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SECTION IV.

MUSIC.

Antiquity of the Art-Civil and Sacred Music-Instruments of Music mentioned in the Bible-Various kinds of the Harp, &c. -The Levites.

1. THE art of music is obviously amongst those to which mankind have been led by the appointment of nature itself. Endowed with a flexible organ of voice for the prolongation and gradation of sound, with an ear capable of distinguishing those gradations in their nicest modulations, it may fairly be presumed that these powers were not suffered to remain unemployed, but that, from the first, they contributed to the enjoyment of their possessors, and, no doubt, were engaged in the solemnities addressed to their all-bounteous Maker and Benefactor. But exertions of the voice, however mellifluous that voice might be, were not long practised without discovering that tones equally musical, and much more sonorous, might be obtained from instruments; and these, being heard! more extensively, could regulate a much greater number of performers, in the open air, especially, than any voice whose exertions preserved its musical intonation. This engaged musical instruments in religious worship; and this has been their office, not only in the earliest ages with which we are acquainted, but among all nations whose manners are known to us. Jubal was "the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ"the kinnur and the ougib-generic names, probably, including all stringed and wind instruments. 2. Music may be considered under a two-fold aspect-as civil and sacred. Civil music was used anciently on public occasions; for so we find Laban hints, at sending away Jacob "with mirth, with songs, with tabret, and with harp," Gen. xxxi. 27. The first clear mention of sacred music is in Exod.

ments-pulsatile, wind, and stringed. Of the former kind are the tabret or tabor, the cymbal and the sistrum, called cornet in our translation of 2 Sam. vi. 5. Of wind instruments we have “the organ," more properly the rug, or pipe of Pan, used by the Greeks, now known as "the pandean pipes;" the flute or hautboy; the dulcimer or caμunn of the Greeks; the horn, and the trumpet; but as stringed instruments only appear to have formed part of the sacred music, they are more particularly spoken of in the Old Testament. 4. The harp seems specially to have been honoured in religious services, and was generally, if not always, accompanied by the voice: "Unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel. My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to thee.-Sing to the Lord with the harp; with the harp, and the voice of a psalm (Ps. lxxi. 22; xcviii. 5; cxlvii. 7; cxlix. 3). The psalmist also mentions his opening a dark saying upon the harp (xlix. 4), which intimates the accompaniment of the voice; and Solomon made harps and psalteries for the singers, 1 Kings x. 12.

(1) Admitting, now, that the harp was thus employed, a question arises: Were there more kinds of harps than one? In attempting to answer this question, we must first endeavour to dismiss whatever instruments have been unjustly denominated by this title; and we are under the necessity of directly contradicting Calmet, who reckons among harps the cithara or kitara, called by Daniel D kitros, or kitaros (Dan. iii. 5, 7, 10); whereas the kitara has still its representative, both in name and nature, in our guitar, which, though a stringed instrument, yet differs from harps of every kind. Calmet says, "All the Fathers describe it as of a triangular figure: its cords strung from the top to the bottom. The belly of it, which gave the sound, was hollow, and at the bottom; but it was touched in the upper part, either with the finger or with the bow." The author of the Commentary on the Psalms, under the name of St. Jerome, says the cithara has six cords. The author of the Epistle to Dardamus, in the works of the same Father, mentions twenty-four.* That the kinaros was different from the kitaros, appears from 1 Macc. iv. 54, xiii. 51, where they are mentioned to

xv. 20: “And Miriam the prophetess took a timbrel in her hand, and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances." Here musical instruments are mentioned, not as any thing new, but as customary; not as confined to one, but as employed by many; and, indeed, had it been a novelty, "all the women" could not have been provided with instruments. The employment of instruments, then, was no innovation in wor-gether. ship; it was found as a custom by Moses, and he adopted it as a matter ofcourse. There can be no question that their services were continued to the time of David, who regulated the more extensive exercise of them, with a view to the temple solemnities; in which solemnities Solomon engaged and embodied them.

