PSALTERY. For the mediaeval instrument of this name (“sautrie” or “cembalo”), see Pianoforte (vol. xix. p. 65). The Hebrew ⅛J, rendered ^αλττ)pιov, @ 4 vaβλa, ψαλμός (Ps. Ixxi. 22), κtθapa (Ps. lxxxi. 2), opyavov (Am. V. 23, vi. 5), in the LXX., and “psaltery” or “viol” in the A.V. (also “lute” in the Prayer-Book version of the Psalms), appears to have been a small stringed instrument, harp or lyre, the strings of which were touched with the player’s fingers. The statement of Josephus (Ant., vii. 12, 3), that the κtvvpa ("∣132) had ten strings and was struck with the plectrum, while the νάβλα had twelve and was played with the hand, is the earliest definition having any authority to be met with of these obscure instruments. The κιvυpα, if not a smaller lyre with tighter strings requiring a plectrum, may, as some suppose, have been a kind of guitar, rather a tamboura, the most extensively known Eastern stringed instrument, which, in principle, is found represented in the oldest Egyptian monuments. The paucity of strings in the latter is, however, against this attribution. Nothing being more variable than the number of strings attached to the various stringed instruments at different times and in different places, eight, nine, or ten strings to the κcvvpa, or ten (see Ps. xxxiii. 2, cxliv. 9, Heb.) or twelve to the νάβλα, are probably immaterial variations. The musical instruments of the Bible are the most difficult subject in musical archaeology, about which the translators of the A.V. or the Prayer-Book Psalms did not trouble themselves, but named the instruments from those in use around them.

See MUSIC.