There is strictly synonymous parallelism between the two lines of this verse: hands/ fingers, made/ fashioned, harp/ lyre. It can easily be combined into one line, but it is hard to keep it from sounding trite: “I made a harp.” There is a problem with the words harp and lyre. The Greek noun for harp is a general term for a musical instrument; the Greek noun for lyre refers specifically to a stringed instrument, presumably something like a hand-held harp. The question is whether they refer to the same instrument. Traduction œcuménique de la Bible translates the first noun “flute.” There is some small justification for this; the word is used to refer to musical pipes. But more likely it is simply a case of parallel terms.

An alternative translation model for this verse is:

With the fingers of my own hands,
I made a harp to play music on.

Quoted with permission from Bullard, Roger A. and Hatton, Howard A. A Handbook on The Shorter Books of the Deuterocanon. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 2006. For this and other handbooks for translators see