3. The instruments mentioned in the sacred writings comprise the three descriptions of instru

(2) Beside the kitaros, we have, in Hebrew, three names for stringed instruments. The 2. nebel, the wy oshur, and the kinnur. Of these we select at present the kinnur, or harp. It was certainly the most ancient instrument of

• A Turkish instrument, answering closely to this description, may be seen in the Fragments to Calmet's Dictionary, No. ccxxxiii,, new edition.

the kind, being invented and used before the deluge. (Gen. iv. 21.) It was made of wood; for we are expressly told that Solomon employed part of the almuggin wood, brought by the queen of Sheba, in making harps, 1 Kings x. 12. It was light of carriage, since it was carried about by women; for so Isaiah addresses Tyre: "Take a harp; go about the city; make sweet melody; sing many songs," xxiii. 16. With this agrees Ezek. xxvi. 13. The captives at Babylon carried this instrument with them; and it was the harp which they "hanged on the willows," Ps. cxxxvii. 2. The harp was also the instrument with which David, when a shepherd's boy, was familiar, 1 Sam. xvi. 3, 23. From these instances we infer that the harp was not large, but of small dimensions, as well as of light weight. Moreover,

(6) Having restricted the number of strings in the harp to seven, we come now to the wy, oshur, which word signifies ten; and accordingly, when denoting an instrument of music, it is rendered by the Seventy dexaxogow; by the Vulgate dedacordo, and decem chordarum; and by our English translators ten-stringed. After these authorities, it might be thought unnecessary to say more on this article: but it seems that there is a peculiarity in the application of this word which no commentator has yet pointed out. In Psalm xcii. 3, we read, "To sing praises-on the wy, oshur, and on the ba, nebel-on the harp with a solemn sound." Here the two instruments, wy, oshur, and b, nebel, are clearly distinguished, and the wy, oshur, is placed first. But in Psalm xxxiii. 2, we read, "Praise the Lord with harp; with the 1, nebel, ten-stringed (wy, oshur), sing unto him." And so Psalm clxiv. 9, “O God, a new song will I sing to thee: on a nebel, tenstringed (wy, oshur), will I sing to thee!" These passages certainly import, 'On a ♬ nebel, of the

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(3) The sound of the harp was soothing and condoling, or rather solemn. Isaiah compares the compassionate sounding of his bowels over Moab to the sound of this instrument; and this character was peculiarly adapted to counteract the boisterous passions of the maniac Saul; sometimes by sympa-kind called wy, oshur (ten, from its having ten thizing with his gloomy malignity, sometimes by strings), will I sing :' and this fixes the "wy oshur moderating his feverish paroxysms, by gradually to be of the 3 nebel kind, and differing from the soothing them down to the standard of health: and perfect nebel only in the number of its strings in this tone of the harp we see the propriety of in- being limited to ten. So that, as we have seen troducing it in devotion. Accordingly the psalmist seven strings formed a harp, we now see ten thus characterizes it: "It is good to sing praises strings form any oshur: the Targum and on the harp with solemn sound," Ps. xcii. Syriac agree with this explanation. When JoseIt should appear, then, that the harp contributed phus says (Ant. lib. vii., cap. 12), that to calm the mind, to tranquillize, to compose, to κινύρα, δεκα χορδαίς εξημμένη, τύπτεται πληκτρῳ, harmonize the spirit, as it were, to calm unplea-"the kinyra was furnished with ten strings, and sant passions; and that this was its duty in acts of devotion.

(4) The word zugos, kinyros (the kinnur of the Hebrews), in Greek signifies mournful; and Horace calls the harp, from its solemnity, "the friend of the temple," lib. iii., ode 11.

Nec loquax olim, neque grata: nunc et
Divitum mensis, et amica templis.

(5) The number of strings in the harp was at first three; but afterwards they were increased to four, and at last to seven. (Diod. Sic., lib. i.) Pindar gives seven strings to his harp (Pyth., Ode 2; vide 27 Enund., Nem., Ode 5), and Horace the same:

Tuque testudo resonare septem callida nervis. This maintains a determinate distinction between the harp and any instrument of ten strings; and à fortiori between the harp and any instrument of twenty or twenty-four strings. The harp was touched either by the finger, or by the bow; or rather, perhaps, by the plectrum, a small piece of wood, or ivory, or quill, &c.

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was played on with a plectrum," he clearly means the yoshur; and his associating it with the nabla, shows beyond dispute the nature of the instrument, as it was extant in his days; and that it was the same as in the days of David, and continued in the temple worship. When, therefore, David says he would sing praises with the y oshur, it was on a sacred instrument that he proposed to play.

