Etymologically
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תף

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Pronunciation

  • Tiberian: tōp̄, plural tuppîm[1][2]
  • Samaritan reading tradition: tåf, plural tabbəm[3][4]

Forms

תֹּף (tōp̄) noun, masculine[1] Plural תֻּפִּים, with suffix תֻּפַּיִךְ (Jeremiah 31:4) and תֻּפֶּיךָ (Ezekiel 28:13).[4][2]

Etymology

Klein and Ben-Yehuda explain the word as imitative of the sound of the drum.[5][6] Its cognates are Ugaritic tp (“drum, tambourine”), played with the lyre and cymbals in the Ugaritic texts,[7][4] Jewish Aramaic תֻּפָּא (tuppā),[4][8] and Arabic دُفّ (duff, “tambourine”).[4][7] BDB and HALOT list it under the root of תָּפַף (tāp̄ap̄, “to beat the drum”), which has the doubled /p/ of the plural;[4] HALOT doubts that the verb is derived from the noun.[4]

Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon, “kettledrum”) has been connected with it.[7][4] DULAT derives the Greek word from the Semitic one,[7] but HALOT takes it from τύπτω (túptō, “to strike”), as LSJ does, and rejects both a Semitic origin for the Greek and a Greek origin for the Hebrew word, since Phoenician, the likely go-between, has only a participle meaning “drummer”.[4][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The tambourine first appears in the canon when Laban complains that Jacob left without letting him send him off bəšimḥâ ûḇəširîm bəṯōp̄ ûḇəḵinnôr, “with joy and songs, with tambourine and lyre” (Genesis 31:27).[1] Miriam takes the tambourine in her hand and the women follow her with tambourines and dancing (Exodus 15:20), and the women come out to meet Saul and David the same way (1 Samuel 18:6).[1][4] The verb of the same root, tôp̄ēp̄ôṯ, “playing tambourines”, is in the archaic Psalm 68:26.[8][10][11]

Semantic evolution

HALOT sorts its uses by the players: women going out to meet the victors (Exodus 15:20, Judges 11:34; 1 Samuel 18:6, Jeremiah 31:4), men in the Psalms' praise of God (Psalms 81:3; 149:3; 150:4), the band of prophets coming down from the high place (1 Samuel 10:5), the crowd that brings the ark with David (2 Samuel 6:5), and God himself, fighting “with tambourines and lyres” (Isaiah 30:32).[4][2] SDBH describes a skin stretched over a shallow frame and struck with the hand.[12] BDB calls it a sign of joy and triumph, and also of revelry (Isaiah 5:12).[2] The Septuagint renders it by Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon).[1] The Dead Sea Scrolls have it 18 times, in biblical and non-biblical scrolls.[13] Rabbinic Hebrew writes it tôp̄, a drum,[4] and Modern Hebrew תוף (tof) is a drum.[14]

Timeline

  • Classical Biblical Hebrew – Laban's farewell “with tambourine and lyre” (Genesis 31:27), Miriam's tambourine (Exodus 15:20).[1]
  • Prophets and Psalms – the tambourine in praise (Psalm 150:4) and in God's battle (Isaiah 30:32).[4]
  • 3rd–2nd century BC – the Septuagint translates it as Ancient Greek τύμπανον (túmpanon).[15][1]
  • 2nd century BC – 2nd century AD – 18 occurrences in the Dead Sea Scrolls.[16][13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. a hand-drum, tambourine, timbrel, played especially by women at dances and victory celebrations.[4][2]
  2. a tambourine played in the praise of God.[4]

Word family

  • תָּפַף (tāp̄ap̄)

Descendants

  • Modern Hebrew תוף (tof)[14]

Usage notes

In Ezekiel 28:13 the plural tuppêḵā in the description of the king of Tyre's jewels is uncertain: the Masoretic text says the tambourines were worked in gold, Driver took the word as earrings or jewelled pendants, and the NRSV translates “settings”, as Gesenius–Buhl proposed;[4][8] HALOT thinks no meaning other than the usual one is likely.[4][8] MACULA gives this verse its own number with the gloss “settings”.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h Clear Bible (2023–), MACULA Hebrew Linguistic Datasets (Westminster Leningrad Codex, with Greek alignment), github.com/Clear-Bible/macula-hebrew, CC BY 4.0
  2. ^ a b c d e Brown, Francis; Driver, S. R.; Briggs, Charles A. (1906), A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament, with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. תֹּף²
  3. ^ Højgaard, Christian Canu; Naaijer, Martijn; Schorch, Stefan (2023), Text-Fabric Dataset of the Samaritan Pentateuch, Zenodo, doi:10.5281/zenodo.7734632
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Koehler, Ludwig; Baumgartner, Walter; Stamm, Johann Jakob (1994–2000), The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, transl. and ed. M. E. J. Richardson, 5 vols, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. תֹּף
  5. ^ Klein, Ernest (1987), A Comprehensive Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English, Jerusalem: Carta; Haifa: University of Haifa, p. s.v. תֹּף
  6. ^ Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer (1908–1959), Millon ha-lashon ha-ʿivrit ha-yeshanah ve-ha-ḥadashah / Thesaurus totius hebraitatis, 16 vols, Jerusalem; typed edition, Project Ben-Yehuda (benyehuda.org), p. s.v. תֹּף
  7. ^ a b c d del Olmo Lete, Gregorio; Sanmartín, Joaquín (2015), A Dictionary of the Ugaritic Language in the Alphabetic Tradition, 3rd ed., transl. W. G. E. Watson, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. tp I
  8. ^ a b c d Gesenius, Wilhelm; Buhl, Frants (1915), Hebräisches und aramäisches Handwörterbuch über das Alte Testament, 17th ed., Leipzig: F. C. W. Vogel, p. s.v. תֹּף
  9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. τύμπανον
  10. ^ Menahem ben Saruq (10th c.), Maḥberet, ed. Herschell Filipowski (1854), London: Hebrew Antiquarian Society, p. s.v. תף
  11. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 69
  12. ^ de Blois, Reinier, ed. (2000–), Semantic Dictionary of Biblical Hebrew, United Bible Societies, sdbh.org, p. s.v. תֹּף
  13. ^ a b Abegg, Martin G.; Jacobs, Jarod; Roorda, Dirk (2022), The Dead Sea Scrolls, Text-Fabric dataset, version 2.0.2, github.com/ETCBC/dss
  14. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  15. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 93
  16. ^ Sáenz-Badillos, Angel (1993), A History of the Hebrew Language, transl. John Elwolde, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 143