Simple Songs for Psalms

The Psalms as songs

     In that sense, the translators of the Septuagint got it right: the Psalms are more than poetry—they are songs. Some even mention singing within the text. Many were included as regular components of the Jewish feasts as hymns to be sung at certain scripted times. Jesus undoubtedly sang such hymns. (Matt. 26:30; Mark 14:26) Probably, they were all sung at one time or another, though some may have fallen into disuse. What is certain is that they were all meant for presentation at communal events, whatever form that presentation took, whether singing or reading or choral recitation or dramatic performance. The hints of antiphonal formation, or leader/chorus structure, or dramatic parts, are too numerous and suggestive to ignore. While it is not clear that all the early Hebrew poetry was sung, it is obvious that many, if not all, of the Psalms were intended to be sung, and that this might be true of all recorded Hebrew poetry.
     There is solid internal evidence within the Psalms about singing. Singing is mentioned 67 times, song fourteen times, music fifteen times, and there are many references to musical instruments of various kinds. Unquestionably, the earliest uses of the Psalms were in liturgy. Such high uses would naturally require music of the best sort (in the original listeners’ ears), probably music that was to some extent composed. There is no evidence that the ancient Hebrews knew how to write down their music, though there may be certain indications that have survived in the present-day text: Selah, higgaion, some musical and/or poetical forms like sheminith, shiggaion, gittith, miktam, maskil, alamoth, and certain titles seen in the superscripts, evidently the sames of tumes. Perhaps there was a version used by the temple musicians that bore further markings, but none has ever come to light.
     God knew that the music would not survive (even if it had, it would mean nothing to us; music is irreducibly embedded in culture; if you doubt that, let me invite you to a Sudanese church service, provided you are not Sudanese), and that His Word needed to carry over fully in translation. For, as we remarked earlier, the primary poetic vehicle in Hebrew poetry, namely, parallelism and imitation, survives translation, unlike rhyming and meter. It is much more than mere good fortune, that people today can comprehend the Psalms as poetry in very much the same way as the people of Israel did. God’s providence can be seen in this.
     The music is gone, lost in the avalanche of time that lies between us and the Psalmist. But that does not change the nature of the Psalms, nor does it particularly inhibit our understanding of the Psalms as songs. Knowledge of the original music is not essential, for music is embedded in culture. (This is not a statement of cultural relativism in general, but only in respect to music. Of course, the physics of music and of the ear is not optional or mutable, but everything else about music is.) Thus, the original music would probably be as incomprehensible as the original Hebrew would be to most of us.
     The fact that the Psalms are songs provides the opportunity to attach new music to the Psalms, music that makes sense within contemporary culture. It won’t be a perfect substitution, but one need not despair of restoring these works of art to something approximating their original usage and function, even in translation and transplantation into modern Western culture.
     Next, The Psalms as praise and devotion

 
Copyright, 2010-2011, by Robert McAnally Adams,
        Curator, Christian Quotation of the Day.
Logo image Copyright 1996 by Shay Barsabe, of “Simple GIFs”, by kind permission.
Send comments to curator@cqod.com.

Last updated: 3/6/11

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