(7) There remains the nebel, which the Seventy render sometimes Yangiov, psalterion, and sometimes vaßha, nabla; our translation usually renders psaltery. Josephus attributes to the nabla, or nablum, dwdexa ploy yous exoUru, τοις δακτυλίοις κρούεται, "twelve note or sounding strings; it is struck, or played on (says he), with the fingers." (Ant. lib. vii., cap. 12) This we take to be the very lowest psaltery, the next in degree of power and extent of musical scale above the y oshur of ten strings: and from this number up to twenty, and probably more, were composed into the psaltery. Mr. Taylor, to whom we are indebted for this disquisition, thinks that we have in the Welsh harp the representative of the

ancient psaltery, or nablum. From the number of strings in this instrument, we may certainly suppose it to be of considerable magnitude; and though we occasionally read of the psaltery as accompanying religious processions, yet it does not seem to have been carried about so customarily or so conveniently as the harp. Our Welsh harps are usually carried by a servant to the bard who plays them. The psaltery appears to have been first mentioned in the days of David (2 Sam. vi. 5); and we know that prince was a collector of musical instruments. Atheneus (lib. iv., cap. 23), says, vaßλa Dorvinav siva iugnμa, the nabla was invented by the Phoenicians, [but observe, these were a colony from Assyria, and probably only communicated the instruments to Greece] which he proves from a passage of Sopater :

ούτε το Σιδωνίου Ναβλα

Λαρυγγοφονος.

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And the Sidonian nabla
Loud sounding every cord."-

This author describes it as made of wood, hollow,
placed along-side and above and below its well-
braced cords, which yielded an agreeable harmony.
It appears, also, that it was, like our ancient
British harp, played on by both hands, as we learn
from Ovid de Arte Amandi, lib. iii.

Disce etiam duplici genialia nablia palma
Plectere: conveniunt dulcibus illa modis.

And its character for sweetness of note seems
to have been general; for so says one in the
Adulterer of Philemon,

Ουκ οισθα ναβλα ; ουδεν ουν οισθ' αλαθον.
"Not know the nabla! Then thou knowest
thing good."

the people, and gave the signal for battle, and for retreat (Numb. i. 1—10). David, in order to give the best effect to the music of the tabernacle, divided the four thousand Levites into twentyfour classes, who sang psalms, and accompanied them with music. Each of these classes was superintended by a leader (ny) placed over it; and they performed the duties which devolved upon them, each class a week at a time, in succession. (See 1 Chron. xvi. 5; xxiii. 4, 5 ; xxv. 1-31. Comp. 2 Chron. v. 12, 13.) The classes collectively, as a united body, were superintended by three directors. This arrangement was subsequently continued by Solomon after the erection of the temple, and was transmitted till the time of the overthrow of Jerusalem. It was, indeed, sometimes interrupted during the reign of the idolatrous kings, but was restored by their successors. (See 2 Chron. v. 12-14; xxix. 27; xxxv. 15.) It was even continued after the captivity (Ezra iii. 10; Neh. xii. 45-47; 1 Macc. iv. 54; xiii. 51). It should be remarked, however, that neither music nor poetry attained to the same excellence after the captivity, as before that period.+

SECTION V.

MEDICINE AND CHIRURGERY.

Physicians amongst the Hebrews-Modes of treating the sick
-Diseases mentioned in Scripture.

1. THE theory of physic seems never to have made any considerable advances among the Hebrews. Physicians (D&D rephaim) are first mentioned in Gen. 1. 2; Exod. xxi. 19; Job xiii. 4. Some acquaintance with chirurgical operations is no-implied in the rite of circumcision; and there is ample evidence that the Israelites had some acquaintance with the internal structure of the human system, although it does not appear that dissections of the human body for medical purposes were made till as late as the time of Ptolemy. That physicians sometimes undertook to exercise their skill in removing diseases of an internal nature, is evident, from the circumstance of David playing upon the harp, to cure the malady of Saul (1 Sam. xvi. 16).

The Fathers, as referred to by Calmet, compare its general shape to a triangle, and such, no doubt, was the form of many; but to restrict its form to this only seems improper.

(8) Thus we have seen that there was a gradation in this kind of stringed instrument: (1) the harp, of three, four, and seven strings; (2) the oshur, of ten strings, (3) the psaltery, of twelve strings, and all above.*

5. In the tabernacle and the temple, the Levites were the lawful musicians, but on other occasions, any one who chose might use musical instruments. There was, however, this exception, the holy silver trumpets were to be blown only by the priests, who, by the sounding of them proclaimed the festival days, assembled the leaders of

• Critica Biblica, vol. iii., p. 1, &c.

