a celebrated musician in the time of David, was the son of Barachias of the tribe of Levi. Asaph, and also his descendants, presided over the musical band in the service of the temple. Several of the psalms, as the fiftieth, the seventy-third to the eighty-third, have the name of Asaph prefixed; but it is not certain whether the words or the music were composed by him. With regard to some of them, which were written during the Babylonish captivity, they cannot in any respect be ascribed to him. Perhaps they were written or set to music by his descendants, who bore his name, or by some of that class of musicians of which the family of Asaph was the head, 1 Chronicles 6:39; 2 Chronicles 29:30; 2 Chronicles 35:15; Nehemiah 12:46 . The psalms which bear the name of Asaph are doctrinal or preceptive: their style, though less sweet than that of David, is more vehement, and little inferior to the grandeur of Isaiah.