Nevel (instrument)
musical instrument
The nevel, nebel (Hebrew: נֵבֶל nēḇel), was a stringed instrument used by the Phoenicians and the Israelites. The Greeks translated the name as nabla (νάβλα, "Phoenician harp").
A number of possibilities have been proposed for what kind of instrument the nevel was; these include the psaltery and the kithara, both of which are strummed instruments like the kinnor, with strings running across the sound box, like the modern guitar and zither. Most scholars believe the nevel was a frame harp, a plucked instrument with strings rising up from its sound box.
The King James Version renders the word into English as psaltery or viol, and the Book of Common Prayer renders it lute.
The word nevel has been adopted for "harp" in Modern Hebrew.
In the Phoenician context
The nabla, mentioned by Athenaeus in his work "The Deipnosophists", is described as "an invention of the Phoenicians". He cites Sopater of Paphos who writes:
Atheneus reports that Mystacus described the nablas as an instrument of harmony, having a lotus fixed to its long sides.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Nevel (instrument)” as musical instrument. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as musical instrument. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1221385. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nevel (instrument)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.