HEBREW / ARAMAIC · H5481
סוּמְפּוֹנְיָה
sum.po.ne.yah — bagpipe
1) a musical instrument, wind instrument, bagpipe, double pipe, panpipes 1a) perhaps dulcimer, panpipes
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Dulcimer
Original Hebrew / Aramaic / Greek connected to this term
How to read this: there is rarely one magic “true meaning” hidden behind an English word. A lexicon records a word’s semantic range. The intended meaning is narrowed by grammar, sentence, author, historical usage and context.
Historical dictionary entry
(Heb. sumphoniah), a musical instrument mentioned in Dan. 3:5, 15, along with other instruments there named, as sounded before the golden image. It was not a Jewish instrument. In the margin of the Revised Version it is styled the “bag-pipe.” Luther translated it “lute,” and Grotius the “crooked trumpet.” It is probable that it was introduced into Babylon by some Greek or Western-Asiatic musician. Some Rabbinical commentators render it by “organ,” the well-known instrument composed of a series of pipes, others by “lyre.” The most probable interpretation is that it was a bag-pipe similar to the zampagna of Southern Europe.
Scripture references
Source: Easton’s Bible Dictionary (1897). Historical dictionary wording reflects the scholarship and language of its era.