The sanctuary orchestra accompanied the singers and served to call the people to the worship of Yahweh.
The sanctuary orchestra contributed to the celebrative character of Israel’s covenant worship. Horns, trumpets, cymbals, harps, and lyres were used when the ark was brought up to Mount Zion (1 Chron. 13:8; 15:28), and David promptly established permanent Levitical orders whose duty it was to play the various instruments used in the continuing worship on that site (1 Chron. 15:16–24; 16:4–7; 25:1–7).
The sanctuary instruments were not primarily solo instruments but were used orchestrally in the praise of Yahweh; they sounded simultaneously to call the assembly to worship (Ps. 98:6). This appears to have been the custom in pagan cults as well, as the instruments summoning the people to bow down to the gold image of Nebuchadnezzar (Dan. 3:4–6) seem to be playing together. However, orchestral “parts” as we know them did not exist. The stringed instruments and pipes, if used, probably played the modalities (or tune elements) being used in the psalm being sung, with perhaps distinctive patterns of ornamentation; the horns, trumpets, and cymbals were primarily for the purpose of adding to the festive joy through the multiplication of sound. The selah of the Psalms may have been an instrumental interlude or a general “lifting up” of sound by both singers and instrumentalists.