2 Samuel 6:5

Played . The word does not mean "played on a musical instrument," but "danced and rejoiced." On all manner … of fir wood. The Hebrew literally is, with all cypress woods. In 1 Chronicles 13:8 we find "with all their might, even with songs," etc. Gesenius, in his 'History of the Hebrew Language,' describes this as a mere guess at a misunderstood text, and Maurer ridicules it as a stupid emendation. More sensibly Thenius regards it as the right reading, and the words here as a corruption of it, caused by some scribe misspelling the words, which are nearly identical. In our version the ambiguous meaning of the word "played" makes the passage less startling. For "they danced with all cypress woods" is unintelligible. The musical instruments mentioned here are the harp, Hebrew chinnor, a guitar; the psaltery, Hebrew nebel , a kind of harp of a triangular shape, with the point downwards; the timbrel , Hebrew tof, a tambourine or small drum; the cornet , Hebrew mena'na', a bar on which were a number of loose metal rings, which were shaken in time to the music, but others think that "castanets'' are meant, which are pieces of wood beaten in time. The Revised Version adopts this rendering. And finally cymbals . For "cornets" we find in the parallel place "trumpets," whence the translators of the Authorized Version took their rendering; but the Hebrew word means "things to shake."