著者

竹内 茂夫

出版者

一般社団法人 日本オリエント学会

雑誌

オリエント (ISSN:00305219)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.52, no.1, pp.105-118, 2009-09-30 (Released:2014-03-31)

参考文献数

37

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This paper aims to re-examine three Hebrew words in the Hebrew Bible which are usually translated as “flute” or “pipe”. First, ‘ûgāb (attested four times in the Hebrew Bible and once in 11QPsa/11Q5), could in fact refer to a chordophone rather than to an aerophone, since in the Septuagint it is rendered as κιθαρα “lyre, harp” on one occasion, whilst it occurs twice as οργανον “tool” and a further two time as ψαλμος “song (sung to the harp), psalm” In addition, words clearly referring to chordophones such as kinnôr “lyre” or minnîm “stringed instruments” are always found paired with ‘ûgāb. Secondly, nəḥîlôt (attested once) occurs as ’el-hannəḥîlôt with the preposition ’el- “to (ward)” and the definite article haC-. Is is said that its meaning is “difficult” or “uncertain”. Even so, it has been translated as “flute” from the supposed Hebrew root ḥ-l-l like ḥālîl or as “inheritance” from the n-ḥ-l found in the Septuagint. Although the meaning of nəḥîlôt itself remains open to question, ’el-hannəḥîlôt as a whole may refer to the incipit of an unknown tune. Thirdly, ḥālîl (attested five times) is translated as αυλος “double-pipe” in the Septuagint. This meaning is quite plausible as there are archaeological evidence of existence of the double-pipe in the Syria-Palestine area. It is not unlikely that the fairly modest number of attestations of words referring to ‘flute’ or ‘pipe’, (less than 10 in the Hebrew Bible) is due to the fact that such words are easily associated with erotic or intoxicating objects, rather than with musical instruments such as these were known in Egypt and Greece.