PSALMS
Kenneth W. Phifer
March 30, 2003

The Psalms of the Hebrew Bible are familiar texts to us, not in their entirety 
but in the many phrases that have come to be part of our heritage in the 
English language. We have all heard the 23rd Psalm, "The Lord is my 
shepherd, I shall not want " Many of us also know the 100th Psalm, that 
begins.  "Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands " 

There are many phrases found in the Psalms that most people do not know 
come from the Psalms. The words of Jesus on the cross, " My God, My God, 
why hast thou forsaken me?,"  are the opening lines of the 22nd Psalm. "Out 
of the mouth of babes " comes from Psalm 8 and Psalm 17 compares "the 
apple of thine eye" with "the shadow of thy wings." The 55th Psalm talks of 
the "wings of the dove," while Psalm 90 says that "the days of our years are 
threescore and ten." 

Musically, the Psalms are an integral part of the compositions of the past 
four hundred years and more. The Latin versions were sung in many choir 
schools and schools that had glee clubs. Vivaldi's Beatus vir was a setting of 
the 112th Psalm. Stravinsky wrote a Symphony of Psalms. And we have 
heard the splendid music chosen by Sarah for the choir to perform this 
morning.

The Psalms are interwoven into the Passover haggadah. T.S. Eliot has 
allusions to Psalm 137 in "The Fire Sermon" that is part of The Waste Land. 
Jews and Christians have used the Psalms in any number of rituals, and 
continue to this day to include them as regular parts of their liturgy, study 
and meditation.

The Psalms are familiar to us even when we do not know the source of the 
words we are hearing. 

What are these texts and why have they endured? Why do they matter to 
people in the 21st century, given their ancient heritage and sharply different 
language and outlook? What might we who are charting a new religious path 
into the future learn from these old poems, once sung to tunes unknown in a 
language few of us understand about matters that at best we can only make 
guesses? 

The first task is to make clear what the Psalms are, how and why they came 
into being, what the major types of Psalms are, and what their theological 
outlook is. Then we can see what lessons they might offer to us.

The Psalms are songs, mostly songs of praise in one form or another. The 
Hebrew title of the book reflects this. It is tehillim, which means praise or 
songs of praise. Our English title is drawn from the Greek by way of the 
Latin, using words that mean accompanied song. Some scholars feel this is a 
more accurate rendering of the way in which these pieces were heard, 
namely as accompanied songs, probably on an instrument not unlike the one 
featured on our cover. For the most part, the Psalms were used in ritual 
settings in the ancient Israelite religion both in the northern kingdom, Israel, 
and in the southern kingdom, Judah. 

There is a great deal of scholarly argument as to when the Psalms were 
actually written. Many are ascribed to David, and for long centuries it was 
thought that this brilliant king had been the composer. Had he not, during his 
predecessor's reign, soothed the troubled soul of King Saul with his playing?

For a while it was thought that none of the Psalms had been written by 
David, but were almost exclusively post-exilic, nearly four centuries after 
David's death.

Now literary evidence has persuaded the mainstream of thought to declare 
that these texts were written some time between the 11th and the sixth 
centuries Before the Common Era, roughly1000 BCE and 500 BCE, 
embracing mostly pre-exilic work but with some Psalms for example, the 
137th, a lament for lost Jerusalem clearly dating from a time after the fall 
of Judah and the destruction of the Temple and Jerusalem in 586 BCE.

The final compilation may well have been made as late as the third century 
BCE, but it is likely that few changes would have been made at that time. 
The weight of tradition for keeping things as they had been handed down 
was quite influential. 

Thus we have 150 Psalms, traditionally understood to have been divided into 
five sections. The five sections are Psalms 1-41, 42-72, 73-89, 90-106, and 
107-150. The divisions appear to have been arbitrary, though each section 
save the last ends with a doxology. It may have been that the divisions were 
based on how many of the pieces fit onto a scroll. 

It is very likely that the number of divisions was chosen to allude to the 
Torah, the Five Books of Moses. A Midrash on the first Psalm from the 
Talmudic period stated that "as Moses gave five books of laws to Israel, so 
David gave Five Books of Psalms "

Usually the Psalms are thought to fall into five different types, with a sixth 
category for all the ones that don't fit comfortably into one of the five types. 
This miscellaneous category includes wisdom poetry, enthronement songs, 
prophetic liturgies, and one or two that simply defy description or 
understanding.

