in -tunnel it played with the lingers instead of a plectrum or quill, the verb \LaX\uv being used (I'.urip. I
784 1 of twanging the bowstring (comp. i|/aXuoi 7. %<av,
Eurip. Ton, p. 17:; 1. But it only occur- in the s, pt as the rendering of the Hebrew iub<l in Neb. xii, 27 and
PSALTERY
759
PSALTERY
Isa. v, 12, and in all the passages of the Psalms, except Psa. lxxi, 22 (^/aXjUoc) and Psa. lxxxi, 2 (KiSrapa), while in Amos v, 23 ; vi, 5, the general term bpyavov is em- ployed. In all other cases va(S\a represents nebel or nebel. These various renderings are sufficient to show that at the time the translation of the Sept. was made there was no certain identification of the Hebrew in- strument with any known to the translators. The ren- dering i'«/3\ct commends itself on account of the simi- larity of the Greek word with the Hebrew. Josephus appears to have regarded them as equivalent, and his is the only direct evidence upon the point. He tells us {Ant. vii, 12, 3) that the difference between the Kivipa (Ileb. ~!li3, Manor) and the i>«/3Aa was that the former had ten strings and was played with the plectrum, the latter had twelve notes and was played with the hand. Forty thousand of these instruments, he adds {Ant. viii, 3, 8), were made of electrum by Solomon for the Temple choir. Rashi (on Isa. v, 12) says that the nebel had more strings and pegs than the kinnor. That nabla was a foreign name is evident from Strabo (x, 471) and from Athenaeus (iv, 175), where its origin is said to be Sido- riian. Beyond this, and that it was a stringed instru- ment (Athen. iv, 175), played by the hand (Ovid, Ars Am. iii, 327), we know nothing of it; but in these facts •we have strong presumptive evidence that nabla and nebel are the same ; and that the nabla and psalterion are identical appears from the glossary of Philoxenus, where nablio = ^d\ri]g, and nablizo—il/dWio. and from Suidas, who makes psalterion and naula, or nabla, syn- onymous. Of the psaltery among the Greeks there ap- pear to have been two kinds — the 7t?/kWc, which was of Persian (Athen. xiv, G36) or Lydian (ibid. p. G35) origin, and the /jaycicic. The former had only two (ibid, iv, 183) or three (ibid.) strings; the latter as many as twenty (ibid, xiv, 634), though sometimes only five (ibid. p. 037). They are sometimes said to be the same, and were evidently of the same kind. Both Isidore (Z>e Origg. iii, 21) and Cassiodorus (Preef. in Psal. c. 4) describe the psaltery as triangular in shape, like the Greek A, with the sounding-board above the strings, which were struck downwards. The latter adds that it was played with a plectrum, so that he contra- dicts Josephus if the psaltery and nebel are really the same. In this case Josephus is the rather to be trusted. St. Augustine (on Psa. xxxii [xxxiii]) makes the po- sition of the sounding-board the point in which the cithara and psaltery differ; in the former it is below, in the latter above the strings. His language implies that both were played with the plectrum. The distinction between the cithara and psaltery is observed by Jerome (Prol. in Psal.). From these conflicting accounts it is impossible to say positively with what instrument the nebel of the Hebrew exactly corresponded. It was prob- ably of various kinds, as Kimchi says in his note on Isa.
Triangnlar Musical Instrument from Uerailaneum.
xxii, 24, differing from each other both with regard to the position of the pegs and the number of the strings. In illustration of the descriptions oflsidorus and Cassio- dorus reference may be made to the drawings from Egyptian musical instruments given by Sir Gard. Wil- kinson (Anc. Kg. ii, 280, 287), some one of which may correspond to the Hebrew nebel. Munk {Palestine, pi. 1G, figs. 12, 13) gives an engraving of an instrument which Nicbuhr saw. Its form is that of an inverted Delta placed upon a round box of wood covered with skin. Abraham de Porta-Leone, the author of Shilte Haggibborim (c. 5), identities the nebel with the Italian Unto (the lute), or rather with the particular kind called liuto chitarronato (the German mandoline'), the thirteen strings of which were of gut or sinew, and were struck with a quill. See Harp.
The nebel asor (Psa. xxxiii, 2 ; xcii, 3 [4] ; cxliv, 9) appears to have been an instrument of the psaltery kind of a peculiar form or number of strings (Forkel, Gesch. iii r M us. i, 133). Aben-Ezra (on Psa. cl, 3) says the nebel had ten holes; so that he must have considered it to be a kind of pipe. As the latter term signifies ten, and never occurs but in connection with the nebel, the conjecture is natural that the two instruments may have differed from each other only in the number of their strings, or the openings at the bottom. Hence we meet with the Sept. translation iv CtKax<>p3<{>, and in the Chaldee, Syriac, and Arabic words expressing an in- strument of ten strings, which is also followed in the A. V. (Psa. xxxiii, 2; cxliv, 1). We see no reason to dissent from this conclusion. Pfeiffer was inclined to think that the asor may have been the quadrangular lyre which is represented in different varieties in an- cient monuments (figs. 1 and 2 of the accompanying cut), and which has usually ten strings, though sometimes more. See Viol.