LandonWillis

Author: Landon Willis

  • What Is The Douay-Rheims Bible?

    When talking with Catholics, you might hear them mention “the Douay-Rheims”.

    Well, what exactly is that?

    To understand that, we have to go back to the time of the Protestant Reformation in the mid-1500s.

    During that time there was much, much fighting and arguing in England over whether to be Catholic or Protestant. Eventually, the Protestants got the upper hand for long enough that they made Catholicism effectively illegal. At times, it was punishable by death to be a Catholic priest.

    So, in response, many Catholics fled over to “the continent”, or in other words, the rest of Europe. Their main destination was France.

    One group of these Catholics fled to the city of Douay (now spelled Douai) in northeastern France around the year 1560. While there, they helped set up a college/seminary to train exiled English Catholics as priests. In an attempt to make England Catholic again, they even sent 300 priests to England to secretly minister to the people. Around 130 of these men ended up being executed for being priests.

    This new college then decided to create its own English translation of the Bible to compete with the Protestants’ English translations. 

    However, since the Catholics really love Latin, they decided to not translate from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic of the Old and New Testaments. Instead, they decided to translate from the Latin Vulgate.

    Now, the Vulgate is a good translation. But, it is weird to translate from a translation, rather than from the original. It would be like if we wanted to make a new translation of the Bible into French. Should we A) translate from Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic into French or B) translate from an English version of the Bible into French?

    Either way, the Catholics in Douay decided to translate from the Vulgate. After some time, they finished their translations. But, when they had finished, the college had actually temporarily relocated to the French city of Rheims (now spelled Reims).

    A big issue the Catholics at the college faced was that they were short on money. At the end of 1582, while in Rheims, they published a few hundred cheaply made copies of their New Testament translation. It wasn’t until 1609 and 1610, though, that they had enough money to also publish their translation of the Old Testament. By this time, they were back in the city of Douay. So, the New Testament is typically called the “Rheims New Testament”, and the Old Testament is typically called the “Douay Old Testament”. Together, they make up the “Douay-Rheims Bible”.

    This translation is a very direct, literal translation from the Latin, making it very hard for modern English readers to understand. So, just like how the King James Version was revised and updated in 1769, so too was the Douay-Rheims.

    Throughout the mid-1700s, a Catholic named Richard Challoner updated much of the translation of the Douay-Rheims. He made it far easier to read for the average English speaker.

    And, through many more updates and revisions, we still have the Douay-Rheims available today.

    In summary, the Douay-Rheims was the first ever English translation of the Bible approved by the Catholic Church. It was translated by some English Catholics who fled to France. And it is a very literal translation of the Latin Vulgate, rather than the original Scriptures.

  • Who Were The Tannaim?

    Do you remember how throughout Jesus’ ministry He constantly criticized the Jewish leaders of His day for focusing on small, unimportant traditions?

    As a reminder, this is a quote from Jesus in Matthew 15:3

    3 Jesus replied, “And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition?

    Well, even after His death and resurrection, the Jews who refused to recognize Him as the Messiah continued to argue over little, unimportant traditions.

    They argued about how far you could walk on a Sabbath Day. They argued about handwashing. They argued about the ritual cleanliness of the stems of fruit. They argued about everything.

    Now, since Judaism spans all of human history, historians have broken up the different time periods of Judaism by different names to describe the main scholars of the time. One such time period stretches from about 10 AD to about 220 AD. This is the period of the Tannaim.

    The word Tannaim is Aramaic for “the repeaters” or “the teachers” because these were the scholars who repeated all of the “Oral Law” that was passed down to them. What’s the “Oral Law”? It’s basically all of those Jewish traditions that Jesus had criticized the Jews for following so legalistically.

    So, as the Tannaim continued to argue about Jewish traditions, the three Jewish Revolts broke out, and the Romans destroyed much of Judea. Since the Romans killed so many of these “repeaters” of the Oral Law, the remaining Tannaim began to fear that their traditions would be forgotten.

    To solve this issue, around 200 AD, the last of the Tannaim wrote down all the traditions that they had memorized. This is what we call the Mishnah. This forms the basis for the Jewish Talmuds that are so important to modern Jews. Also, the word Mishnah is Hebrew for “the repetition”. And that makes perfect sense because it was written down by “the repeaters”.

