secure them from slipping through the holes. Several actual specimens of these instruments have been found, and are deposited in the British, Berlin, and other mu- seums (Wilkinson, Anc. Egypt, i, 131-133). They are mostly furnished with sacred symbols, and were chietiy used by the priests and priestesses in the ceremonies of religion, particularly in those connected with the wor- ship of Isis (I'lut. De Jsid. c. G3 ; Juven. xiii, 93 ; Jablon- sky, Opusc. i, 306). Instruments of tlie same rude prin- ciple, though different form, are still in use in the mili- tary music of some modern nations.
5. C^'y "^S"^, shalishim. This instrument is only once
Sistra.
3, in the British Mu Thebes.
lustniments of Percussion.
Figs. 1, 3, 6. Triangulnr and other rods aS metal charged with rinjrs. 2. A supposed Hebrew instrument, regarded by some as the menaanim. 4. A kind of Eastern Cymbals. 5. A pan of sounding metal.
mentioned, viz. in 1 Sam. xviii, 6, where it is spoken of as used by the women of Israel when they came out to meet king Saul and David. Our translators render vaguely "instruments of music," but insert in the mar- gin " three-stringed instruments." The word more prob- ably denoted an instrument with three sides; and as some harps were of that shape, it maj- probably have meant such harps. (See above, under /ciiiiwr.) We insert the name in this place because it is generally thought by recent scholars that it meant what is under- stood by a triangle, an instrimicnt of ])ercussion which Athenieus {Deipnos. iv, 175) says was derived from Syria. If so, it was possibly in use among tlie He- brews, and may have been the instrument referred to in 1 Sam. xviii, G. But, on the other hand, no figiure of such an instrument of percussion has been found on any of the monuments either of Assyria, Egypt, or Greece. Like the cymbals and sistra, it is still in use in military music, especially in the Turkish army.
6. The word " dance" is used in the A.V. for the Ileb. term machol, ^IIT^, a musical instrument of percussion, supposed to have been used by the Hebrews at an early period of their history. Some modern lexicographers, who regard machol as synonymous with rakod, *1"p"i (Eccles. iii, 4\ restrict its meaning to the exercise or amusement of dancing; but according to many scholars it also signities a musical instrument used for accompa- nying the dance, which the Hebrews therefore called by the same name .ns the dance itself. The Sept. gen- erally renders machol by xopoc, "dancing;" occasion- ally, however, it gives a different meaning, as in Psa. XXX, 11 (Heb. Bible, ver. 12), where it is translated Xapa, '"joy," and in Jer. xxxi, 4 and 14, where it is ren- dered SiJj'aywy/;, " assembly." The Shemitic versions of the O. T. almost invariably interpret the word as a musical instrument. On the joyous occasion when the Israelites escaped from their Egyptian pursuers, and reached the Arabian sliore of tlie Bed Sea in safety, Mir- iam is represented as going forth striking the ?r, and fol- lowed by her sisters in faith, who join in " with timbrels and dances" (Exod. xv, 20). Here tlie sense of tlie pas- sage seems to be. aureeably to the A. V.. that the Hebrew women came forth to dance, and to accomnaiiy their
MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS
^3
MUSICIAN
dance by a performance on timbrels; and this is the view adopted by the majority of the Latin and English commentators, Parkhurst and Adam Clarke do not share this opinion : according to the former, machol is " some fistular wind-instrument of music, with holes, as a flute, pipe, or fife, from bn, to make a hole or open- ing ;" and the latter says, " I know no place in the Bible where machol and machalath mean dance of any kind— they constantly signify some kind of pipe." The Tar- gumists very frequently render machol as a musical in- strument. In Exod. XV, 20, Onkelos gives for machalath the Aramaic word 'pilSn, which is precisely the same employed by him in Gen. xxi, 27 for kinnor (A. V. '• harp"). The Arabic version has for machol in most places iablun, pi. tubulun, translated by Freytag, in his Arabic Lexicon, " a drum with either one or two faces ;" and the word nlbn^ai (Judg. xi, 34, A.V. "and with dances") is rendered by inaun, "songs." Gesenius, FUrst, and others adopt for the most part the Sept. rendering; but Rosenmiiller, in his commentary on Exod. XV, 20, observes that, on comparing the passages in Judg. xi, 34 ; 1 Sam. xviii, 6 ; and Jer. xxxi, 4, and assigning a rational exegesis to their contexts, machol must mean in these instances some musical instrument, probably of the flute kind, and principally played on by women.
In the grand hallelujah psalm (cl) which closes that magnificent collection, the sacred poet exhorts mankind to praise Jehovah in his sanctuary with all kinds of music; and among the instruments mentioned at the 3d, 4th, and 5th verses is'found machol, which cannot here be consistently rendered in the sense of dancing. Joel Brill, whose second preface (n^SU tlTS'lpn) to Mendelssohn's Psalms contains the best treatise extant on the musical instruments mentioned in the Hebrew Bible, remarks : " It is evident from the passage, ' Praise him with the toph and the machol,^ that machol must mean here some musical instrument, and this is the opinion of the majority of scholars." Mendelssohn de- rives machol from blbn, " hoUow," on account of its shape ; and the author of Shilte Haggibhorim denomi- nates it 01"i::0'^D, which he probably intends for ki- Bcipa, rather than sistrum. Some modern critics con- sider machalath the same with machol. Gesenius, how- ever, translates the latter " dancing," while the former he renders " a stringed instrument," from the root bbo^ " to sing."