Topic
Cithern
1 passage cited, from 1 classic reference work.
These works date from 1915 and are in the public domain. They reflect the Protestant scholarship of their time: their history, archaeology and dates can be out of date, and where they interpret, other traditions read the text differently. The verses are shown in the King James Version, the wording these works were written against.
The verses
The passages the works cite, those cited by more of them first.
- 1 Maccabees 4:54ISBE
Look, at what time and what day the heathen had profaned it, even in that was it dedicated with songs, and citherns, and harps, and cymbals.
In the reference works
International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915) · 1 references
sith'-ern (kithara; 1 Macc 4:54 the King James Version, kitharais kai kinurais is translated "citherns and harps"; the Revised Version (British and American) "harps and lutes"; compare guitar, zither): As 1 Macc was originally written in Hebrew, it is natural to suppose that these two Greek words stand for Hebrew nebhalim and kinnoroth; but to this it may be objected that kithara and kinura are not used elsewhere together to represent two different instruments. On the contrary we have either kinura kai nabla or kithara kai psalterion. The most probable explanation of the unusual collocation of these two words in 1 Maccabees is that kithara was a gloss meant to explain the obsolescent kinura.
See MUSIC.
James Millar
Texts: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia (1915), from the CrossWire SWORD modules (public domain). Verse references were parsed from the works' own markup and checked against the KJV verse list.