    That was a lot of information, but in summary, the word Tannaim means “repeaters” and describes the Jewish scholars from around 10-220 AD who focused heavily on Jewish traditions and who wrote down the Mishnah.

  • Casting (And Sprinkling) Aspersions

    Aspersion is a fun word in English.

    It comes from the Latin word Spargere, which means “to scatter” or “to sprinkle”. Its most common definition is to insult or doubt somebody, as if you were “scattering” insults on them.

    We typically use the word “cast” before it in a sentence. For example, I could say “after eating, he cast aspersions on the restaurant’s cleanliness”.

    However, there’s also another use of the word.

    Remember how Spargere in Latin could also mean “to sprinkle”? Well, in English the original meaning of the word “aspersion” was “a baptism by sprinkling water”. So, if you hear about some Christians who had a priest sprinkle water on their newborn, that’s called an aspersion.

    This meaning is directly related to the other original meaning for “aspersion” in English: the sprinkling of Christ’s blood. Since baptism references Christ’s death and resurrection, it makes sense that we would use a similar word to describe it.

  • Why Is It Called The ‘Passion’ Of Christ?

    Around Easter time, you’ve probably heard people talk a whole lot about the “Passion of Christ”. Obviously they’re talking about His torture, crucifixion, and death.

    But, why do we call it His “passion”?

    Well, our earliest records show that the word “passion” entered the English language around the year 1200. During this time, the only meaning of the word had to do with Jesus’ crucifixion.

    It comes from the Latin word passio, which itself is another form of the Latin verb pati, meaning “to suffer” or “to endure”. So, the passion of Christ is literally “the suffering of Christ”.

    That Latin word, pati, is also where we get the word “patience”. If you are being patient, then you are literally “suffering” or “enduring through” something. You can also think of patients in a doctor’s office. A patient is someone who is suffering from some sort of illness or injury.

    The confusion for modern English speakers comes from the fact that the word passion took on a new meaning around the year 1400. At that time, it started to more commonly mean “an intense emotion”. Think of how you might describe someone as “passionate”. This is from a connection to the Greek word pathos, which also meant “suffering”, but took on a second meaning of “emotion”.

    And since the French language comes mostly from Latin, it gives us many of our words which come from Latin. So, before William the Conqueror of France invaded England in 1066, “English” was still mainly a Germanic language. Because of this, Old English had a similar word to “passion” back before William the Conqueror’s invasion: þolian.

    That Old English word gives us the rarely used modern English word “Thole”.

    Thole means the same thing as passion: suffering.

    So, the next time you hear about “the passion of Christ”, you can know that it really just means “the suffering of Christ”. Or, if you want to use a very rare word, you can start talking about “the thole of Christ”.

  • Miktam

    In the heading to Psalm 16, we read:

    A miktam of David.

    So, what’s a Miktam?

    Well, no one’s really too sure how to answer that. You see, this Hebrew word only appears six times in the entirety of the Bible. Here and then also in the headings to Psalms 56-60.

    Since we don’t have much context for how this word was used, we can’t be entirely sure what it means.

    However, there are a few theories.

    First, we can compare ancient translations of the Old Testament to see what ancient authors thought it meant.

    For example, in Jerome’s Latin Vulgate translation of the Old Testament, he translates the term as Tituli inscriptio, which loosely means “an inscription of honor”. In this same vein, other scholars think Miktam meant something along the lines of “an engraving”.

    This idea is that the Psalms with Miktam in their headings were so important that they should be “engraved” or “inscribed” on stone tablets in addition to just being on a paper scroll.

    Another theory comes from later Jewish tradition. It states that Miktam means “golden” or “precious”, again emphasizing the importance of these six Psalms.

    There are also a few other theories that it could be some sort of musical term, but the above two theories are most popular. The one that makes most sense to me is that Miktam probably means “engraving” because that’s what some of the ancient translators thought it meant.

  • Who Was Theodotion?

    In the Second Century AD, there were three men who created new translations of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek: Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus.

    This urge to create new translations was spurred on by a few factors.

