremiah 33:11, which specifically had in mind the return the return from captivity, seeing it as a new deliverance, ‘the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, -- the voice of those who say, “Give thanks to YHWH of Hosts, for YHWH is good, for His mercy is for ever,” who bring thanksgiving into the house of YHWH, “for I will cause the captivity of the land to return as at the first, says YHWH”.'
Now that the return had taken place, the walls of Jerusalem had been rebuilt, and Jerusalem had been separated to pure worship, it must have appeared as though these words had been fulfilled, and that the gladness and thanksgiving and singing spoken of were now required. And this was something in which the Levites excelled. They were at the very heart of the vocally expressed worship of Israel. Here the ‘singers (musicians)' were seen very much as Levites (compare 1 Chronicles 6:31-48).
‘And at the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem they sought the Levites out of all their places, to bring them to Jerusalem, to keep the dedication with gladness, both with thanksgivings, and with singing, with cymbals, psalteries, and with stringed instruments.'
The occasion of the celebrations was the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem. This probably therefore came well before the events described in chapter 11 (the largescale repopulation of Jerusalem), and may well even have led up to them. This timing explains why the Levites were still on the whole widely scattered around Judah. They were ‘sought out of all their places' and brought to Jerusalem for the celebrations precisely because the dedication was to be a joyous occasion centred around vocal worship, and this was one of the fortes of the Levites. It was to be a time of expressing gladness and thanksgiving by musical means. As this was to be in the form of processions it brings out that all the musical instruments described were hand held. A psaltery was a many-stringed instrument.
‘And the sons of the singers gathered themselves together, both out of the plain round about Jerusalem (or ‘from the circle of Jerusalem'), and from the villages of the Netophathites; also from Beth-gilgal, and out of the fields of Geba and Azmaveth: for the singers had built themselves villages round about Jerusalem.
So the singers gathered themselves together both from the area circling around Jerusalem, and from places round about. The villages of the Netophathites consisted of the settlements around Netophah, generally thought to have been about 5 kilometres (3 miles) south-east of Bethlehem (see Neh 7:26; 1 Chronicles 2:54; Ezra 2:22), and thus south of Jerusalem. Beth-gilgal may well have been the well-known Gilgal near Jericho, and therefore east of Jerusalem. Geba and Azmaveth were Benjamite cities a few kilometres north east of Jerusalem. So they came from all quarters, for the singers had established themselves in villages around Jerusalem, in view of the necessity to provide for themselves (Nehemiah 13:10).
Some see ‘the circle' as a technical term for part of the Jordan valley, and see in it a reference to people living in the Jordan valley near Jerusalem.