Word Studies - Psallo

The inaugural issue of StraitWay contained my general introduction to the Word Studies column, pointing out the value of and need for biblical word studies. As an illustration of how words changed in meaning I mentioned that the Greek word "psallo," which appears in Ephesians 5:19, once meant to pluck a stringed instrument, but that its meaning had changed by New Testament times so that instrumental music was no longer implied by the word. Inasmuch as at least one StraitWay reader has disagreed that such a change took place, I feel that a study of the word is in order here.

"Psallo" appears five times in four verses in the Greek New Testament. In Romans 15:9 and twice in 1 Corinthians 14:15, it is translated "sing" in the King James Version and other standard translations. In James 5:13 our word is rendered "sing psalms." In Ephesians 5:19 Paul gave the command to communicate by singing: "Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Here "psallo" is rendered "making melody," while the word "singing" is translated from the Greek verb "aido."

Consulting Greek lexicons (Thayer; Gingrich and Danker), we learn that "psallo" originally meant "to pluck," and this led to its use in reference to playing stringed instruments such as the harp and lyre. Thayer's entry gives the absolute meaning of the word to be "to play on a stringed instrument, to play the harp, etc." This may cause one to wonder why the scholars exclude that meaning when translating the Bible into English. Are they biased against instrumental music in worship? To the contrary, virtually all of the translators of the ASV, the RSV, the NASB, the NKJV, and the NIV were members of religious bodies which use instrumental music in their assemblies. Even so, their translations unequivocally render "psallo" as "sing" or "make melody," with not so much as a footnote to suggest that instrumental accompaniment might be involved.

Gingrich and Danker in their Greek-English lexicon (Second Edition, 1979; p. 891) comment upon the process of change that took place in the use of "psallo" over time, pointing out that even in the Septuagint it might reference singing with instrumental accompaniment, but that more often it was used of unaccompanied singing. Examples given are Psalms 7:17; 9:12; and 108:3 (English Bible references; the Septuagint's reference numbers, given in the lexicon, vary from these.). "Psallo" in ancient times referred to making music by the twanging of cords. The human voice makes music through vibrating cords, and it is not surprising that the word came to refer to singing as well as to playing stringed instruments. This process of change continued, say Gingrich and Danker, until in Modern Greek (fifteenth century A.D. to present), it means "to sing" exclusively, never carrying the idea of playing.

During this process of change, how would one know whether a speaker or writer using "psallo" referred to singing or playing, since it might be either? It became necessary to indicate the instrument or method of playing in the context if one meant to include music other than singing. This is the consistent usage of the translators of the Septuagint. In 1 Samuel 19:9, for example, we read that "David played ('psallo') with the hand." In 1 Kings 3:15, a "minstrel played." "Minstrel" means a player on stringed instruments. In the many Old Testament passages containing "psallo" with no separate contextual reference to playing an instrument, our English Bibles read "sing." That is what it meant when the Septuagint was translated from the Hebrew in the second and third centuries B.C., and that is what it meant in the first century A.D. when the books of the New Testament were penned.