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Music and instruments
Tambourine and dance
Hebrew tof (hand drum), machol (dance) · played mostly by women
The tof was a hand drum: a hoop of wood or metal covered with the skin of a ram or goat and beaten with the hand. Whether it had jingles like a modern tambourine is not known, and older English Bibles call it a “timbrel” or “tabret”. It was loud, and it was played above all by women. Clay figurines of women holding a round frame drum have been found at many Iron Age sites in Israel and Phoenicia.
Drum, song and dance went together. After the crossing of the sea, “Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing” (Exodus 15:20). Jephthah’s daughter came out the same way to meet her father, and women from all the towns met Saul and David with singing and dancing after the victory over the Philistines. The young women of Shiloh danced in the vineyards at a yearly feast (Judges 21:19–21). David danced “with all his might” as the ark was brought up, and in Jesus’ parable the older brother comes home to “music and dancing” (Luke 15:25).
Key verses
Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women followed her with tambourines and dancing.And when Jephthah returned home to Mizpah, there was his daughter coming out to meet him with tambourines and dancing! She was his only child; he had no son or daughter besides her.As the troops were returning home after David had killed the Philistine, the women came out of all the cities of Israel to meet King Saul with singing and dancing, with joyful songs, and with tambourines and other instruments. And as the women danced, they sang out: “Saul has slain his thousands, and David his tens of thousands.”and watch. When you see the daughters of Shiloh come out to perform their dances, each of you is to come out of the vineyards, catch for himself a wife from the daughters of Shiloh, and go to the land of Benjamin.And David, wearing a linen ephod, danced with all his might before the LORD,Meanwhile the older son was in the field, and as he approached the house, he heard music and dancing.Sources
Adapted and shortened from the Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary · CC BY-SA 4.0
Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary © 2023 Tyndale House Publishers · CC BY-SA 4.0 — Musical Instruments: Percussion Instruments; Tambourine; Timbrel*; Music: Music in the Old Testament
Adapted from Tyndale Open Bible Dictionary: articles chosen, shortened and retold in our own words (history, nature and daily life only) and, in languages other than English, machine-translated. The original work by Tyndale House Publishers is available for free at tyndaleopenresources.com.
