a tambourine: a small hand-held frame drum, played to accompany singing, dancing, and celebration.
TranslatabilityApproximateCertaintyStrong
This is a simple hand drum: a round wooden hoop with a skin stretched across it, held in one hand and struck with the other. It is the sound of joy in the Bible, and it turns up wherever people break into rhythmic, festive music.
It beats time for celebration of every kind:
victory songs, where women lead the way (Miriam at the sea, Jephthah's daughter, the women who greet Saul and David),
worship and praise, from bringing the ark up to Jerusalem to the calls to "praise him with the tambourine and dance" in the Psalms,
and ordinary merrymaking and feasting, from Laban's farewell party to the careless revelers the prophets rebuke.
Because the tambourine means gladness, the prophets can play on its absence. When Isaiah pictures joy drying up under judgment, he says the happy sound of tambourines falls silent; when Jeremiah pictures a restored and rejoicing people, he promises they will take up their tambourines again and go out dancing. It is almost always paired with a stringed instrument, the lyre (כנור), and with dancing.
the biblical instrument was the drum women characteristically took up to lead victory songs and dances, a cultural role the plain English word does not carry.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:34
Both
both name a small, round, hand-held frame drum struck with the hand to keep the beat in music and dancing.Psa 150:4
Only tambourine
to modern ears "tambourine" means a frame ringed with jingling metal discs, and the ancient hand drum may have had no such jingles at all.
“timbrel”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
“tabret”
Comparison data is not available for this English gloss yet.
How toph differs from similar Hebrew words
כנורthe lyre, the stringed instrument constantly played alongside the hand drum; it is plucked rather than struck and carries the melody, where the drum keeps the beat.
A stringed instrument played by hand to produce melody, so it can soothe and heal: David takes it up to quiet the tormenting spirit that troubles Saul.1Sa 16:161Sa 16:23
Grouped with other strings as an instrument of temple and psalm praise, tuned and skilled rather than merely rhythmic.Psa 33:2Psa 92:3Psa 71:22
The instrument laid aside in grief and exile: its music turns to mourning, and the captives hang it on the willows when they cannot sing.Job 30:31Psa 137:2
מצלתיםcymbals, the other main percussion of temple music; they are clashed together for a bright metallic accent, where the hand drum is struck with the hand for a steady beat.
A handheld frame drum that goes with dancing and spontaneous celebration, often in the hands of women marking a joyful moment.Exo 15:20Jdg 11:341Sa 18:6
It belongs to everyday feasting, revelry, and merriment far beyond the sanctuary, the sound of parties, farewells, and songs of pleasure.Gen 31:27Job 21:12Isa 5:12Isa 24:8
Both
Both are percussion instruments taken up together to make music in praise before God, sounded side by side when all Israel celebrated the ark.1Ch 13:8
A pair of metal plates clashed together, and in the Bible they belong almost entirely to the organized temple orchestra, sounded by named Levites appointed to the task of leading worship.1Ch 15:191Ch 16:52Ch 5:13Ezr 3:10
Their sound marks the formal, appointed moments of sacred music, such as the dedication of the temple and the restoration of worship, rather than casual celebration.2Ch 29:25Neh 12:27
toph in the other biblical languages
κύμβαλονGreek“cymbal”the cymbal, the nearest percussion instrument the New Testament names; the tambourine itself has no New Testament counterpart, as in Paul's "a clanging cymbal."
What scholars say about toph
The standard lexicons (HALOT and BDB, s.v. תֹּף) identify the word as a hand-held frame drum, the membranophone the Septuagint regularly renders with tympanon. It is the percussion instrument of celebration, repeatedly in the hands of women and paired with dancing (mecholah) and with the lyre (kinnor): Miriam and the women at the sea (Exodus 15:20), Jephthah's daughter (Judges 11:34), and the women who greet Saul and David (1 Samuel 18:6). Carol Meyers has argued that the instrument was specifically associated with women's musical performance in ancient Israel. Archaeological and comparative work (Braun) discusses its form and whether it carried jingles; the biblical toph is generally taken to be a simple frame drum rather than the jingled tambourine of later periods. The one contested occurrence is Ezekiel 28:13, in the jeweled lament over the king of Tyre, where the plural is sometimes read not as drums but as the settings or mounts of the gemstones; Zimmerli's commentary registers the difficulty. The lexicons nonetheless list only the drum sense for the word.
Sources
HALOT (Koehler-Baumgartner), s.v. תֹּףlexicon
BDB (Brown-Driver-Briggs), s.v. תֹּףlexicon
Carol L. Meyers, "Of Drums and Damsels: Women's Performance in Ancient Israel," Biblical Archaeologist 54 (1991)article
Joachim Braun, Music in Ancient Israel/Palestine: Archaeological, Written, and Comparative Sources (2002)monograph
Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 2: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel, Chapters 25-48 (Hermeneia, 1983)commentary