The first of the five major types is hymns or songs of praise. Psalm nine 
begins, "I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, I will tell of thy 
wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in thee, I will sing praise to thy 
name, O Most High." Songs of praise.

A second type is the lament of the community. Psalm 44 describes how 
"thou hast cast us off and abased us thou has made us the taunt of our 
neighbors All this has come upon us though we have not forgotten thee, or 
been false to thy covenant Nay, for thy sake we are slain all the day long, 
and accounted as sheep for the slaughter."  Songs of national lament.

A third type is the royal psalm. Psalm 45 is such a Psalm. It rejoices over a 
royal wedding and includes these lines: "Your divine throne endures for ever 
and ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity; you love righteousness 
and hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the 
oil of gladness above your fellows "  Royal psalms. 

The fourth kind is the individual lament, which on my reading of them 
seemed to predominate. In the 69th Psalm we read that "I am wearied by my 
crying, my throat is parched. My eyes grow bleary, as I wait, O my God. 
More numerous than the hairs on my head are my stealthy enemies. Many 
more than my locks are my deceitful foes." Personal laments.

Finally there are psalms of thanksgiving, as in Psalm 32: "Out of love for me 
did Yahweh hear my plea for his mercy I was brought low but he saved 
me 'Return, my soul, to your rest, for Yahweh has treated you kindly, For 
you, my soul, have been rescued from Death, you, mine eye, from Tears, 
you, my foot, from Banishment. I shall walk before Yahweh in the Fields of 
Life."

These are the five categories into which most of the Psalms may be 
classified: Hymns of praise, national laments, royal psalms, personal 
laments, and thanksgiving. 

The music itself is harder to understand because it is impossible to know 
what it sounded like. We can assert with some degree of certainty only that 
vocal and instrumental music played an important part in the worship of the 
Israelites as least as early as the eighth century BCE.

Among the instruments in use were stringed instruments known variously as 
the lyre, the harp, and the zither, wind instruments like a cornet, a flute, and 
a pipe, and percussive instruments called cymbals and timbrels. 

The superscriptions found at the head of 116 of the Psalms were later 
additions rather than part of the original creation. Seventy three of these say 
"of David" and 55 "Choirmaster."  Among the others used just once or twice 
are "Sons of Korah," "For Instruction," "Do Not Destroy," and "Love 
Song."

There is no way to know what these titles suggest or why they were placed 
there. Often they seem unrelated to the psalm they are attached to. There are 
many words used once and found in no other place in the Hebrew Bible. 
They are for the most part ignored since so little is or can be known about 
them.

By the time of Rabbi Hillel, an immediate predecessor of Jesus, the Psalms 
were deeply embedded in the Jewish liturgy. Written evidence shows that in 
the first two centuries of the Common Era, only the Torah was a more 
popular source of quotation than the Psalms both in the Temple before it was 
destroyed in the year 70CE and in the synagogue. That attachment to the 
Psalms has continued with modern Hebrew prayer books containing both 
portions of Psalms and whole ones in large abundance.

Christianity has been no less devoted to the Psalms. The New Testament 
quotes 93 passages from the Psalms, and early churches used the Psalms as 
part of their worship. When the Psalms were translated into Latin by Jerome 
in the fourth century, they became even more important as both a personal 
devotional manual and a guide to the liturgy in the church. Candidates for 
ordination were required to have a thorough knowledge of the Psalms. Many 
different liturgies in Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant settings use 
the Psalms. Indeed, no book of the Hebrew Bible is used as much. 

The reason for this is simple: both Judaism and Christianity are theistic 
faiths and one way of reading the Psalms is as a tribute to, a conversation 
with, an abasement before, or a statement of faith in God.

The theology of the Psalms is for the most part an account book theology. 
The ones who wrote these texts believed that they had an intimate 
connection with the deity. They believed that each act they committed was 
either good or bad and was noted by that deity. 

When they did good things, they were rewarded. The crops were fruitful, the 
animals fat and healthy. Enemies were repulsed at the borders and many 
children were born to them.  

