If you’ve been reading The Stories any time at all, you know that my research often leaves me with more questions than answers and I’m always asking you readers to help me out. So you can just imagine how excited I was to have a reader correct me on the origins of the dulcimer.

On December 18th I wrote that the Mountain Dulcimer was created in the Appalachians. But one kind reader reminded me that the dulcimer is named in the Bible – in the Old Testament actually. So that’s a long time before settlers arrived in these mountains.

The Dulcimer was played in Babylon more than 500 years before the birth of Christ. Daniel 3:10 refers to a band which included, “…the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer, and all kinds of musick…” J. Vernon McGee says, “…this must have been a very famous orchestra…” because the instruments are listed three different times.

When three brave Israelites stood in defiance of the king’s order to bow before a great statue, the Babylonians had been playing dulcimers for about 20 years. Maybe that’s part of why the famous orchestra was sure to name the instrument and why it’s remarked upon several times.

I read my favorite Bible commentator who suggested that the “dulcimer” in the Bible was actually a pipe – maybe something like the Scottish bagpipes. I found a really interesting article here at Britam.org that talked about Hebrew bagpipes used in Temple worship. This article names he instrument the “nabal“, but a search of my digital Bible returns Nabal only as the name of Abigail’s first husband.

Now, the Hammered Dulcimer is actually a very old instrument as well, and one that is common in the Middle East – the lands of the Bible. The Smithsonian Institute says the hammered dulcimer dates to 900 A.D. However, it is believed to have come from the Psaltery which is also mentioned in the Bible (in that same text in Daniel as well as numerous times in Psalms). Moreover, that group of zither instruments are known throughout history across both the Middle East and Far East.

Based on the research I did for the Mountain Dulcimer article, the basis for claiming it was invented in the Appalachians lies in the origins of the mountain musicians. No one would have been surprised for a Scottsman to make a slight change to his beloved bagpipes, or an Irishman to add a string to his fiddle for a slightly different sound. (The dobro is a prime example of this – hmm, maybe we should look more closely at that instrument.) However, neither culture has an instrument similar to the little mountain dulcimer, held on your lap (sometimes it’s actually called a lap dulcimer) and strummed or picked like a guitar.

This is very confusing, isn’t it?

Once again, I find myself with more questions than answers. Today we live in this show-me culture where you can find a video to explain everything from childbirth to tying your shoes. That’s not what God chose to give us in His holy scripture. In fact, there are things mentioned there that we can’t exactly define – like this dulcimer that played in ancient Babylon. However, neither the individual instruments nor the band playing them are the focus of Daniel chapter 3. Instead, it is the faith of three young Hebrew boys who refused to bow before a heathen statue and were rewarded by the pre-incarnate Jesus Christ joining them in a fiery furnace and eventually delivering them from that death sentence! Whew, that makes me want to shout!

If you have any thoughts on this instrument, I’m always eager to hear them. Just click “comments” below.