    First of all, copies of the Greek Septuagint, which the Jews had been using for hundreds of years, had developed several scribal errors. So, by the Second Century, it was in need of a revision where it could be compared to the original Hebrew to make sure that it was still a faithful translation. In fact, of these three scholars, Theodotion’s translation was little more than a revision of the Septuagint.

    But, there was a second, more pressing concern.

    Christianity.

    All three of these scholars (except maybe Symmachus) were Jews. So, they wanted to try and discredit the many prophecies mentioned in the Christian New Testament. To do this, they made their own translations to show how the Septuagint’s translation of the Hebrew prophecies in the Old Testament was not always the same word-for-word.

    For example, the Gospel according to Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, saying that:

    …The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…

    And that is what the Septuagint says. However, the original Hebrew likely said:

    …The young woman will conceive and give birth to a son…

    So, Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus seemingly wanted to try and discredit the prophecies mentioned in the New Testament by showing that, in the original Hebrew, the prophecies didn’t necessarily say the exact same thing word-for-word.

    Theodotion

    We don’t know much about Theodotion. But, it seems that he was a convert to Judaism who lived in the city of Ephesus (the same city where Paul stayed for a couple years).

    Theodotion’s Translation

    His translation was a sort of middle ground between Aquila’s strict word-for-word translation and Symmachus’ looser meaning-for-meaning translation.

    Theodotion kept to a translation very similar to the Septuagint while updating certain parts to make the translation either sound better, or to better reflect the original Hebrew.

    The Timing Issue

    Now, when studying Theodotion, there is one big issue that scholars love to rack their brains over.

    When did Theodotion live?

    Ancient writers typically say that he lived in the late Second Century AD. Specifically, one says that he made his translation around the 180s AD.

    However, there are many modern scholars who disagree with this, and for good reason.

    You see, when the New Testament authors quote from the Old Testament, they would use whatever translation best drives their point home. So, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15:54, when Paul is quoting from Isaiah 25:8, we read this:

    54 …Death has been swallowed up in victory.

    But, if you look for Isaiah 25:8 in your Old Testament, you’ll find something like this:

    8 He will swallow up death for all time…

    Now, that’s obviously different. But, it’s even more different than it looks at first. In our modern English Old Testaments, we usually use the Hebrew Text of the Middle Ages. If we were to look at what the Greek Septuagint (the version of the Old Testament that most Jews in Paul’s day would have been using) says in Isaiah 25:8, we would read:

    8 Death, having prevailed, swallowed them [nations] up…

    So, why does Paul say that he’s quoting Isaiah 25:8 when his quote is different from what Isaiah 25:8 actually says?

    Well, because Isaiah 25:8 does say exactly what Paul quotes… in Theodotion’s translation.

    So, that answers the question, right? In 1 Corinthians 15:54, Paul is just quoting from Theodotion’s translation, right?

    Well, that sounds good until we remember that Paul was writing in the 50s AD. If Theodotion didn’t make his translation until the 180s AD, how did Paul quote from it?

    That’s where the modern theory comes in. Some scholars suggest that Theodotion was actually born around the same time as Jesus (plus or minus a decade or two). According to this theory, he made his translation in the early First Century AD, with plenty of time for Paul to get a copy to quote from.

    There is also another theory though. Some think that Theodotion did make his translation in the 180s AD, but that someone else had made another, similar translation back in the First Century BC.

    The Book of Daniel

    And, while much of Theodotion’s translation is lost, we actually still use a large portion of it to this very day: the book of Daniel.

    Apparently, as Jerome, the Fourth Century translator of the Vulgate, tells us, the Septuagint translation of Daniel wasn’t a very good translation. So, the Church ended up adopting Theodotion’s translation of it instead.

    Summary

    In the end, we can’t be too sure about anything concerning Theodotion’s life or translation. But, it seems that he was a convert to Judaism who lived in Ephesus sometime during either the 1st or 2nd centuries AD. The apostle Paul used his translation, or an earlier translation made by someone else, in a few areas, including 1 Corinthians 15:54. And, Theodotion’s version of Daniel was such an improvement over the Septuagint that it became the main version used even to this day.

  • Who Was The Translator Aquila Of Pontus?

    In the Second Century AD, there were three men who created new translations of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek: Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus.