In the 41st Psalm we read: "By this I know that thou art pleased with me, in 
that my enemy has not triumphed over me." And earlier in that same Psalm 
we are told that "Blessed is he who consider the poor! The Lord delivers him 
in the day of trouble; The Lord protects him and keeps him alive The Lord 
sustains him on his sickbed; in his illness thou healest all his infirmities." 

When bad things happened to them, they assumed that it was because they 
had failed in their obligations and were being punished for their sins. 

Psalm 32 tells us that "many are the pangs of the wicked When I declared 
not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For 
day and night they hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by 
the heat of summer."

Sometimes the Psalmist does not like the arrangement we mortals have been 
given: "Thou dost sweep us away; we are like a dream, like grass which is 
renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the 
evening it fades and withers. For we are consumed by thy anger, by thy 
wrath we are overwhelmed…Return, O Lord! How long? Have pity on thy 
servants!" (Psalm 90)

Despite the burden of sin, despite the wrath of God that is awful to behold, 
despite the knowledge of the brevity of our lives, the ultimate theological 
stance of the writers of the Psalms is that of trust. 

The 27th Psalm opens with these words: "The Lord is my light and my 
salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom 
shall I be afraid?" 

The 62nd Psalm echoes this sentiment: "For God alone my soul waits in 
silence; from him comes my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation, 
my fortress; I shall not be greatly moved."

The calming message of the 23rd Psalm has been of importance to people of 
all theological understandings. It says simply, whatever language one uses, 
that whatever happens, in the end all will be well.

Despite these bold assertions of faith, in point of fact dreadful things did 
happen to these people. In the course of the 500 years or so when the Psalms 
were being written, the kingship so desired by the Israelites did not turn out 
well. David may have unified them and Solomon built splendid buildings, 
but the immediate aftermath was the division of the people into two 
kingdoms. Two hundred years later, 10 of the 12 tribes were carried away by 
the Assyrians and lost to history. One hundred and thirty years after that 
experience, the two southern tribes of Judah were hauled away to Babylon, 
their capital city Jerusalem in ruins, their Temple destroyed.

One could legitimately wonder how terrible their sins could have been to 
have brought on such disasters or one could ask if there were not other 
factors involved, including a measure of randomness. 

Most people today would probably not accept the account book theology of 
the Psalmists, understanding that events have multiple causes and that 
whatever else a deity might do, it is highly unlikely that that deity would 
spend time totting up our sins and virtues as a way of deciding whether to 
allow our gardens to grow, our women to become pregnant, our businesses 
to flourish, and our enemies to be defeated.

Most of us, even those of us who are of a theistic bent of mind, accord 
human beings more freedom than the Psalmist did. We do not expect 
constant intervention by the divine. We believe we each have a 
responsibility for our own lives and a measure of freedom with which we 
can carry out that responsibility.

So what can the Psalms teach us cynics, skeptics, doubting believers, 
humanists of the 21st century? 

As with many ancient texts, from THE ILIAD to Plato's REPUBLIC to the 
Hindu's BHAVAGAD-GITA, we do not have to agree with the theology or 
philosophy that inspired and saturates the text to derive wisdom from it. 
There are many valuable lessons to be learned because these people were 
human beings able to express themselves clearly about human situations. 

Even we, the smart people of the technological 21st century, with all our 
gadgets and equipment and instant communications and fancy travel and 
sophisticated weapons, even we can learn from others who are not like us.

What can we learn? Several things.

The first thing to learn is about the human heart.

We can learn how easily we can feel abandoned and in despair, and that this 
is part of being human. We are not, then, alone, but part of an ancient and 
modern chorus of hurt and suffering. 

"My wounds grow foul and fester because of my foolishness, I am utterly 
bowed down and prostrate; all the day I go about mourning…I am utterly 
spent and crushed; I groan because of the tumult of my heart My heart 
throbs, my strength fails me; and the light of my eyes it also has gone from 
me. My friends and companions stand aloof from my plague, and my 
kinsmen stand afar off For I am ready to fall, and my pain is ever with 
me." (Psalm 38)

The Psalms can give us words for our anguish, and the comfort of knowing 
that others have walked this path before us.

There is another layer of the human heart, one we do not like to see, the 
layer of bitterness and vindictiveness. At one point or another in our lives, 
we have all surely wished someone ill. The Psalmists knew this sentiment 
exactly. 

