Women with Hand Drums, Dancing
Exodus 15:20; 1 Samuel 18:6-7; 2 Samuel 1:20; Psalm 68:25; Jeremiah 31:4, 13
Exodus 15:20 Then the prophet Miriam, Aaron’s sister, took a tambourine in her hand, and all the women went out after her with tambourines and with dancing.
1 Samuel 18:6-7 As they were coming home, when David returned from killing the Philistine, the women came out of all the towns of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with songs of joy, and with musical instruments. And the women sang to one another as they made merry, “Saul has killed his thousands and David his ten thousands.”
Psalm 68:25…the singers in front, the musicians last, between them young women playing tambourines…
“Miriam’s Dance” from the Tomić Psalter, c. 1360, from Wikimedia Commons.
In Ancient Near Eastern cultures, the drum was a woman’s instrument; women drummers performed together in both secular and religious contexts. In fact, multiple biblical passages document women drummers performing together. Here are some examples:
Miriam and the Hebrew women dance and drum after crossing the Red Sea (Exodus 15:20).
After a victory over the Philistines, David is welcomed by women drumming and dancing (1 Samuel 18:6)
Jephthah’s daughter welcomes her father home after a battle with dancing and drumming (Judges 11:34).
In Psalm 68, female drummers process into the temple. Scholar Carol Meyers notes this indicates women participated in public religious occasions.
Our very own McKenzie Brummond, a Yale Divinity School graduate and contributor to WomenintheBible.org, is herself a drummer. She wrote about discovering the legacy of women drummers in Scripture in her article, “Female Drummers in the Ancient Near East.”