Aramaic word · H5481

סוּמְפּוֹנְיָה

vesumeponeyah

bagpipe

Three of the instrument names are Greek loanwords: qatrôs from kitharis (lyre), pəsantērîn from psaltērion (plucked harp or zither), and sûmpōnyâ from symphōnia. Symphōnia can mean 'sounding together' (an ensemble or harmony) or name a particular instrument.

A Biblical Aramaic word, from the parts of the Old Testament written in Aramaic. Why Aramaic?

Appears 3 times in 3 verses of the Aramaic of the Old Testament. ·

What it means

1) a musical instrument, wind instrument, bagpipe, double pipe, panpipes

1a) perhaps dulcimer, panpipes

Abridged from Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906), via STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0).

In depth

From the study of Daniel 3:15

Range of meaning

Three of the instrument names are Greek loanwords: qatrôs from kitharis (lyre), pəsantērîn from psaltērion (plucked harp or zither), and sûmpōnyâ from symphōnia. Symphōnia can mean 'sounding together' (an ensemble or harmony) or name a particular instrument. Later Jewish sources treat it as a bagpipe-like or double pipe; others suggest a drum. śabbəkāʾ (sambykē, a small triangular harp) is shared with Greek, but which language borrowed it is disputed.

Against the English

English versions vary widely and often anachronistically. KJV 'sackbut' (a Renaissance trombone) and 'dulcimer' are European instruments of the translators' own era. Modern versions use 'zither, lyre, harp, pipes', but which English name goes with which Aramaic word differs from version to version.

How it drifted

Translators have long mapped ancient instruments onto instruments they knew. The KJV's choices reflect 17th-century English music, not Babylon.

Used elsewhere in the period

Greek musicians, mercenaries and traders were present in the Near East well before Alexander. As an instrument name, though, symphōnia first appears clearly in Hellenistic Greek, e.g. Polybius (Histories 26.1; 30.26) describing Antiochus IV revelling to it.

Where it appears

Daniel · 3

  1. Daniel 3:5 סוּמְפֹּ֣נְיָ֔ה pipe

    As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

  2. Daniel 3:10 וְסוּפֹּ֣נְיָ֔ה and pipe

    You, O king, have issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the golden statue,

  3. Daniel 3:15 וְסוּמְפֹּ֨נְיָ֜ה and pipe

    Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the statue I have made, very good. But if you refuse to worship, you will be thrown at once into the blazing fiery furnace. Then what god will be able to deliver you from my hands?”

    Here: From Greek symphōnia. What it means here is debated: a bagpipe, a double pipe, a drum, or the whole ensemble 'playing together'. The source of English 'symphony'.

Word data: STEPBible.org (CC BY 4.0), main text only.