In the 58th Psalm, the writer, after talking of how the gods do not judge 
humanity rightly and the wicked escape their proper punishment, boldly 
demands that God "break the teeth in their mouths…Let them vanish like 
water that runs away; like grass let them be trodden down and wither. Let 
them be like the snail which dissolves into slime, like the untimely birth that 
never sees the sun…The righteous will rejoice when he sees the vengeance; 
he will bathe his feet in the blood of the wicked."

In the 137th Psalm, a Psalm composed in Babylon that speaks of longing to 
return to Jerusalem—"By the waters of Babylon, there we sat down and 
wept when we remembered Zion."—we also feel the fury of this people  
against those who have razed the city and taken them away—"O daughter of 
Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall he be who requites you with what you 
have done to us! Happy shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes 
them against the rock!"

Such sentiments have been heard in the last 100 years from Armenians
and Jews, from Vietnamese and the Black people of South Africa, from 
Palestinians and the people of Kosovo, and from too many others.

The human heart is full of suffering and hostility. The human heart reaches 
out in pain to denounce those who have inflicted the pain, hoping they will 
experience what we have had to experience. 

Whatever laws we write, whatever moral codes we establish, it is unwise to 
forget these deep recesses of anguish and vengeance that are part of our 
make-up as well. No small part of the motivation for many of the worst acts 
we commit is to be found in our hurt and our determination not to be hurt 
again. 

That is surely a large element in the continued mutual destruction of Israelis 
and Palestinians. 

I have seen it in a marriage that did not work but whose partners seemed 
unable to leave each other alone. They spent more than 20 years fighting 
through the courts on every conceivable issue either of them could think of, 
just to annoy and get back at the other one.

The attitude of our president is Psalmistic in its rage at those who have dared 
to attack this country and full of vengeful fury at his current foe, Saddam 
Hussein. At a press briefing some months ago, Mr. Bush commented that 
certain people associated with 9/11 "have been taken care of." Most 
listeners, observing the smirk on the president's face, took that to mean that 
they had been assassinated. 

The Psalms can instruct us or remind us of the many layers of human agony, 
sometimes resulting in cries for revenge. We may even find words that speak 
our bitterness better than we know how to do. This is the first lesson of the 
Psalms for us moderns.

The second is that expressing that sense of suffering is of great importance. 
It is not wise or helpful to hold it in, to try to ignore it, to pretend it is not as 
awful as it really is. 

This is an old truth that was newly discovered in the last century, during 
which the psychological and psychiatric revolution taught us once again of 
the depths inside a single human being and of the many hurts that are buried 
there that need some form of expression. One way or the other, they will 
come out.

Those of us who have mourned a loved one understand this. If we have 
cared for someone, their death will cause us to feel bad. Such feelings do not 
come on a regular schedule, but with wild randomness. If we have been 
taught, as many have, that we should not let others see us cry or be sad, we 
may lose the opportunity to get some of this sorrow out of our system. 

Some of us go to grief groups to share with others in similar situations. 
Sometimes these groups are specific to the circumstances of the death of our 
loved one. There are groups for people who have lost a child and groups for 
people whose loved one was murdered and groups for people whose loved 
one committed suicide. 

Some of us seek counseling and therapy. Some of us have a close friend, 
sometimes a person who has been through what we are going through. 
Sometimes we keep a journal in which we write down whatever thoughts, 
however dark, come into our minds, whatever feelings, however grim, come 
into our hearts.

The point is to express the terrible feelings we have, let out the awful 
thoughts that will not leave us alone, and to do so in a way where we are not 
vulnerable, not going to be shamed because of the way we feel or think, not 
going to be threatened because of our feelings or thoughts.

The Psalms tell us this is important and they show us how to do it.

One writer has suggested that the Psalms are an important reason why Jews, 
unlike any other ancient tribal people, have survived. The Jews learned how 
to grieve, how to lament, how to let the anguish out. When hard times came, 
as they certainly have for the Jews through history, here were some texts that 
could be used as guidelines for how to deal with those hard times.

Whether that is true or not, it is certainly true that individuals have in the 
Psalms a model of expression of the downcast soul. 

