The Music of the Old Testament Reconsidered

Surviving examples of musical instruments and representations of them show that during the first half of the first millennium B.C. a considerable range of types was in use in Mesopotamia and Egypt, as well as in north Syria and south-east Asia Minor. Since there are numerous references in the Old Testament to music and musicians it is a reasonable assumption that, though there are few representations from Palestine, similar types were in use. The corpus derived from outside sources comprises: I. Strings: (a) harp, (b) lyre, (c) lute; II. Wind: (d) vertical flute (end blown like the modern recorder), (e) double-pipe, (f) horn, (g) trumpet; III. Percussion: (h) drum, (i) tambour (like a tambourine without the jingles), (j) cymbals, (k) clappers, (l) sistrum, (m) vibroframe (see Wegner 1959 with useful folding chart illustrating instruments by date and area; Mitchell and Joyce 1965, 20-22; Pritchard 1969, nos. 191-211; Stauder 1975; Rashid 1984; and Hickman 1961 for Egypt and Wegner 1963 for Greece).