2. The art of healing was committed among the Hebrews, as well as among the Egyptians, to the priests; who, indeed, were obliged, by a law of the state, to take cognizance of leprosies (Lev. xiii. 1-14, 57; Deut. xxiv. 8, 9). Reference is made to physicians who were not priests, and to instances of sickness, disease, healing, &c., in the

† Jahn's Biblical Archæology, by Upham, § 93.

following passages: 1 Sam. xvi. 16; 1 Kings i. 2-4, xv. 23; 2 Kings viii. 29, ix. 15; Isai. i. 6; Jer. viii. 22; Ezek. xxx. 21; Prov. iii. 18, xi. 30, xii. 18, xvi. 15, xxix. 1. The probable reason of King Asa not seeking help from God, but from physicians, as mentioned in 2 Chron. xvi. 12, was, that they had not at that period recourse to the simple medicines which nature offered, but to certain superstitious, rites and incantations; and this, no doubt, was the ground of the reflection that was cast upon him. About the time of Christ the Hebrew physicians made advancements in science, and increased in numbers (See Mark v. 26; Luke iv. 23, v. 31, viii. 43; Joseph. Ant., xvii. 6, 5). It appears from the Talmud,* that the Hebrew physicians were accustomed to salute the sick, by saying, “Arise from your disease;" a salutation adopted by our Lord (Mark v. 41). According to the Jerusalem Talmud, a sick man was judged to be in a way of recovery when he tegan to take his usual food. Comp. Mark v. 43.+ 3. With regard to the treatment of the sick and indisposed, and the expedients they employed to assuage or expel disease, the Hebrews appear to have proceeded by an invariable system, and uniformly to have practised certain rules and methods of cure, which had nothing to recommend them but the sacred prescription and sanction of antiquity. They seem to have regarded oil as a more efficacious remedy than any other discovery for mitigating or extirpating the various disorders of the human frame. The sick, whatever the distemper might be, they appear to have anointed with oil, as the most powerful preservative they knew from the further progress of the disease, and the most effectual remedy for the recovery and re-establishment of health. We have one of the medical prescriptions which is in this form. "He who is afflicted with pains in his head, or eruptions in his body, let him anoint himself with oil;"|| and this was deemed of such supreme efficacy, that one of the rabbins gave his dispensation for anointing the sick, even on the sabbath.§ To this common custom of treating sick persons, reference is made in Mark vi. 13, and James v. 14. Not that this unction, either in the former or latter case, contributed any thing to the miraculous cure, which the immediate power of God alone could effect: it served only

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as a striking external sign to the sick person, and to every spectator, to raise and engage the attention, and to impress the mind with the deepest, conviction that the miracle was wrought to attest the divine authority and truth of the Gospel. The balm of Gilead was celebrated as a medicine (Jer. viii. 22, xlvi. 11, li. 8), and mineral baths were deemed worthy of notice, as appears from Gen. xxxvi. 24.

4. The Hebrews, like other of the ancients, attributed the origin of diseases, particularly of those whose natural cause they did not understand, to the immediate interference of God. The ancient Greeks called them uàorryss, the scourges of God,—a word which is employed in the New Testament by the physician Luke himself (chap. vii. 21), and also by Mark (chap. v. 29, 34).

5. In the primitive ages of the world, diseases, in consequence of the great simplicity in the mode of living, were but few in number.¶ At a subsequent period the number was increased, by the accession of diseases that had been previously unknown. Epidemics, also,-diseases somewhat peculiar in their character, and still more fearful in their consequences,-soon made their appearance; some infesting one period of life, and some another; some limiting their ravages to one country, and some to another. The propriety of this statement, in regard to the original extent and subsequent increase of diseases in general, and to epidemics, will recommend itself to every mind that makes even but small pretensions to attainments in knowledge. PROSPER ALPINUS** mentions the diseases which are prevalent in Egypt, and in other countries in the same climate. They are ophthalmies, leprosies, inflammations of the brain, pains in the joints, the hernia, the stone in the reins and bladder, the phthisic, hectic, pestilential, and tertian fevers, weakness of the stomach, obstructions in the liver, and the spleen. Of these diseases, ophthalmies, pestilential fevers, and inflammations of the brain are epidemics; the others are of a different character. Every region, and every age of the world, has been in the habit of attributing certain diseases to certain causes, and of assigning names to those diseases derived from the supposed origin or cause, whether it were a real or only an imaginary one. The names thus given have been in many instances retained, both by the vulgar and by men of medi

¶ What follows on the diseases mentioned in Scripture is abridged from Upham's translation of Jahn's Biblical Archa ology, chap. xii.

