The Biblical NEBEL

The nebel, mentioned 27 times in the Bible, is generally supposed to have been a harp, and probably of the upper-chested type (i.e. with the resonator held upright against the body of the player).  We have been led to doubt this for several reasons, of which three seemed to be the most important.  First – the sources did not necessarily prove the nebel to have been a harp, if one did not assume a priori that they ought to do so.  Secondly – the archaeological evidence now available for the Syro-Palestinian area showed no representation of harps before the Hellenistic period; those that then appeared were few in number, and in both form and context belonged to the “cosmopolitan” Hellenistic background.  Even granting the random factors of survival was evident for most of the other identifiable biblical instruments such as tôf (frame drum), mesiltayim (cymbals) and – more important – kinnor (lyre).  How could this silence of the archaeological record be explained for the supposed nebel = harp? One could not be reminded of the curious incident of the dog in the night-time (“The dog did nothing in the night-time.” – “That was the curious incident”, remarked Sherlock Holmes).  Lastly – some of the most “decisive” sources did not resemble the nature of evidence at all, although it was they which were supposed to prove the equation of nebel=harp.  These sources were much later than the Biblical or even the Second Temple period (Hieronymus at the beginning of the fifth century CE, or Se’adyah Ga’ôn in the ninth!), and therefore belonged to the history of exegesis.

In the following we shall attempt to gather whatever direct evidence can be found on the nebel in its time, and to draw such conclusions as this may allow.  The sources will be arranged and defined chronologically, and the informants, tradents or traditions identified, as far as the nature of the text and the state of research permit.