MUNITION

(3) yimlm, Gn 36", where 'mules' is certainly a mis-translation; RV 'hot springs.'

The breeding of mules was forbidden to the Israelites (Lv 19"), but from David's time (2 S IS^' IS') onwards (1 K 1» 1025 x8«) they appear to have been increas-ingly used. The returning Israelites brought 245 mules with them (Ezr 2"). Mules are preferred in Palestine to-day as pack animals (cf. 1 Ch 12", 2 K 5"), they are hardier, subsist on less food, and travel better on rough roads. A well-trained mule is a favourite riding animal with the highest officials in the land. E. W. G. Masteeman.

UUNITION occurs in a few passages of AV in the sense of afortified place, e.g. Is 29', where RV has 'stronghold.' The word is retained in Nah 2i, where, however, Amer. RV has the more intelligible 'fortress.' In 1 Mac 14"i ' all manner of munition ' is Uterall v ' with implements of defence' (cf. RVm), as the same original is rendered in 10". A. R. S. Kennedy.

MUPPEH.— A son of Benjamin (Gn 462'): called in 1 Ch 7'2- " 26>« Shuppim, in Nu 26" Shephupham, and in 1 Ch 8'' Shephuphan.

MTTBDEB. — See Chimes, § 7; Refuge [Cities of].

MTTBBAIN'.— See Plagues of Egypt.

MUSHI.— A son of Merari (Ex 6", Nu 32», 1 Ch 6". 47 2321- 23 24». 80). The patronymic Uushites occurs in Nu 383 2658. gee Merahi, 1 .

music ANDMUSICAI. INSTSmiEHTS.— 1. Prob-able character of early Hebrew music. — Since the Dis-persion, the music of the Jews has always borne the impress of the peoples among whom they have settled. Synagogue ritual thus affords us no clue to the music of early times, and we must accordingly fall back on Scripture and tradition. From these we gather that Hebrew music was of a loud and piercing nature, far re-moved from the sweetness which modern taste demands. There is no real evidence that the players ever advanced beyond unison in their combinations of notes, apparently reproducing the air on successively rising or falling octaves of the scale. We may suppose, however, that they would hardly fail to discover that certain combina-tions were pleasing to the ear, and would thus learn to strike them either simultaneously or successively (ar-peggio). How far, however, they grasped the nature of a chord or of harmony must remain obscure, in spite of the attempts to solve this question, some of them alto-gether baseless guesses. For example, even the Hebrew accents, though of comparatively late origin, and always confined in Jewish use to acting as guides in the proper recitation of the text, have been pressed into the service, as though employed ifor the purpose of a kind of ' figured bass,' and thus indicating an acquaintance with musical harmony. Unfortunately, even those who have main-tained this theory differ considerably as to the details of its appUcation.

2 . Rendering of Hebrew music . — It seems clear at any rate that an antiphonal setting was in use for many of the Psalms (e.g. 13. 20. 38. 68. 89); but the chanting must not be taken as resembling what we now understand by that term. The account we have in 1 Ch IS'"^- of the elaborate arrangements for conducting the musical services of the Temple, appears to indicate a somewhat compUcated system, and to suggest that there entered a considerable element of flexibiUty into the composition. It is, for instance, quite possible that the long reciting note which with us may do duty on occasion for as many as twenty, thirty, or even more syllables, played no such monotonous part, but was broken up and varied to an extent suggested by the length of the verse as well as by the character of the sentiment to be conveyed.

3. Occasions on which music was used. — Hebrew religious melody had a popular origin, and was thus closely connected with the religious lite of the na on.

MUSIC AND MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Apart from such references to song as those in Gn 31" and Job 21'2, we find in the headings of certain Psalms (e.g. 22, 'Ayyeleth hash-Shahar, ' the hind of the morn-ing') traces of what are in aU probabiU ty in some, if not in all, cases secular songs. So Al Tashheth, 'Destroy not,' prefixed to Pss 57. 58. 69. 75, may well be the first words of a vintage song (cf. Is 658). A parallel may be found in directions prefixed to Gabirol's hymns and those of other celebrated Jewish poets, when these compositions were adapted to music in the Spanish (Sephardic) ritual (see D. J. Sola, Ancient Melodies, etc., London, 1857, Pref. p. 13). Amos (6») speaks of music performed at feasts, and in 1 S 18' we read of its use in Saul's time in connexion with processions. As in this last case, so in general it may be supposed that music and dancing were closely connected and had a parallel development. David's careful elaboration of the Levitical music, vocal and instrumental, was em-ployed, according to 2 Ch S'^, with impressive effect at the dedication of Solomon's Temple. The reformations under both Hezekiah and Josiah included the restoring of the musical ritual belonging to David's time (2 Ch 29™- 35'8). Later, the descendants of Heman and other Levitical leaders of music were among the exiles of the Return from Babylon, and under them the services were reconstituted as of old (Neh 128'- «5ff).

4.'Hebrewmusicalinstnmients.— Hereourinformation is somewhat fuller, though involving a good deal of un-certainty in details. We may for clearness' sake divide under three heads, viz. stringed, wind, and percussion instruments.

(1) Stringed instruments. — Chief among these are the kinnSr and the Tilbel (RV 'harp' and 'psaltery'), which were evidently favourites among the Jews. It is plain, in spite of doubts which have been expressed upon the point, that the two names were not used indifferently for the same instrument. The LXX in nearly all cases is careful to distinguish them (kithara or kinyra, and psaltSrion, naUi, or nabla respectively). Both, however, were used in the main, and perhaps exclusively, to accompany songs, and those of a joyous nature. (They were unsuitable for times of mourning; see Ps 137^, a passage which further shows that the instrument must have been, unlike a modern harp, easily jiortable.) They were doubtless the cMef , if not the sole, instruments employed in the Temple services. In Solomon's time they were made from almug (algum) trees, doubtfully identified with sandal wood. The strings, originally of twisted grass or fibres of plants, were afterwards formed of gut, and subsequently from silk or metal.

(o) The kinnSr (an onomatopoetic word, derived from the sound of the strings) is the only stringed instrument mentioned in the Hexateuch, where (Gn 4?^) its inven-tion is attributed to Jubal, son of Lamech. The nebel is first mentioned in 1 S 10*, as used by the prophets who went to meet Saul. The kinnBr (kithara or lyre [in 1 Mac 4" the AV renders 'cithem,' RV 'harp')) con-sisted of a sound-box at the base, with wooden side-arms and a crossbar connected by the strings with the box below. It was originally an Asiatic instrument, and the earhest known representation is pre-historic, in the form of a rude model found at Telloh in southern Baby-lonia. There is also a very ancient one shown on a tomb in Egypt, dating from about the 30th cent. B.C. (12th dynasty). A tomb at Thebes in the same country (dating between the 12th and 18th dynasties) exhibits a similar form, which was sometimes modified later in the direction of more artistic construction and sloping of the crossbar downwards, so as to vary the pitch of the strings. Jewish coins of Maccabaean date furnish us with a close resemblance to the Greek kithara. Josephus (Ant. VII. xii. 3) distinguishes the kinridr as a ten-stringed instrument struck by a plectrum ; the nabla, on the other hand, being, he says, played with the fingers. This need not necessarily conflict, as has been thought by some, with the statement (1 S 1688) that David played the

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