Harp— The original word is קיתרס caithros, which seems to be denominated from the citron-tree, the product of Armenia, Media, and Persia; the tree itself might take its name from the ground in which it flourished, or from the round figure of its fruit: for קתר ceter, signifies a rock in the Chaldee (Proverbs 30:26.), and mountainous or rocky places are called cythera, and citharon. Citra is likewise Chaldee for a crown, turban, or diadem of the head, and is the proper name for the Persian diadem, which the Greeks write Κιτταρος [cittaros], Κιδαρις [cidaris], and Κιτταρις [cittaris.] An instrument shaped in the like orbicular form, might for the same reason be called citerus; and this we are told was the original form of the harp; or else, the matter of which it was made gave its name, as it did to many other instruments in all nations. The modern Persian affords us another derivation: Ciar-tar is their name for a lyre; ciar signifying four, and tar a string, from the four chords with which it is strung; and as the ancients made use of such a lyre, so by giving little or no sound to the R it might of old be pronounced like cithara. See Bishop Chandler, Vind. of Def. Colossians 1 p. 50.
Sackbut— The Hebrew word is סבכא sabca, whence the Greek word σαμβυκη. Euphorion mentions this instrument as very ancient. The statue of one of the muses, erected at Mitylene in Lesbos, has a sambuca in her hand. It is mentioned as a foreign invention in Aristoxenus and Strabo; is expressly said to be the discovery of the Syrians, and was in use among the Parthians and Troglodytes. The name is Syriac or Chaldee, and comes from סבךֵ sabbach, which signifies to twist or plait: and it is applied to trees which bear thick branches, and to a military battering engine, worked by a variety of ropes; and for the same reason, to a musical instrument made of the wood of such trees, or thickly strung with chords. The sabek-tree is mentioned in the Septuagint version of Genesis 22:13 which Vossius takes to be the Syrian or Egyptian jessamin, called zabach and sambach by the Syrians and Arabs to this day. In other parts sambucus is the name of the alder. Of such light and brittle wood musical instruments were composed, and therefore we need search no farther for the original of this name. However, it may be noted, that samma and buc are Indian or Persian words for certain instruments of music; and anciently those tongues were the same with those which were spoken by the Medes and Armenians. See Bishop Chandler, as above, p. 51.
Psaltery— The Hebrew word פסנתרין is psanterin, and the Greek psalterion. They who invented the instrument undoubtedly imposed the name which it bears; for wherever we can trace the one, we may ascribe the other. Now it is acknowledged by the Greeks, that it was more ancient than Terpander; that it was barbarous or foreign; that it abounded with many strings, and was the same with the old magadis, pectys, and trigonum, which were many-stringed, and of a triangular form, of which the Greeks did not assume the invention; and that there was in Persia (in which Media and Armenia are generally included) a pectys and magadis, whose strings hung on both sides of the wood, and which was touched with both hands, as our harps are. Hence we may safely infer, that the invention and name are to be derived from the East. We have such accounts of the splendour and politeness of the Median court, that we may reasonably suppose that both the instrument and its name had their original in that country, and were borrowed of them by the Babylonians and Greeks. This will appear more evident from the termination of the original, psanter, for old Persic substantives commonly end in ter. And as in is added in the modern Persian to heighten the sense of adjectives in the superlative degree; so in is a Syriac or Babylonian plural, which the Chaldees might subjoin to the foreign name of this instrument, the better to express the sounding of the strings of both sides of this instrument at once, with both the hands of the performer. Psanter may be derived from the Chaldee or Syriac פשׁ pesh, or פשׁשׁ peshesh, which signifies beating, impelling, pushing, or touching with the fingers. In the Chaldee, a word which primarily signifies pulsations or beating, is applied to musical instruments in general; and the Jews called neginoth, in the plural, one kind of stringed instruments which was more than ordinarily struck and moved in various parts; and which is therefore rendered by the LXX a psaltery. Psanterin then, if it be not a neutral superlative used substantively in the Persian or Median tongue, to signify an instrument of all others the most touched, may be a Median word, to which in Babylon they added a Syriac plural, to express, as in the form of neginoth, the frequent and double pulsations thereof. Such a root is to be found at present among the Persians. Bishana, or, as it maybe spoken, psana, is the percussion of a harp in Persic, and the verb has the sense of making an impression on the nerves. Bishop Chandler, p. 53, &c.
Dulcimer— The original word is סומפניה sumponiah, and the Greek συμφωνια symphonia; but the signification in the Chaldee and in the Greek is different. The Greek is a compound word, which signifies a concert, or harmony of many instruments; whereas the word here, is a simple name of one single instrument, upon which different parts of music were played: and as the stringed instruments came originally from the East, probably some Grecian might add a greater number of strings or chords, to give a greater compass or variety of music, which being called symphonia in Greek, and introduced into the Chaldean and Persian courts, might possibly have retained its Grecian name; though this is by no means certain. As to the particular instrument intended by the name, we cannot be positive. A pipe perforated with many holes was called a symphony in the Jerusalem tongue; and a bladder with pipes in it (now called a bag-pipe) had the like name in the language of the Moors, which they left behind them in Spain. The Moors in Africa called a little drum, hollow in the middle, and covered on one side with a skin, a symphony; which name might as justly be given to one kind of harp or fiddle, which was made, according to St. Augustin, of a concave piece of wood, like a drum. For all agree that the reason of calling so many things by the same name, seems to be their cavity. The learned Henry Michaelis derives the word from the Hebrew ספן saphan, which signifies to conceal, or to cover in a hollow form. Hence ספינה sephina is put for a ship, Jonah 1:5 or the hold, or capacious part of it, agreeable to the translation of the LXX. Symphony might possibly come from ספפ sipap, which carries the idea of cavity to all its derivatives. Thus ףּס saph or suph, (the original of the Greek word scyphus,) signifies a cup or bowl, in the Hebrew or Chaldee. ףּסו Suph is the name of a reed or cane, from the tube in the middle of it; (see Exodus 2:3.) and saph is used for the shank of a candlestick, and for the middle part of pillars, placed before the portal or threshold of great houses, as well as for the entrance or gate itself; for these ornamental pillars were probably hollow, like the two great ones in the porch of Solomon's temple. Now, as simpulum, a cup used in sacrifices, is confessedly derived from the Hebrew suph or saph; so, by the like analogy, symphony, or symphonia, may, when applied to any hollow instrument composed of boards, or of wood otherwise excavated. It is the genius of the eastern tongues to increase syllables at the end of words, as new ideas are added to their primitive significations; and as syllables are increased in words which have two radicals following each other of the same letter, the first letter is commonly dropped, and the last is supplied by a certain mark on the next, which the Chaldees almost constantly change into the letter N, and almost as often liquidate into M, when the compensative N goes before the letters BMP. Thus, instead of siphonia, as the word is written in some copies, Daniel 3:10 the Chaldees would sound it sinphonia; but for facility and gracefulness of speaking, they soften it into simphonia; because of the P which immediately follows. See Bishop Chandler, Vind. p. 45 and Dr. Chandler's Defence, p. 15.