Daniel 3:5-7

3:5 When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, ¹  trigon, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, you must ²  bow down and pay homage to the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has erected. 3:6 Whoever does not bow down and pay homage will immediately ³  be thrown into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire!” 3:7 Therefore when they all ⁴  heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, trigon, harp, pipes, ⁵  and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations, and language groups began bowing down and paying homage to the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected.

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¹ sn The word zither (Aramaic קִיתָרוֹס [qitaros]), and the words for harp (Aramaic פְּסַנְתֵּרִין [pÿsanterin]) and pipes (Aramaic סוּמְפֹּנְיָה [sumponÿyah]), are of Greek derivation. Though much has been made of this in terms of suggesting a date in the Hellenistic period for the writing of the book, it is not surprising that a few Greek cultural terms, all of them the names of musical instruments, should appear in this book. As a number of scholars have pointed out, the bigger surprise (if, in fact, the book is to be dated to the Hellenistic period) may be that there are so few Greek loanwords in Daniel.

² tn The imperfect Aramaic verbs have here an injunctive nuance.

³ tn Aram “in that hour.”

⁴ tn Aram “all the peoples.”

⁵ tc Though not in the Aramaic text of BHS, this word appears in many medieval Hebrew MSS, some LXX MSS, and Vulgate. Cf. vv. 5, 10, 15.