    This urge to create new translations was spurred on by a few factors.

    First of all, copies of the Greek Septuagint, which the Jews had been using for hundreds of years, had developed several scribal errors. So, by the Second Century, it was in need of a revision where it could be compared to the original Hebrew to make sure that it was still a faithful translation. In fact, of these three scholars, Theodotion’s translation was little more than a revision of the Septuagint.

    But, there was a second, more pressing concern.

    Christianity.

    All three of these scholars (except maybe Symmachus) were Jews. So, they wanted to try and discredit the many prophecies mentioned in the Christian New Testament. To do this, they made their own translations to show how the Septuagint’s translation of the Hebrew prophecies in the Old Testament was not always the same word-for-word.

    For example, the Gospel according to Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, saying that:

    …The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…

    And that is what the Septuagint says. However, the original Hebrew likely said:

    …The young woman will conceive and give birth to a son…

    So, Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus seemingly wanted to try and discredit the prophecies mentioned in the New Testament by showing that, in the original Hebrew, the prophecies didn’t necessarily say the exact same thing word-for-word.

    Aquila

    While we know very little about all three of these scholars, we do have a decent bit of information on Aquila.

    He seemingly lived in the early second century AD. And he likely completed his famous translation around the year 129-130 or so.

    Aquila was probably originally from the city of Sinope in the region of Pontus (so, be careful not to mistake him for the other Aquila of Pontus, mentioned in the New Testament).

    According to one legend, he was the nephew of the Roman Emperor Hadrian (ever heard of Hadrian’s Wall?).

    Now, the timeline gets muddled, and there are many conflicting stories. But, one source tells us that Hadrian ended up sending Aquila on assignment to Judea, where Aquila converted from Roman Paganism to Christianity, and then from Christianity to Judaism. Another source just says that he converted straight from Paganism to Judaism though.

    Either way, ancient writers would commonly call him “Aquila the Proselyte”. So, we can confidently say that at some point he was not a Jew, but then he converted to Judaism at some point in his life.

    Aquila’s Translation

    Again according to legend, Aquila was the disciple of an important Second Century Rabbi who was very interested in analyzing every last word and letter of the Old Testament for some sort of hidden meaning. This was similar to many other Jews of the time.

    So, seemingly under the guidance of this Rabbi, Aquila made his translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek. The hallmark of his translation was that it was an overly literal, word-for-word translation. Not caring whether it even made sense, Aquila just translated every single word to mean exactly what the Hebrew said.

    This reminds me of nothing so much as Young’s Literal Translation in English (look it up if you want). Both translations were focused on giving the reader the most precise meaning of each word, no matter the context of the sentence or passage. Obviously, this results in a very difficult to read translation, but one which is very useful for scholars.

    Unfortunately, almost all of his translation is now lost.

    But, from what fragments we do have left, we can learn a lot about the Hebrew text he was working with. First of all, since he was so precise in his translation, scholars can pretty easily figure out what the Hebrew translation he was using looked like. This allows us to better ensure that our modern Bibles say the same things that the original writers wrote.

    Second of all, because Aquila would often transliterate words from Hebrew into Greek instead of translating them, scholars can better determine how Hebrew was pronounced during the Second Century.

    Relation To Onqelos

    As a brief note, there’s a big ole’ dispute over whether or not Aquila and Onqelos are the same guy.

    “Who’s Onqelos?” You ask.

    Well, he was a Roman nobleman who converted to Judaism and wrote a translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Aramaic during the early Second Century.

    Sounds a lot like Aquila, doesn’t it?

    The Jewish Talmuds also tell identical stories about Aquila the Proselyte and Onqelos the Proselyte.

    Thanks to all these similarities in the sources we’ve got, many people think that Onqelos was just another name for Aquila. But, some people still make arguments that they are, in fact, two different people.

    Jerome’s Use Of Aquila

    Jerome was the man who compiled the Latin translation of the scriptures, known as the Vulgate, in the late 300s and early 400s AD.

    I found some conflicting sources on whether Jerome liked or disliked Aquila’s translation. One of the sources though gave a quote of Jerome’s where he specifically criticizes Aquila for making a translation that is just about unreadable.

