The Book of Judges is the seventh book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. In the narrative of the Hebrew Bible, it covers the time between the conquest described in the Book of Joshua and the establishment of a kingdom in the Books of Samuel, during which Biblical judges served as temporary leaders.
The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or concerts. Its most common form is triangular in shape and made of wood. Some have multiple rows of strings and pedal attachments.
The Kingdom of Israel, also called the Northern Kingdom or the Kingdom of Samaria, was an Israelite kingdom that existed in the Southern Levant during the Iron Age. Its beginnings date back to the first half of the 10th century BCE. It controlled the areas of Samaria, Galilee and parts of Transjordan; the former two regions underwent a period in which a large number of new settlements were established shortly after the kingdom came into existence. It had four capital cities in succession: Shiloh, Shechem, Tirzah, and the city of Samaria. In the 9th century BCE, it was ruled by the Omride dynasty, whose political centre was the city of Samaria.
The Israelites were a Hebrew-speaking ethnoreligious group consisting of tribes that inhabited much of Canaan during the Iron Age.
Jeremiah, also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish tradition, Jeremiah authored the book that bears his name, the Books of Kings and the Book of Lamentations, with the assistance and under the editorship of Baruch ben Neriah, his scribe and disciple.
The lyre is a stringed musical instrument that is classified by Hornbostel–Sachs as a member of the lute family of instruments. In organology, a lyre is considered a yoke lute, since it is a lute in which the strings are attached to a yoke that lies in the same plane as the sound table, and consists of two arms and a crossbar.
Sheol in the Hebrew Bible is the underworld place of stillness and darkness which lies after death.
A psaltery is a fretboard-less box zither and is considered the archetype of the zither and dulcimer. Plucked keyboard instruments such as the harpsichord were also inspired by it. Its resonance box is usually trapezoidal, rectangular or in the form of a "pig's head" and often richly decorated.
Kinneret is the name of an important Bronze and Iron Age city situated on the northwestern shore of the Sea of Galilee, mentioned in the 14th century BC Aqhat Epic of Ugarit, and in the Old Testament and New Testament. Older Bible translations spell the name alternatively Kinnereth or Chinnereth, and sometimes in the plural as Chinneroth. In time the name became Gennesaret and Ginosar. The remains of Kinneret have been excavated at a site called Tell el-'Oreimeh in Arabic and Tel Kinrot in Modern Hebrew.
The nevel, nebel, was a stringed instrument used by the Phoenicians and the Israelites. The Greeks translated the name as nabla.
The kithara, Latinized as cithara, was an ancient Greek musical instrument in the yoke lutes family. It was a seven-stringed professional version of the lyre, which was regarded as a rustic, or folk instrument, appropriate for teaching music to beginners. As opposed to the simpler lyre, the cithara was primarily used by professional musicians, called kitharodes. In modern Greek, the word kithara has come to mean "guitar", a word which etymologically stems from kithara.
The Lyres of Ur or Harps of Ur is a group of four string instruments excavated in a fragmentary condition at the Royal Cemetery at Ur in modern Iraq from 1922 onwards. They date back to the Early Dynastic III Period of Mesopotamia, between about 2550 and 2450 BC, making them the world's oldest surviving stringed instruments. Carefully restored and reconstructed, they are now divided between museums in Iraq, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
Knowledge of the biblical period is mostly from literary references in the Bible and post-biblical sources. Religion and music historian Herbert Lockyer, Jr. writes that "music, both vocal and instrumental, was well cultivated among the Hebrews, the New Testament Christians, and the Christian church through the centuries." He adds that "a look at the Old Testament reveals how God's ancient people were devoted to the study and practice of music, which holds a unique place in the historical and prophetic books, as well as the Psalter."
The pillar of fire and pillar of cloud are a dual theophany described in various places in the first five books of the Hebrew Bible. The pillars are said to have guided the Israelites through the desert during the Exodus from Egypt. The pillar of cloud provided a visible guide for the Israelites during the day, while the pillar of fire lit their way by night.
Jubal is a biblical figure in Genesis 4:21 of the Hebrew Bible and Old Testament. Mentioned only once, he is sometimes regarded by Christians, particularly by medieval commentators, as the 'inventor of music'. A descendant of Cain, his father is Lamech and his brother is Jabal.
A musical instrument is a device created or adapted to make musical sounds. In principle, any object that produces sound can be considered a musical instrument—it is through purpose that the object becomes a musical instrument. A person who plays a musical instrument is known as an instrumentalist. The history of musical instruments dates to the beginnings of human culture. Early musical instruments may have been used for rituals, such as a horn to signal success on the hunt, or a drum in a religious ceremony. Cultures eventually developed composition and performance of melodies for entertainment. Musical instruments evolved in step with changing applications and technologies.
Yoke lutes, commonly called lyres, are a class of string instruments, subfamily of lutes, indicated with the code 321.2 in the Hornbostel–Sachs classification.
Kinnaru was an Ugaritic god who functioned as the deification of a string instrument, most likely the lyre. He is sparsely attested in the Ugaritic texts, appearing only in a handful of god lists and offering lists. He is entirely absent from known myths. It is sometimes assumed that a mythical king of Cyprus mentioned in the Iliad, Cinyras, was derived from him.
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Tribe of Simeon was one of the twelve tribes of Israel. The Book of Joshua locates its territory inside the boundaries of the Tribe of Judah. It is usually counted as one of the ten lost tribes, but as its territory was south of Judah and gradually being absorbed by Judah, it cannot be considered one of the tribes of the Kingdom of Israel and would certainly not have been affected by the Assyrian sack of the kingdom.