**Book de Medicina Ægyptiaca, lib. i., c. 13, p. 13.

cal science, after different causes had been developed and assigned to the diseases in question. In respect to this subject, we know that there are certain words of very ancient standing, which are used to express diseases of some kind or other; it will, therefore, be a prominent inquiry with us to learn what the diseases are that were designed to be expressed by those words.

venomous, they were the means of destroying many individuals.

(2) THE DISEASE OF KING JEHORAM. This king, who was clothed with the double infamy of being at once an idolater and the murderer of his brethren, was diseased internally for two years, as had been predicted by the prophet Elijah; and his bowels are said to have fallen out by reason of his sickness. 2 Chron. xxi. 12-15, 18, 19. This disease, beyond all doubt, was the dysentery; and though its continuance so long a time was very uncommon, it is by no means a thing unheard of. The intestines in time become ulcerated by the operation of this disease. Not only is blood discharged from them, but a sort of mucous excrement likewise is thrown off, and sometimes small pieces of the flesh itself; so that apparently the intestines are emitted or fall out, which is sufficient to account for the expressions that are used in the statement of king Jehoram's disease.

the

(3) FALSE CONCEPTION, or PREGNANCY, in Greek, Ev¬vevμarwars, in Latin, mola ventosa, does not appear to have been so unfrequent among Hebrew women, as among those of Europe. If it had been so, it probably would not have made its appearance on the pages of Hebrew writers in the shape of a figure of speech. The fact to which allusion is made is this. The Hebrews were accustomed to expect after calamities a state of things quite the reverse, viz., a season of prosperity and joy. They accordingly compared a season of misfortune and calamity to the pains of a woman in travail; but the better destiny which followed, they compared to the joy which commonly succeeds childbirth, Isai. xiii. 8, xxvi. 17; 2 Kings xix. 3; Jer. iv. 31, xiii. 21, xxii. 23, xxx. 6; Micah iv. 9, 10; John xvi. 21, 22. But they carry the comparison still further. Those days of adversity which were succeeded by ad

(1) THE DISEASE OF THE PHILISTINES, which is mentioned in 1 Sam. v. 6, 12, vi. 18, is denominated in the Hebrew by ophelim. This word occurs likewise in Deut. xxviii. 27, and it is worthy of remark, that it is every where explained, in the Keri or marginal readings, by the Aramean word on techerim, an expression which in the Syriac dialect means the fundament, and likewise the effort which is made in an evacuation of the system. The authors, therefore, of the reading in the Keri appear to have assented to the opinion of Josephus, expressed in Ant. vi., 1, 1; and to have understood by this word the dysentery. The corresponding Arabic words mean a swelling on the anterior part of the VERENDA in females, answering somewhat in its nature to the hernia in men; a disease, consequently, very | different from the hemorrhoids, which some persons understand to be meant by the word y. Among other objections, it may also be observed, that the mice, which are mentioned not only in the Hebrew text (1 Sam. vi. 5, 12, xvi. 18), but also in the Alexandrine and Vulgate Versions (1 Sam. v. 6, vi. 5, 11, 18), are an objection to understanding the hemorrhoids by the word under consideration, since, if that were in fact the disease, we see no reason why mice should have been presented as an offering to avert the anger of the God of Israel. Lichtenstein, a writer in Eichhorn's Bibliothek,* has given a solution, which is free from the difficulties that attended all preceding ones. The word Day, which is rendered mice, he supposes to mean VENOMOUS SOL-versity still,-those scenes of sorrow which were PUGAS, which belong to the spider class, and yet are so large, and so similar in their form to mice, as to admit of their being denominated by the same word. These venomous animals destroy and live upon scorpions. They also bite men, whenever they can have an opportunity, particularly in the fundament and the verenda. Their bite causes swellings, fatal in their consequences, which are called in Hebrew ophelim. The probable supposition then is, that SOLPUGAS were at this time multiplied among the Philistines by the special providence of God, and that, being very

Band vi., pp. 407-466.
See Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. xxix. 4.

followed only by additional sorrow,—were likened to women who laboured under that disease of the system, which caused them to exhibit the appearance and endure the pains of a state of pregnancy, when that apparent state of pregnancy resulted either in nothing, or in the parturition of a monster, Isai. xxvi. 18; Ps. vii. 14.

(4) The leprosy prevails in Egypt, in the southern part of Upper Asia, and in fact may be considered a disease endemic in warm climates generally. Accordingly, it is not at all surprising, if many of the Hebrews, when they left Egypt, were infected with it; but the assertion of Mane

Mead, Medic, Sacr., c. 4.

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