Whenever the music of worship is described, a psaltery is somewhere among the instruments. It was a stringed instrument, set beside the harp in nearly every mention: “Awake, psaltery and harp.” David and all Israel played “before the LORD,” and the Levites were stationed in the house with “cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps.” The psalmists name it too, singing to God on “an instrument of ten strings.” The picture is of music offered gladly and with all one’s might. Psalm 150 gathers the instruments together, and verse 3 names this one.
15 verses
And David and all the house of Israel played before the LORD on all manner of instruments made of fir wood, even on harps, and on psalteries, and on timbrels, and on cornets, and on cymbals.
And David and all Israel played before God with all their might, and with singing, and with harps, and with psalteries, and with timbrels, and with cymbals, and with trumpets.
Asaph the chief, and next to him Zechariah, Jeiel, and Shemiramoth, and Jehiel, and Mattithiah, and Eliab, and Benaiah, and Obededom: and Jeiel with psalteries and with harps; but Asaph made a sound with cymbals;
Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals: and the number of the workmen according to their service was:
All these were the sons of Heman the king's seer in the words of God, to lift up the horn. And God gave to Heman fourteen sons and three daughters.
All these were under the hands of their father for song in the house of the LORD, with cymbals, psalteries, and harps, for the service of the house of God, according to the king's order to Asaph, Jeduthun, and Heman.
And he set the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, with psalteries, and with harps, according to the commandment of David, and of Gad the king's seer, and Nathan the prophet: for so was the commandment of the LORD by his prophets.
Praise the LORD with harp: sing unto him with the psaltery and an instrument of ten strings.
Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
I will also praise thee with the psaltery, even thy truth, O my God: unto thee will I sing with the harp, O thou Holy One of Israel.
Take a psalm, and bring hither the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the psaltery.
Upon an instrument of ten strings, and upon the psaltery; upon the harp with a solemn sound.
Awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
I will sing a new song unto thee, O God: upon a psaltery and an instrument of ten strings will I sing praises unto thee.
Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp.
Matthew George Easton, 1897
A musical instrument, supposed to have been a kind of lyre, or a harp with twelve strings. The Hebrew word nebhel, so rendered, is translated “viol” in Isa. 5:12 (R.V., “lute”); 14:11. In Dan. 3:5, 7, 10, 15, the word thus rendered is Chaldaic, pesanterin, which is supposed to be a word of Greek origin denoting an instrument of the harp kind.
William Smith, 1884
This was a stringed instrument of music to accompany the voice. The Hebrew nabel or nebel is so rendered in the Authorized Version in all passages where if occurs, except in (Isaiah 5:12; 14:11; 22:24), marg.; (Amos 5:23; 6:6) where it is translated viol . The ancient viol was a six-stringed guitar. In the Prayer Book version of the Psalms the Hebrew word is rendered "lute." This instrument resembled the guitar, but was superior in tone, being larger, and having a convex back, somewhat like the vertical section of a gourd, or more nearly resembling that of a pear. These three instruments, the psaltery or sautry, the viol and lute, are frequently associated in the old English poets and were clearly instruments resembling each other though still different. The Greek psalterium (psalterion), from which our word is derived, denotes an instrument played with the fingers instead of a plectrum or quill, the verb being used of twanging the bow-string. It is impossible to say positively with what instrument the nebel of the Hebrew exactly corresponded, From the fact that nebel in Hebrew also signifies a wine-bottle or skin it has been conjectured that the term when applied to a musical instrument denotes a kind of bagpipe. The psalteries of David were made of cypress, (2 Samuel 6:5) those of Solomon of algum Or almug trees. (2 Chronicles 9:11) Among the instruments of the band which played before Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image on the plains of Dura, we again meet with the psaltery. (Daniel 3:6,10,15) pesanterin .