Albert Barnes Commentary Psalms 149:3

"Let them praise his name in the dance: Let them sing praises unto him with timbrel and harp." — Psalms 149:3 (ASV)

Let them praise his name in the dance — Margin, with the pipe. The Hebrew word here — מחול mâchôl — is rendered "dancing" in Psalms 30:11; "dance," as here, in Psalms 150:4 (where the margin also has "pipe"), Jeremiah 31:13, and Lamentations 5:15; and "dances" in Jeremiah 31:4. It does not occur elsewhere. On the verb חול chûl — see Psalms 10:5, note; Psalms 51:5, note. Here, it cannot be improper to regard it as referring to that measured tread or solemn movement which sometimes constituted a part of worship (2 Samuel 6:14). Such a movement cannot be proved to be wrong in worship; whether it is wise or expedient is a different matter.

Customs in worship change as the customs of a people change. That which might be very proper in one stage of society, or in one period of the world, though not wrong in itself, might be very unadvisable in another. There was much in the Hebrew mode of worship which cannot be transferred to the forms of Christian worship without an obvious incongruity and disadvantage. Because a thing has been done, and is not in itself wrong, we should not infer that it should always be done, or that it would always be best.

If people like the Shakers dance in worship, they have an undoubted right to do so. It may be the most edifying mode of worship for them, with their low notions of religion. Let others not ridicule them, nor go to see them out of idle curiosity as they would any other “outré” performance.

Such absurdities might soon die away if they were not kept alive by the notice they attract and by the foolish curiosity of wiser people. Some things are more certain to come to an end by neglect than they could by sober argument. Some things live merely because they are ridiculed, and because those who practice them are exalted into prominence by their own folly and by the idea that they are martyrs.

Let them sing praises to him with the timbrel and harp — On these instruments, see the notes at Isaiah 5:12; notes at Job 21:12; notes at Psalms 68:25; notes at Psalms 81:2.