This Hebrew word appears for a container holding wine and also for a stringed musical instrument. Abigail takes skins of wine among the provisions she brings to David, making the vessel part of a concrete gift within an urgent encounter.
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Full entry for נֶבֶל (H5035) · Open the biblical lexicon
This Hebrew word appears for a container holding wine and also for a stringed musical instrument. Abigail takes skins of wine among the provisions she brings to David, making the vessel part of a concrete gift within an urgent encounter.
The BSB source-word alignment has 38 aligned rows for this entry. Common renderings include harps (6), . . . (2), and a skin (2), and harps (2), harp (2).
The source-word alignment first shows this entry at 1 Samuel 1:24. Its strongest book concentrations include Psalms (8), 1 Chronicles (7), 1 Samuel (4), 2 Chronicles (4).
This Hebrew word appears for a container holding wine and also for a stringed musical instrument. Abigail takes skins of wine among the provisions she brings to David, making the vessel part of a concrete gift within an urgent encounter. Jeremiah begins with a familiar statement about filling wineskins, then gives the Lord's explanation of a coming judgment upon named people in the land.
Psalm 33 uses the instrument in its invitation to praise the Lord with ten strings. A container carrying a drink and an instrument making music must therefore be distinguished before explaining their place in a passage. Neither fullness nor sound supplies one hidden spiritual meaning for every occurrence. The actions, speakers and surrounding explanation show whether the word belongs to material provision, a prophetic comparison or musical praise.
Wine containers carry actual provisions and supply Jeremiah's expressly interpreted comparison. The musical use belongs to praise with strings, rather than requiring the instrument and vessel to share a universal spiritual message.
Then Abigail hurried and took two hundred loaves of bread, two skins of wine, five butchered sheep, five seahs of roasted grain, a hundred clusters of raisins, and two hundred cakes of figs. She loaded them on donkeys
Abigail gathers two skins of wine with food and loads the provisions on donkeys before meeting David; the containers belong to her concrete response to the threatened disaster.
Therefore you are to tell them that this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Every wineskin shall be filled with wine.’ And when they reply, ‘Don’t we surely know that every wineskin should be filled with wine?’
The statement about filling wineskins introduces the Lord's subsequent explanation of drunkenness and judgment upon the land's kings, priests, prophets and people of Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to Him with ten strings.
Music with ten strings accompanies the invitation to praise the Lord, followed by a call for a new song and the affirmation that His word is upright.
BSB source-word alignment connects this entry to exact verse rows, English rendering, source form, transliteration, and parsing.
How English Renders ItA compact distribution from source-word alignment before the full evidence tables.
Hebrew word. Hollow vessel whose shape depends on its contents—empty or full—mirroring music's dependence on spirit
Hollow vessel whose shape depends on its contents—empty or full—mirroring music's dependence on spirit
a skin-bag for liquids (from collapsing when empty); hence, a vase (as similar in shape when full); also a lyre (as having a body of like form) BDB: skin-bottle Usage: bottle, pitcher, psaltery, vessel, viol.
How this word appears across different grammatical cases and numbers.
Selected passage-level study witnesses for this word. This section is not the full occurrence list.
Showing 1 selected witness from 38 lexical occurrence verses.
Compound and idiomatic phrases that include this word. Follow a link to study the phrase and how its parts work together.
Jeremiah deliberately begins with something his hearers regard as obvious: a wineskin is made to hold wine. The Lord's following words turn that familiar observation into an announced judgment, identifying the people affected and explaining the image. A teacher must follow that spoken interpretation rather than replacing it with a more comforting account of spiritual fullness.
Abigail's skins, by contrast, hold provisions in a narrative of threatened violence and her effort to prevent bloodshed. Psalm 33 presents the word's musical use within praise directed to the trustworthy Lord. These differences are essential to the study. The shared Hebrew label does not make every vessel a prophecy or every instrument acceptable worship. Attention to the object's function and the speaker's explanation permits a clear account of each scene without manufacturing a doctrine from the object's shape or contents.
Jer.13.12
The licensed Hebrew entry includes wine-container and stringed-instrument uses. The selected sentences distinguish those objects directly; an explanation connecting their shapes or manufacture is unnecessary for understanding the passages and should not govern their theological interpretation.
Jesus' wineskin saying in Mark 2:22 uses a different Greek container term within His answer about fasting and the bridegroom. It can be compared as a vessel image without replacing Jeremiah's judgment explanation or treating the Hebrew musical use as part of that Gospel saying.