    I don’t have any clue why some sources were saying that Jerome praised Aquila’s translation, but I did read that in a couple spots. Overall, from my familiarity with Jerome’s translation methods and from reading his specific quote, it seems that he did not particularly like Aquila’s translation.

    With all that said, I did read one source which said that Jerome did still refer to Aquila’s work when making his own translation to Latin. The evidence given for this is that in the Book of Psalms, Jerome translates the Hebrew word Selah as Semper (meaning “always”), which lines up with Aquila’s use of the word ἀεὶ (also meaning “always”).

    Summary

    Well, we unfortunately don’t have too much information on Aquila, but still I hope this helped give you some good new knowledge.

    Aquila was likely a convert to Judaism in the early Second Century AD, who created a very literal, word-for-word translation of the Old Testament from Hebrew into Greek.

  • Who Was Symmachus The Translator?

    In the Second Century AD, there were three men who created new translations of the Hebrew Old Testament into Greek: Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus.

    This urge to create new translations was spurred on by a few factors.

    First of all, copies of the Greek Septuagint, which the Jews had been using for hundreds of years, had developed several scribal errors. So, by the Second Century, it was in need of a revision where it could be compared to the original Hebrew to make sure that it was still a faithful translation. In fact, of these three scholars, Theodotion’s translation was little more than a revision of the Septuagint.

    But, there was a second, more pressing concern.

    Christianity.

    All three of these scholars (except maybe Symmachus) were Jews. So, they wanted to try and discredit the many prophecies mentioned in the Christian New Testament. To do this, they made their own translations to show how the Septuagint’s translation of the Hebrew prophecies in the Old Testament was not always the same word-for-word.

    For example, the Gospel according to Matthew quotes Isaiah 7:14, saying that:

    …The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son…

    And that is what the Septuagint says. However, the original Hebrew likely said:

    …The young woman will conceive and give birth to a son…

    So, Aquila, Theodotion, and Symmachus seemingly wanted to try and discredit the prophecies mentioned in the New Testament by showing that, in the original Hebrew, the prophecies didn’t necessarily say the exact same thing word-for-word.

    Symmachus

    With that explanation out of the way, let’s dive into one of these guys in particular: Symmachus.

    Unfortunately, for all three of these scholars, we have very little information available about them and their works. And of the three, we know the least about Symmachus.

    I’ve read what I could find about him, but much of what I saw was contradictory or vague. So, take what I say with a grain of salt, but I’ll try to be as thorough and accurate as I can.

    Timeframe

    First, Symmachus is generally believed to have lived during the late Second Century AD. One Christian who lived in the 300s AD, Epiphanius of Salamis, tells us that he lived during the reign of Roman Emperor Severus. However, some think that this is a scribal error and he actually means Roman Emperor Verus, which was another name for Marcus Aurelius. Either way, if Epiphanius’ report is accurate, Symmachus was alive in the late 100s AD.

    We know that he must have made his translation before the mid-200s AD at the very latest, because his translation was included in the Hexapla, which was a compilation of translations by Origen, another early Christian.

    Religion

    We also don’t know for sure what religion Symmachus was. Some say that he was an Ebionite, which was seemingly an early pseudo-Christian group that denied the divinity of Christ while also demanding that people still follow the Old Mosaic Law.

    Others think that Symmachus was a Samaritan who converted to Judaism later in life. Either way, he was pretty much a Jew.

    His Translation

    Now, as for his translation itself, like Aquila’s and Theodotion’s, we no longer actually have any copies of it left.

    But, we do have little snippets of it left through quotes made by other ancient writers and thanks to some ancient scraps of parchment. I was never able to track down any source saying how much of his translation is left, but based off of a few details, I’d imagine that it has to be at least a few full pages of material. I’m really just guessing here though. All I was able to find out is that we don’t have a whole copy of his work left.

    There is a reasonable theory that suggests he probably made his translation while in Caesarea Maritima. That’s the same city about 50 miles from Jerusalem where Paul was in prison for a couple years before going off to Rome. Now, this theory that Symmachus lived/made his translation in Caesarea is based off of one quote from an author who is himself quoting someone else who said that he got a copy of Symmachus’ translation from some lady who lived in Caesarea.

