a tambourine · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
dances
וּבִמְחֹלֹֽתu.vim.cho.Lot
H4246
a dance · conjunction + preposition + noun, common feminine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 150:4 Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs.
1 Samuel 18:6 And it came to pass as they came, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women came out of all cities of Isr…
Psalms 68:25 The singers went before, the players on instruments followed after; among them were the damsels playing with timbrels.
Psalms 149:3 Let them praise his name in the dance: let them sing praises unto him with the timbrel and harp.
Judges 11:34 And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his on…
Numbers 26:59 And the name of Amram’s wife was Jochebed, the daughter of Levi, whom her mother bare to Levi in Egypt: and she bare unto Amram Aaron and Mo…
Judges 4:4 And Deborah, a prophetess, the wife of Lapidoth, she judged Israel at that time.
Psalms 81:2 Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Exodus 15:1-21
Having read how that complete victory of Israel over the Egyptians was obtained, here we are told how it was celebrated; those that were to hold their peace while the deliverance was in working (Exo 14:14) must not hold their peace now that it was wrought; the less they had to do then the more they had to do now. If God accomplishes deliverance by his own immediate power, it redounds so much the more to his glory. Moses, no doubt by divine inspiration, indited this song, and delivered it to the children of Israel, to be sung before they stirred from the place where they saw the Egyptians dead upon the shore. Observe, 1. They expressed their joy in God, and thankfulness to him, by singing; it…
Miriam the prophetess--so called from her receiving divine revelations (Num 12:1; Mic 6:4), but in this instance principally from her being eminently skilled in music, and in this sense the word "prophecy" is sometimes used in Scripture (Ch1 25:1; Co1 11:5).
took a timbrel--or "tabret"--a musical instrument in the form of a hoop, edged round with rings or pieces of brass to make a jingling noise and covered over with tightened parchment like a drum. It was beat with the fingers, and corresponds to our tambourine.
all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances--We shall understand this by attending to the modern customs of the East, where the dance--a slow, grave, and sole…
And Miriam the prophetess - We have already seen that Miriam was older than either Moses or Aaron: for when Moses was exposed on the Nile, she was a young girl capable of managing the stratagem used for the preservation of his life; and then Aaron was only three years and three months old, for he was fourscore and three years old when Moses was but fourscore, (see Exo 7:7); so that Aaron was older than Moses, and Miriam considerably older than either, not less probably than nine or ten years of age. See Clarke's notes on Exo 2:2. There is great diversity of opinion on the origin of the name of Miriam, which is the same with the Greek Μαριαμ, the Latin Maria, and the English Mary. Some suppos…
The Church Fathers
"The prophetess Miriam took.…" How did she become a prophetess? Either, like Isaiah's wife, she had the honorary title of prophecy, although she was not a prophetess, or because she was just a woman.
And Miriam taking the timbrel led the dances with maidenly modesty. But consider whom she was then prefiguring. Was she not a type of the church, who as a virgin with unstained spirit joins together the religious gatherings of the people to sing divine songs?
This name is related to prophecy and salutary to those reborn. It is the badge of virginity, the glory of purity, the indication of chastity, the sacrificial gift of God, the height of hospitality, the sum total of sanctity. Rightly therefore is this motherly name that of the mother of Christ.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Dance — Found in Judg. 21:21, 23; Ps. 30:11; 149:3; 150:4; Jer. 31:4, 13, etc., as the translation of hul, which points to the whirling motion of Oriental sacred dances. It is the rendering of a word…
Deborah — A bee. (1.) Rebekah’s nurse. She accompanied her mistress when she left her father’s house in Padan-aram to become the wife of Isaac (Gen. 24:59). Many years afterwards she died at Bethel, and was…
Exodus — The great deliverance wrought for the children of Isreal when they were brought out of the land of Egypt with “a mighty hand and with an outstretched arm” (Ex 12:51; Deut. 26:8; Ps 114; 136), about…
Huldah — Weasel, a prophetess; the wife of Shallum. She was consulted regarding the “book of the law” discovered by the high priest Hilkiah (2 Kings 22:14-20; 2 Chr. 34:22-28). She resided in that part of…
Miriam — Their rebellion. (1.) The sister of Moses and Aaron (Ex. 2:4-10; 1 Chr. 6:3). Her name is prominent in the history of the Exodus. She is called “the prophetess” (Ex. 15:20). She took the lead in the…
Music — Jubal was the inventor of musical instruments (Gen. 4:21). The Hebrews were much given to the cultivation of music. Their whole history and literature afford abundant evidence of this. After the…
Music, Instrumental — Among instruments of music used by the Hebrews a principal place is given to stringed instruments. These were, (1.) The kinnor, the “harp.” (2.) The nebel, “a skin bottle,” rendered “psaltery.” (3.)…
Poetry — Has been well defined as “the measured language of emotion.” Hebrew poetry deals almost exclusively with the great question of man’s relation to God. “Guilt, condemnation, punishment, pardon,…
Prophet — (Heb. nabi, from a root meaning “to bubble forth, as from a fountain,” hence “to utter”, comp. Ps. 45:1). This Hebrew word is the first and the most generally used for a prophet. In the time of…
Red Sea — The sea so called extends along the west coast of Arabia for about 1,400 miles, and separates Asia from Africa. It is connected with the Indian Ocean, of which it is an arm, by the Strait of…
And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron,.... The same, it is highly probable, that is called the sister of Moses, Exodus 2:3, her name Miriam is the same as Mary with us, and signifies bitterness; and, as the Hebrews (x) observe, had it from the bitterness of the times, and the afflictions the Israelites endured and groaned under when she was born; which is a much more probable signification and reason of her name than what is given by others, that it is the same with Marjam, which signifies a drop of the sea; from whence, they fancy, came the story of Venus, and her name of Aphrodite, the froth of the sea: Miriam was a prophetess, and so called, not from this action of singing, here…
Exodus 15:11-21
11. Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?
