Biblical Archaeology Review - January-February 2018

BIBLICAL ARCHAEOLOGY REVIEW 63

(44:23). Finally, in Psalm 68 God is called

upon to demonstrate his power: “Sum-

mon your might, O God; show your

strength, O God, as you have done for us

before” (68:28). In all four psalms, peo-

ple are trying to awaken God, who seems

to be absent or sleeping. In these cases, a

trumpet would help to bring the people’s

concerns to God’s ear. “According to

lotuses” must then be a euphemism for

the noise of trumpets aimed at awaking

God and making him attentive to the

words of the psalmist.

Among the Levantine parallels to the

Biblical psalms is the famous text corpus

from Ugarit on the northern coast of

modern Syria. This collection contains

cultic hymns from the 14th century

B.C.E. While the Book of Psalms in its

final form is the result of much later edi-

torial work, the oldest psalms probably

originated in the same period—around

1400 B.C.E. It is then not surprising

that the southern Levantine music of

the Bible shared many aspects with the

northern Levantine cult music. In the

Hebrew Bible and Ugaritic texts, musi-

cal forms and instruments are called by

the same West Semitic words. Like the

Ugarites, the Israelites of Jerusalem cele-

brated their chief god as king. The image

of Yahweh as a king residing on Zion is

in fact one of the most important in the

psalter (e.g., Psalms 24 and 47).

An element missing from psalms,

but present in a Ugaritic hymn for the

enthronement of Baal, is a praise of the

god as a lover—like in love poetry.^2 In the

Biblical psalms, the link between love

songs and cult songs is less apparent,

but not entirely absent. Erotic aspects of

the Israelite cult transpire in the festive

translation of the Ark of the Covenant to

Jerusalem, at which King David is por-

trayed dancing almost naked. A dance—

including erotic moves and pantomime—

was part of the Levantine cultic tradition.

But as the episode of Michal daughter of

Saul shows, those rural Canaanite cus-

toms were not appreciated by everybody:

“Michal ... looked out of the window,

and saw King David leaping and dancing

before the Lord, and she despised him in

her heart” (2 Samuel 6:16).

Little is known about the personal

use of psalms. Festive processions—men-

tioned in the Psalms, in some Biblical

stories, and in the Books of Chronicles—

are better documented. Several psalms

suggest that the most significant place

for festive performances of hymns was a

gate (Psalms 15; 24; 87; 118). Large gates

decorated with music scenes have been

excavated in the northern Levant, espe-

cially in the southern Hittite or northern

Aramean region. The reliefs on ortho-

stats (base stones of public buildings)

from the late Hittite cities display show-

ily dressed musicians with instruments

that correspond perfectly to the musical

instruments we know from the Bible.

What can archaeology tell us about

how ancient musicians performed? Their

habitus on the reliefs is varied. Musi-

cians are sometimes marching gravely,

as the orchestra on the Karatepe relief

on p. 62, or are static, as on the above

relief from Samal. Different reliefs, how-

ever, render scenes with playful and

even ecstatic elements. Consider also the

following Biblical description: “David

and all the house of Israel were dancing

before the Lord with all their might,

with songs and lyres (kinnorot) and bass

lyres (nevalim) and tambourines and cas-

tanets and cymbals” (2 Samuel 6:5).

Even outside the Bible, Yahweh was

seen as a music lover. Next to the famous

invocation of Yahweh and his Asherah on

a pithos from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud, there

appears a depiction of a lyre player.* And

a fourth-century B.C.E. Aramaic papyrus

from Egypt contains the following exhor-

tation: “Drink, Lord (YHW[H]), from the

bounty of a thousand basins; be sated/

inebriated, Adonai, from the bounty of

men. Musicians stand in attendance upon

Lord (Mar): a player of the bass lyre

(nevel), a player of the lyre (kinnor). ‘Here

is the music of the bass lyre (neve[l]). You

have caused me to listen to the music of

the lyre (kinnor) and to other things sweet

to my ears at the banquets of men.’ ”^3

To fully appreciate the effect and rele-

vance of music in the ancient Levant, we

would have to imagine a world devoid

of modern noises—a place without cars,

airplanes, and any sort of machinery. In

such an environment, every sound was

a strong sensation. The human voice

was a physical expression of one’s life;

musical instruments were artful means

of amplifying the range of human sounds

in order to make joyful noises for the

gods. With this in mind, we can better

understand the significance of hymns in

the Bible.

Thomas Staubli is Senior

Lecturer of Old Testament

Studies at the University of

Freiburg, Switzerland, and

Co-director of BODO

(www.bible-orient-museum.

ch/bodo), the world’s larg-

est online database for ancient Near East-

ern iconography. Between 1999 and 2012,

he co-founded and directed the

BIBEL+ORIENT Museum in Freiburg,

where he curates the ethnographic section.

(^1)  The BBC recorded this and another trum-
pet in 1939 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=
Qt9AyV3hnlc).
(^2)  See Loren R. Fisher and F. Brent Knutson,
“An Enthronement Ritual at Ugarit,” Journal of
Near Eastern Studies 28.3 (1969), pp. 158–160.
(^3)  Adapted from Richard C. Steiner and Charles
F. Nims, The Aramaic Text in Demotic Script:
Text, Translation, and Notes (self-published,
2017), p. 48.
*Hershel Shanks, “The Persisting Uncertainties of
Kuntillet ‘Ajrud,” bar, November/December 2012.
INTROVERTED, MEDITATIVE POSTURE of this
lute player on an eighth-century B.C.E. relief
from Samal, Turkey, captures how we can
imagine the performer of a wisdom psalm.
VORDERASIATISCHES MUSEUM BERLIN/PHOTO THOMAS STAUBLI