Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3. Susan Gillingham

Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3 - Susan Gillingham


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in the weekday evening service according to the rite of the ninth-century Babylonian liturgist Amram Gaon, verse 38 is used after Ps. 22:10 and the *Kaddish, to be followed again by Ps. 20:10. Preceded by Psalm 134, this develops the theme of repentance and the mercy of God.95 The psalm as a whole is read in Christian tradition as an exhortation for repentance, and is part of the *Commination service, concerned with the judgement of God, in the *BCP.

      A grave discourse to utter I intend

      The age of time I purpose to renew

      You, O my charge, to what I teach attend;

      Hear what I speak, and what you hear ensue.

      The things our fathers did to us commend,

      The same are they I recommend to you,

      Which though but heard we know most true to be:

      We heard, but heard, of who themselves did see…

      This psalm has inspired surprisingly little Church music, most of which uses the beginning of the psalm rather than the end. For example, both Giovanni *Gabrieli and Heinrich *Schütz composed pieces, with a Latin setting, nearly half a century after Mary Sidney, of the first three verses of this psalm. Gabrieli’s ‘Attendite popule meus’ was performed at St. Mark’s, Venice; Schütz’s ‘Attendite popule meus legem’, was probably performed in his church in Dresden. Whether the speaker is assumed to be Christ or Moses is not made explicit. *Handel’s arrangement is different because, using Charles Jennens’ libretto, it is for the concert hall rather than the church. His ‘Israel in Egypt’ was performed in 1739, and the texts are Psalms 105, 106 and 78 rather than anything from Exodus. Psalm 78:12–13 is used in Part I, as part of the ‘Plagues in Egypt’, thus illustrating that the message of the psalm is essentially about the importance of remembering God’s mercy for his people.106

      Figure 2 ‘But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity and destroyed them not’. (Ps. 78:38).

      Source: Wragg, A. 1934: The Psalms for Modern Life. New York: Claude Kendall.

      The reception of this psalm testifies in both faith traditions to the importance of remembering, followed by penitence and trust in God’s mercy, with each tradition recognising the ‘parabolic’ nature of the psalm. Christian readings, through verbal and visual exegesis, have been more allusive, whilst nevertheless emphasising the motif of human failure in this psalm.

      Psalm 79: A Communal Lament about Ongoing Exile (i)


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