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Mena'anim: Musical Instruments of the People

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Mena'anim: Musical Instruments of the People MENA’ANIM: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE PEOPLE JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN Following the defeat of the Philistines and their expulsion from Israelite territory, David and his troops brought the Holy Ark to Jerusalem. This momentous occasion, marking the city as Israel’s administrative and cultic center, inspired great joy and revelry: David and all the House of Israel danced before the Lord [to the sound of] all kinds of Cyprus wood [instruments], with lyres, harps, timbrels, mena’anim, and cymbals (II Sam. 6:5). The enigmatic term “mena’anim” is left untranslated here. While the other instruments occur in numerous biblical texts and have generally accepted translations (kinnorot were lyres, nevalim were harps, tuppim were timbrels, and tzetzelim were cymbals), mena’anim do not appear elsewhere and, as a result, have attracted a range of interpretations. This paper explores the nature of the instrument, its place in Israelite culture, and why it is mentioned in just one biblical passage. DECIPHERING MENA’ANIM The Tanakh includes the names of some sixteen musical instruments or instrument families. Some, like the kinnor and shofar, occur in dozens of passages and remain important Jewish symbols to this day. Others, such as the ugav (pipe) and pa’amonin (bells), are not as widely attested, but are similarly representative of instrument types found in the region. Most biblical instruments fall neatly into the four categories proposed by pioneering organologists Erich Moritz von Hornbostel and Curt Sachs: idiophones (instruments that vibrates when struck); membranophones (drums with stretched membranes); chordophones (string instruments); and aerophones (wind instruments).1 While ambiguities persist regarding the precise shape, structure, and species of certain instruments, there is little debate as to which of the Hornbostel-Sachs categories they occupy. The kinnor, for instance, is most commonly translated as a lyre, but has also been identified as a harp, psaltery, lute, oud, and violin (modern Hebrew). Cantor Jonathan L. Friedmann, Ph.D., is professor of Jewish music history and associate dean of the master of Jewish studies program at the Academy for Jewish Religion California. 44 JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN Mena’anim are outliers in this regard. Although the term is related to the Hebrew verb nua, meaning “quiver,” “shake,” or “tremble,” implying a shaken percussion instrument, translators have placed it in all four categories. Some sources propose idiophones: sistra (or sistrums) – shakers comprising a handle, a U-shaped metal frame, and moveable crossbars2; castanets – concave pieces of wood clicked together by the fingers3; rattles – shakers consisting of small objects enclosed in cases of various materials4; and metal cymbals of indeterminate size.5 Two early translations use a generic term for “drums,” or membranophones.6 One source presents mena’anim as a type of chordophone: “three-stringed instruments,” with a note: “Hebrew related to three; triangle or three-barred sistrum.”7 Some classical and contemporary English translations translate the term as trumpets or cornets – aerophones.8 A degree of disagreement is to be expected, especially as the Bible has been translated and retranslated innumerable times over the millennia. According to David Daniell, since the mid-sixteenth century, the Bible has, in whole or in large parts, received over three thousand English translations alone.9 The once-mentioned term mena’anim has inspired a particularly varied range of renderings. Interpreters concur that they were musical instruments, but imagined them in wildly different ways. Translating mena’anim as cymbals or drums is redundant, as those instruments already occur in the verse with their common names. A string instrument resembling a sistrum is unnecessarily novel. Trumpets or cornets are even more implausible. Bypassing an etymological rationale, for which there is none, nineteenth-century Lutheran scholar Augustus Friedrich Pfeiffer argued that II Samuel 6:5 should be aligned with a parallel passage in I Chronicles 13:8, where mena’anim are absent and hatzotzerot – silver trumpets – appear in their place.10 Musicologist Alfred Sendrey disagreed with Pfeiffer’s assertion: “It is rather to be assumed that in the first report, perhaps out of negligence of a scribe, hatzotzerot were omitted, while in the second, the sistrum was not mentioned specifically.”11 Sendrey’s point is that the two instruments—mena’anim and hatzotzerot – are indeed distinct. From the vantage point of archaeology, sistrums, which were chiefly associated with ancient Egypt, also seem unlikely. More probable is archaeomusicologist Batya Bayer’s contention that mena’anim were clay rattles.12 Over seventy such rattles have been found in the region, dating from JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY MENA’ANIM: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE PEOPLE 45 the late Middle Bronze Age to the Iron Age.13 Most are geometric shapes, some have handles, and a few examples are animal-or-human-shaped.14 Their relatively even distribution, simple construction, and incorporation of local clays suggest they were used by commoners, and thus appropriate for a celebration in which all the House of Israel danced before the Lord (II Sam 6:5). “Because they were small and relatively easy to produce,” contends musicologist Joachim Braun, “they were both cheap and readily accessible to an enormous number of people; as such, they became one of the objects mass production made available to the people at large for use in its musical, cultic, and cultural life.”15 CENSORING MANA’ANIM If mena’amin were clay rattles, and if clay rattles were so widespread, then why are they mentioned only once in the Bible? Part of the answer could be their humble nature. The other instruments listed in II Samuel 6:5 are well attested in biblical psalms and scenes of public worship. Psalm 150, the Book of Psalm’s concluding “hallelujah chorus,”16 includes each of them: nevel (harp), kinnor (lyre), toph (timbrel), and tzaltzal (cymbal). Of the four, only timbrels are absent from the litany of Temple instruments. However, timbrels were an authorized fixture of praise dancing, hymn singing, and victory celebrations, where they were typically played by women (e.g. Ex. 15:20; I Sam. 18:6; Ps. 149:3). Adding clay rattles to these elevated instruments is appropriate in a text where David and his retinue, including priestly musicians, join the House of Israel in revelry. As Sendrey and his colleague, Mildred Norton, inferred: “Swelling the more formal musical units were thousands of ordinary people performing on whatever kind of instrument best suited them.”17 The folk quality of mena’anim evidently drew suspicion. Clay rattles were ubiquitous at gravesites and other folk-cultic settings throughout the ancient Near East and beyond, making them the people’s instrument par excellence.18 As noted, the later recounting in I Chronicles 13:8 retains lyres, harps, timbrels, and cymbals, but replaces mena’anim with silver trumpets (hatzotzerot) – horns closely associated with the priestly class (e.g. Num. 10:8; Neh. 12:35, 41). Vol. 49, No. 1, 2021 46 JONATHAN L. FRIEDMANN Contrary to Sendrey’s speculation, this decision was probably not arbitrary or accidental. From a musical standpoint, the inclusion of horns in the ensemble is out of place, despite the association of hatzotzerot (and shofarot) with sacred celebrations. The music being played was clearly danceable – rhythmic and melodic – and would have been disrupted by the blasts of signal horns. Even so, the Chronicler seems to have intentionally replaced mena’anim, which by his time were viewed as “pagan remnant[s] from Canaanite culture,”19 in order to avoid suggestions of unsanctioned or unsanctified folk music. With the introduction of trumpets, the musical display was placed exclusively in the hands of “professionals.” Whereas the folksiness of clay rattles made the biblical authors wary, priest-blown trumpets – both hatzotzerot and shofarot – are regularly depicted in rituals and celebrations involving Israelite kings and/or the Holy Ark (e.g. Josh 6; II Kgs. 11:14; I Chron. 15:24, 28; II Chron. 5:12; 23:13). Later in II Samuel 6, David and all the House of Israel brought up the Ark of the Lord with shouts and with blasts of the shofar (v. 15; cf. I Chron. 15:28). The ram’s horn in this verse was presumably blown by priests. The people provided the shouts, but did they also play mena’anim? Curiously, II Kings 11:14 describes the chiefs with their hatzotzerot beside the king [Jehoash of Judah] and all the people of the land rejoicing and blowing hatzotzerot. This unusual depiction of commoners playing priestly trumpets could indicate that here, too, mena’anim (or perhaps other “undignified” instruments) were replaced with a horn deemed more suitable for the occasion. This is one of just two instances where non-priests are expressly shown to be playing hatzotzerot, the other being II Chronicles 23:13.20 The account of the Ark’s arrival in Jerusalem in I Chronicles 13 also omits reference to a David’s wife, Michal, who later in II Samuel 6 gazed upon King David leaping and whirling before the Lord (v. 16) when the Ark is moved from the house of Obed-edom to the city of David amid rejoicing (v. 13). Michal rebuked David:“Didn’t the king of Israel do himself honor today – exposing himself today in the sight of the slave girls of his subjects, as one of the riffraff might expose himself” (v. 20). This redaction may have also informed the elimination of mena’anim. The abundance of clay rattles among ancient societies meant that, at times, they were played in Dionysian-esque rituals. While David’s dancing in his linen ephod is properly understood as a JEWISH BIBLE QUARTERLY MENA’ANIM: MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS OF THE PEOPLE 47 liturgical dance,21 his presumably inadvertent exposure, perhaps accompanied by mena’anim, might give the impression of a hedonistic display.
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