    Yeah, like I said, we don’t have much information to work from, and what we do have is convoluted and somewhat unreliable.

    Anyhow, Symmachus’ translation was apparently quite good. Instead of translating the Hebrew to Greek word-for-word (like Aquila did), he translated meaning-for-meaning or thought-for-thought. It’s a similar idea to how a modern English translation, like the NIV, will use English idioms and grammar rather than shoehorning Hebrew and Greek idioms into an English translation.

    In fact, Jerome (who translated the Scriptures into Latin in the late 300s AD) greatly praised Symmachus for his translation because he maintained the sense of the original and didn’t focus on making an exact word-for-word translation. Jerome even referred to Symmachus’ translation when translating the Old Testament.

    Symmachus was able to make a very clear, elegant sounding Greek, using Greek idioms and just working to maintain the meaning of the Hebrew. As part of this, he notably translated a single Hebrew word into many different Greek words, depending on the context. This is again the same as what most modern translators do.

    Other Comments

    I also didn’t have a good place to throw in this thought, but I wanted to mention it.

    If you use a version like the NIV, you’ve probably seen a footnote like the following before (I got this from Job 35:15):

    Symmachus, Theodotion and Vulgate; the meaning of the Hebrew for this word is uncertain.

    That footnote comes immediately after the word “wickedness”. So, what the footnote is saying is that the translations of Symmachus, Theodotion, and Jerome (the Vulgate) all use the word “wickedness” in Greek or Latin. But, scholars aren’t certain on what the ancient Hebrew word means. So, by comparing translations, we can assume that the Hebrew word probably also meant something similar to “wickedness”. But, for whatever reason, scholars couldn’t say confidently that that is what the Hebrew word means.

    Summary

    So, yeah, this was complicated. We don’t have much information on any of these guys and definitely not much on Symmachus.

    But, it seems that he was a Jew (or a semi-Christian who still believed in following the Old Law) who lived sometime during the 2nd Century, maybe in Caesarea Maritima, who made a very good sounding Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament.

  • Higgaion

    In Psalm 9:16, we read:

    16 The Lord has made Himself known;
    He has executed judgment.
    A wicked one is ensnared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion Selah

    This is the only place in an English translation of the Bible that you will find the word Higgaion.

    However, it does appear three other times (twice in the Psalms and once in Lamentations). The key distinction is that translators had trouble deciding how to translate it in this verse, so they just didn’t translate it and instead kept the Hebrew word: Higgaion.

    Well, how is it translated in the other three areas?

    For the most part, it’s translated as some form of “meditation” or “murmuring”, making the above verse possibly just mean that the reader should reflect on what was just said.

    Many scholars seem to think the word comes from the Hebrew word hagah, which means “to utter” or “to murmur”. That would make Higgaion literally mean “a murmuring”.

    Another option is that the word comes from an Arabic root which has something to do with a deep, vibrating noise. This theory is that when we see Higgaion in the verse above, it was an instruction for the Israelites to let a harp play a solemn little tune while everyone else stays quiet for a moment.

    If that option is true, it would likely be a good comparison to the English word “affetuoso”, which is a musical term for playing soft, tender notes.

  • Gittith

    In the heading to Psalm 8, we read:

    For the music director; on the Gittith. A Psalm of David.

    That word, Gittith, appears also in the headings of Psalm 81 and Psalm 84.

    There are two main theories about what the word means.

    The first, and far more popular, theory is that it comes from the name for the Philistine city of Gath. So, a Gittith would maybe be a type of harp or lyre made in Gath. One Jewish tradition even says that it was a specific instrument that David got when he was in Gath in 1 Samuel 21.

    Another theory is that the word Gittith does come from the word Gath, but in a different way. You see, the city of Gath is named from the Hebrew word Gath, which just means “winepress”. So, this theory goes that Gittith is some sort of melody associated with the grape harvest. Or maybe it’s in reference to treading on the enemies of God like a winepress.

    This theory seems far less likely. However, it does have one thing going for it. In the Ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible (the Septuagint), the word Gittith is translated as “winepress”. The Vulgate translates it the same way in the late fourth century.

    Overall, we don’t know exactly what the word Gittith means, but the best guess thrown out is it was probably some sort of stringed instrument from the city of Gath.