Hymns and Hymnwriting     •     Echoes of Creation

Psalm 29: Ascribe to Jehovah

Music: [Sheet Music] [Score] [MIDI File]
Notes: [Textual] [Musical]

Ascribe to Jehovah, O sons of the mighty,
    Ascribe to Jehovah his glorious might,
Assemble before him in willing obedience,
    Arrayed in his righteousness, pure in his sight.

The voice of Jehovah resounds in the heavens,
    The voice of Jehovah arouses the seas,
The voice of Jehovah can scatter his creatures,
    The voice of Jehovah can shatter the trees.

Jehovah is king over all of creation,
    Jehovah will reign till rebellion shall cease,
Jehovah will strengthen and rescue his nation,
    Jehovah will bless all the nations with peace.

The temple of God rises over the heavens,
    The throne of the Lord towers over the flood,
The stars in their courses, the waves of the ocean,
    The whole of creation shouts 'Glory to God!'

Text

This text is very closely based on the psalm. In the New American Standard Version, several critical lines were already in meter, and just kept singing the tune to me until I had to work out the details. I had no ambitious goal beyond the challenge of fitting the psalm into metric stanzas (challenge enough!)

Wresting the words into meter and rhyme is not the essence of the exercise: if we focus on that, we risk losing touch with the original message. The inner logic, the poetic techniques1, the wordplay, all deserve more attention simply because they are an integral part of the original text. Verbal repetition is reflected simply enough: within each stanza, every line starts out with the same sound. The specific repetition of "Jehovah," "heaven," "sea," "creation," and "nation" (or their synonyms) also follows the template of the psalm.

Each stanza has a coherent theme, forming two symmetric patterns:

1: PRAISE to God from the community
2: God's REIGN over creation
3: God's REIGN over the community
4: PRAISE to God from all of creation
 
1: MORAL praise
2: PHYSICAL authority
3: MORAL authority
4: PHYSICAL praise

This distorts the structure of the psalm in two ways: the "storm" imagery1a of the psalm is only briefly summarized here. And the last two stanzas partially overlap (that is, repeat the meaning of the same lines in the psalm.)

Two interpretations of the language of the psalm might deserve note: I expanded "in holy array" using allusions to New Testament language using the same metaphor for the same purpose. "Rebellion" is a more subtle interpretation: I tend to agree with commentators and poets who see in the "sea" a symbol of chaos2, that is, of rebellion.

Psalm 29 includes a call to worship, and like Psalm 104 would serve as a good opening song.

Music

This fine Dutch folk song is the proper tune for the fine opening hymn We gather together to ask the Lord's blessing3, and is occasionally used for other texts. Coincidentally, the theme of the proper text is very similar to that of the psalm, although the metaphorical categories used are quite different.

The tune, with its majestic stepwise movement, works well in the "vocal warmup" mode -- an important practical consideration.

Notes

1The original Hebrew text did not feature either rhyme or regular meter. It did include anaphora, repeated words or sounds at the beginning of a line: see the notes on Breath of the Lord.
1aBut compare my Breath of the Lord.
2See also the notes on John Keble's God, the Lord, a King remaineth.
3See Great Songs of the Church; it is otherwise neglected in our hymnals.
This text, © Stephen Hutcheson, 2005, and offered freely for use under a Creative Commons License.
Creative Commons License

These studies are created by members of the West Allen Church of Christ in Allen, Texas