And his brother's name was Jubal. Player on an instrument, the musician. Cf. jobel, an onomatopoetic word signifying jubilum, a joyful sound. Cf. Greek, ὀ λολυ ì ζειν ἀ λαλαì ζειν; Latin, ululare; Swedish, iolen; Dutch, ioelen; German, juchen (Geseuius).
He was the father of all such as handle the harp. The kinnor, a stringed instrument, played on by the plectrum according to Josephus ('Ant.,' 7, 12, 3), but in David's time by the hand (1 Samuel 16:23; 1 Samuel 18:10; 1 Samuel 19:9), corresponding to the modern lyre.
Cf. κινυì ρα κιννυì ρα, cithara; German, knarren; so named either from its tremulous, stridulous sound (Gesenius), or from its bent, arched form (Furst). And the organ. 'Ugabh, from a root signifying to breathe or blow (Gesenius), or to make a lovely sound (Furst); hence generally a wind instrument—tibia, ftstula, syrinx; the shepherd's reed or bagpipe (Keil); the pipe or flute (Onkelos); the organon, i.
e. an instrument composed of many pipes (Jerome). Kalisch discovers a fitness in the invention of musical instruments by the brother of a nomadic herdsman, as it is "in the happy leisure of this occupation that music is generally first exercised and appreciated."
Murphy sees an indication of the easy circumstances of the line of Cain; Candlish, "an instance of the high cultivation which a people may often possess who are altogether irreligious and ungodly;" Bonar, a token of their deepening depravity—"it is to shut God out that these Cainites devise the harp and the organ."