11. Quis sicut tu in diis, Jehova? quis sicut tu, magnificus in sanctitate, terribilis laudibus, faciens mirabilia?
12. Thou stretchedst out thy right hand, the earth swallowed them.
12. Extendisti dexteram tuam, deglutivit eos terra.
13. Thou in thy mercy hast led forth the people which thou hast redeemed: thou hast guided them in thy strength unto thy holy habitation.
13. Duces in tua misericordia populum hunc quem redemisti, duces in fortitudine tua ad habitaculum sanctitatis tuae.
14. The people shall hear, and be afraid: sorrow shall take h…
In the song of praise which Moses and the children of Israel sang at the Red Sea, in celebration of the wonderful works of Jehovah, the congregation of Israel commemorated the fact of its deliverance and its exaltation into the nation of God. By their glorious deliverance from the slave-house of Egypt, Jehovah had practically exalted the seed of Abraham into His own nation; and in the destruction of Pharaoh and his host, He had glorified Himself as God of the gods and King of the heathen, whom no power on earth could defy with impunity. As the fact of Israel's deliverance from the power of its oppressors is of everlasting importance to the Church of the Lord in its conflict with the ungodly…
Miriam led the women in praise. In many ancient societies, men and women performed ceremonies separately. Women had special roles in ritual praise and lamentation.
Rashi on Exodus 15:20
ותקח מרים הנביאה AND MIRIAM THE PROPHETESS TOOK — But where had she prophesied? When she was THE SISTER OF AARON alone — before Moses was born she said, “My mother will at some time bear a son who will deliver Israel etc.”, as is stated in Treatise Sotah 12b (cf. Megillah 14a). Another explanation of אחות אהרן, the sister of Aaron: because he jeopardised his life for her by entreating on her behalf and so possibly incurring God’s displeasure when she was stricken with leprosy, she is called by his name (Mekhilta; cf. Rashi Genesis 34:25).
את התף A TIMBREL — an instrument for a particular kind of music.
בתפים ובמחלת WITH TIMBRELS AND WITH DANCES — The righteous women in that generation were…
Songs — Of Moses (Ex. 15; Num. 21:17; Deut. 32; Rev. 15:3), Deborah (Judg. 5), Hannah (1 Sam. 2), David (2 Sam. 22, and Psalms), Mary (Luke 1:46-55), Zacharias (Luke 1:68-79), the angels (Luke 2:13), Simeon…
Timbrel — (Heb. toph), a small drum or tambourine; a tabret (q.v.). The antiquity of this musical instrument appears from the scriptural allusions to it (Gen. 31:27; Ex. 15:20; Judg. 11:34, etc.) (See MUSIC.)
Timbrel, Tabret — (Heb. toph). In old English tabor was used for any drum. Tabouret and tambourine are diminutives of tabor, and denote the instrument now known as the tambourine. Tabret is a contraction of tabouret.…
Woman — Was “taken out of man” (Gen. 2:23), and therefore the man has the preeminence. “The head of the woman is the man;” but yet honour is to be shown to the wife, “as unto the weaker vessel” (1 Cor. 11:3,…
Women — The position of women in the Hebrew commonwealth contrasts favorably with that which in the present day is assigned to them generally in eastern countries. The most salient point of contrast in the…
Armies Of Israel, The · Congratulated on returning victorious — Congratulated on returning victorious
Dancing · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Desert, Journey Of Israel Through The · Israel’s song of praise — Israel’s song of praise
Miriam · General references — General references
Music · Instruments of: Timbrel — Instruments of: Timbrel
Praise · Exemplified: Moses — Exemplified: Moses
Prophetesses · Miriam — Miriam
Prophets · Ordinary: The sacred bards of the Jews — Ordinary: The sacred bards of the Jews
Song · War — War
Timbrel · Used by Miriam — Used by Miriam
Woman · Often engaged in: Celebrating the victories of the nation — Often engaged in: Celebrating the victories of the nation
Women · Took part in ancient worship — Took part in ancient worship
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