Martin Marty, a church historian, wrote a little book called A CRY OF 
ABSENCE about the experience of his first wife, Elsa, dying. They chose in 
the last, grim months of her life to read some of the Psalms every night at 
midnight when she received her pain medication. One night, when it was his 
turn to read, he said he could not, but she insisted. So he read, "I cry out in 
the night before thee For my soul is full of troubles Thou has put me in 
the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and damp " (Psalm 88) When he 
was finished reading, she said, "I need that kind the most." 

What she meant was that she did not need sugar-coating. She needed truth, 
harsh as it may be. She needed to have her inner fears expressed. She did not 
need what, as Marty points out, it is so easy to find: books that say cheer up, 
books that say that God loves you and so does the author, books of easy 
solace. 

The Psalms certainly offer no easy solace. They are far more of the order of 
Dylan Thomas, who wrote about his father's death, "Do not go gentle into 
that good night; rage, rage against the dying of the light," than they are of 
Stoic calm or Taoistic acceptance. 

What the Psalms do is to point to the need for honesty and the need to state 
the facts somewhere: in our conversations, in our writings, in our sessions 
with a professional. 

What the ancient Israelites and later Jews did was to sing these songs within 
a religious context. There were several reasons for this.

First, a religious liturgy was a safe environment, whereas an individual 
dealing with such powerful emotions might not be able to deal with them 
effectively or safely. They could break an individual's spirit or inspire that 
person to do harm to someone.

Secondly, Israel was always a community, so that the wounds of one were 
the ones of all. Expressing such wounds in a ritualistic way was merely an 
expression of the truth of how these people lived. 

Thirdly, there seems to be in the Psalms a very elusive but strong sense that 
merely to sing the song is in its own way a step out of the despair. It is a 
psychological truth that often our distress can be eased by just talking or 
writing it out. 

The Psalms instruct us in the value of expressing our inner woe.

One final point: the Psalms do not encourage us to worship them but to be 
inspired by them to write our own psalms for our needs in our own times.
Psalms 96 and 98 begin with the words, "O sing to the Lord a new song " 
That is what the Psalmists themselves were doing. It is what we should do in 
our own age.

Kathleen Farmer, writing the commentary on Psalms in THE WOMEN'S 
BIBLE COMMENTARY, notes that women are largely excluded from the 
Psalms. These texts are overwhelmingly masculine in orientation. What 
women have done is to write new songs, their own songs, songs that amplify 
and extend and correct the old Psalms.

According to psalms 96 and 98, that is what we are all supposed to do. 

The times in which we live are in some ways not unlike those ancient times. 
Great powers vie for land and wealth. There are rich and poor. Men and 
women still struggle to understand each other. Life is precious and 
sometimes among some people life is cheap. 

With all the similarities, there are vast differences as well. The technology 
with which we have surrounded ourselves, the knowledge we have of how 
the world actually works, the huge numbers of people that now fill the globe 
all are unprecedented. 

We must learn to sing a new song for our new age. That does not mean to 
throw out the old songs. There are still some pretty melodies and meaningful 
words that can calm our fears and rouse our spirits. It means only that we 
cannot rest on the creative efforts of past generations, but must devise the 
tunes and shape the words that fit our own times.

Mary Oliver is a writer of new songs. Her poems, blending the natural and 
the personal, speak to an age in which environmental concerns and 
individual helplessness before the juggernauts of greed and destructiveness 
prey upon our minds. She reminds us of who we are, of how unique each 
one of us is, of a way to live that honors the earth and humanity.

Czeslaw Milosz is a writer of new songs. His poems and essays sing the saga 
of the 20th century in Europe, from his native Poland through most of the 
other countries of that continent, and then on to America. He sings of our 
spiritual impoverishment in a world of machines, of the power of 
connections between individuals and communities, of the horror of war and 
violence, of the hope often found in unlikely places.

Country singers have begun singing songs of our 21st century times, of our 
war in Iraq and our degradation of the environment, of corporate greed and 
priestly predation, and always of the endless yearning between men and 
women and men and men and women and women to relate happily and 
meaningfully. Their songs represent many different views, but they are 
songs of this age, just as rock 'n roll and jazz and folk and all the other 
forms of music are.

