![]() ![]() When, however, we endeavor to identify with these a particular instrument named by the Hebrews, our difficulty begins, because the Hebrew names are seldom to be recognised in those which they now bear, and because the Scriptures afford us little information respecting the form of the instruments which they mention. ![]() We find also many instruments presented in the sculptures of Greece and Rome, and we need not refuse to draw inferences from them, for they derived their origin from the East, and the Romans distinctly refer them to Syria (Juvenal, Sat. We see certain instruments different from our own in use among the modern Orientals, and we infer that the Hebrew instruments were probably not unlike these, because the Orientals change but little, and we recognise in them the peoples, and among them the habits and the manners described in the Bible. There is yet much difference of opinion among Hebrew scholars and antiquarians upon this point of primary importance and indeed, in the absence of all direct means of identification, and of any clear and steady tradition among the Jews themselves upon the matter, it is hardly to be expected that the obscurity which still encumbers this part of the subject can ever be entirely removed. This recent enlargement of our knowledge, however, still leaves much room for further light, especially in regard to the precise instruments intended by particular Hebrew words. But much light has of late been thrown, by the discovery of Egyptian and Assyrian monuments, upon the instruments which were used by these two great peoples the nearest neighbors of the Hebrews, and with whom, at different periods of their history, they came into close and long-continued contact and we have now the advantage of being able to infer, with a high degree of probability, if not with absolute certainty, from these collateral examples what were the forms and powers of at least the principal instruments referred to in the Hebrew Scriptures. The older writers on the subject had no means of assisting their speculations by examining any representations of the actual instruments in use, either among the Hebrews themselves or in the neighboring nations. ![]() The rabbins themselves know no more of this matter than other commentators who are least acquainted with Jewish affairs. Musical Instruments Of The Hebrews The obscurity attaching to this subject has long been felt and complained of. ![]()
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