One way of understanding Unitarian Universalism is to see it as a new 
religious song. Created out of the pieces of its parent religion, Christianity, 
and to some extent its grandparent, Judaism, Uuism has tried to speak of the 
world in new ways.

What UU's have perceived and sung is that every individual must be free to 
form her own opinions and to make his own decisions.

What UU"s have perceived and sung is that no religion has the right to claim 
that it possesses absolute truth.

What UU's have perceived and sung is the importance of listening to and 
respecting one another. 

What UU's have perceived and sung is the responsibility of individuals 
working together to make this world a better place for every one who lives 
in it.

There is a lot more to our song, but these are the highlights, and they are 
insights that the world would do well to listen to.

The Psalms remind us that we need to sing new songs appropriate to our 
own age.

They are ancient texts, these Psalms, and as such will have little meaning for 
some of us and points of bafflement for all of us. But there are ways in 
which these ancient texts can instruct us.

They can teach us of the depths of the human heart, theirs and ours.

They can remind us that we must find safe ways of expressing our anguish.

They can inspire us to create the new songs that our times call for.

If the Psalms do nothing more than that, it will have been worthwhile to 
have read them.


All rights reserved
Copyright 2003


BRIEF REMARKS ABOUT THE HISTORY 0F PSALM SINGING

SARAH ALBRIGHT, MUSIC DIRECTOR, MARCH  30, 2003


Since ancient times the Psalms have played an important part in the religious 
rites of the Christian Church.  No other book of the Bible is so inherently 
musical or has made such a strong impression on the music associated with 
prayer, praise and thanksgiving.
The earliest accounts of Psalm singing as part of the Christian liturgy date 
back to the 4th century.  Psalm singing went through many changes up until 
the 9th and 10th centuries, the time of the earliest surviving records.  These 
earliest forms of Psalmody were performed in three different ways in the 
early church.  The first way was antiphonal, in which the verses of a Psalm 
were sung alternately by the two halves of a choir seated facing each other 
on opposite sides of the alter.  Second was responsorial Psalmody in which 
one or more soloists or cantors sang one or more verses of the Psalm and the 
choir sang a refrain or response at the beginning or end of the verses.  Third, 
was direct Psalmody, that is, an elaborate melody sung without a refrain or 
response.  These earliest forms of Psalm singing are what we would 
recognize as Gregorian Chant which draws most of its texts from the Book 
of Psalms.  Musical manuscripts of these chants have been preserved since 
the 10th century.

Now-taking a giant leap into more recent times in England and America in 
the 17th century, there existed a practice known as "lining out."  This meant 
that a line of text was read or sung first by the minister or other leader and 
followed by the congregation repeating the line.  There were few songbooks 
at this time and many people weren't literate.  The singing itself was 
generally a spirited syllabic style at first, but by the late 17th century it 
became quite slow and dragging allowing the congregation to add their own 
improvisation, thus resulting in some clashing dissonances. Eventually 
though, Psalmody was influenced by the German Lutheran Chorale and 
English Church music to become much the style we see today in most 
standard hymnbooks.

The Pilgrims and the Puritans came to America with a thorough grounding 
in Psalmody which provided their sole musical form of recreation as well as 
religious songs.  They brought with them the Psalter which is a collection of 
Psalms.  In the mid 16th century several French composers took all 150 
Psalm texts and set them to melodies with rhymed paraphrases of the 
Psalms.  This work became known as the Genevan Psalter and was the 
prototype for other Psalters in different languages, particularly English.  The 
Ainsworth Psalter was one such work brought to America by the Pilgrims in 
1620, and the Bay Psalm Book of 1640 was the first indigenous Psalter to be 
published in the colonies.  The tunes of the Genevan Psalter are quite 
remarkable and the Psalter was very popular in Europe as well as America.  
Indeed there are six hymns in our own hymnbook taken from the Genevan 
Psalter, one of which we sing every Sunday morning in our opening ritual.  
Many of the major composers in history have used the Psalms as a basis for 
chorales, oratorio and anthems, and as is evident in our selections this 
morning, most of these pieces use only a portion of the Psalm text in a 
paraphrased manner.  When you open our hymnal to a song we are singing, I 
encourage you to glance at the bottom of the page to see the origin of the 
song.  I hope you enjoy hearing our wonderful choir raise their voices in 
song and Psalm.