Psalms Through the Centuries, Volume 3. Susan Gillingham
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the light of Rev. 20:12.52
Although there are few arrangements of this psalm in music, J. S. *Bach’s triumphant ‘Wir danken Dir, Gott’ is based on the hymns of praise in verses 1 and 9: composed in 1731, on the election of councillors in Leipzig, it is therefore a celebratory piece, with an orchestral sinfonia, motet-like chorus, and ends with ‘Now Praise My Soul the Lord’ accompanied by trumpets.53 Similarly the seventeenth-century Dutch composer Henry Du Mont’s ‘Confitebimur tibi Deus’ is taken from verse 1; the same verse is the focus of the eighteenth-century Dorset composer Joseph Stephenson, in his ‘To Thee, O God, we render praise’: each is a Christian reading (although Stephenson actually became a Unitarian) and each emphasises the psalm’s more positive aspects. The same mood is captured in the more strident metrical psalm by *Tate and Brady, which praises God as the great disposer:
His hand holds forth a dreadful cup,
With purple wine ‘tis crowned;
The deadly mixture, which his wrath
Deals out to nations round.
Of this his saints may sometime taste;
But wicked men shall squeeze
The bitter dregs, and be condemn’d,
To drink the very lees.54
This sort of vindictive emphasis contributed to the political use of this psalm in England and America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries: Isaac *Watts transformed Tate and Brady’s words to contemporise the psalm for the court of George I, so it was subtitled ‘Power and Government belong to God alone: to be applied to the Glorious Revolution by King William, or the Happy Succession of George I to the Throne’. Watts’ Psalms of David Imitated was popular in New England: hence by 1787 John *Mycall had revised the title so it read Applied to the Glorious Revolution in America, July 4th , 1776.55 Conversely, in Lamentation over Boston, ascribed to William *Billings (1778), parts of this psalm—now a protest hymn against the horrors of the aftermath of the American Revolution—were used alongside Psalm 137.
One of the most vivid interpretations of this psalm is in the *Utrecht Psalter (fol. 43r), which depicts the earth on its columns, fast dissolving (verse 3) whilst on a solid part the wicked are trampling on the just. In the heavens is a haloed Christ, with his angels, pouring out wine from one cup to another (verse 8). In the top right the psalmist, with a group of ‘the just’, holds a stag’s head, and with a rod is attacking the antlers of another stag held by the wicked (‘all the horns of the wicked are cut off’: verse 10).56
By contrast, the illuminated initial C to verse 1 in the *St Albans Psalter (Confitebimur tibi Deus) depicts the psalmist rejoicing in the fate of the just, whilst God looks down from heaven with three of the faithful who have been saved: this hints at verse 7, ‘putting down one and lifting up another.’57
A final image is from Moshe *Berger. The image has a deep blue background on three sides, with a turquoise semi-circular wreath-shape set against it; a bright white light emerges from the fourth side and in the centre is an emblem, in purple and red, of David. Berger comments that David still praises God’s faithfulness, for even when he sent the seed of Jacob into exile, he remained Israel’s God and protector.58
So the psalm as a whole is an example of the very different, irreconcilable interpretations given by Jewish and Christian interpreters, although each speak about God’s judgement on their enemies.
Psalm 76: God’s Abode is in Zion (ii)
Psalm 76 has some correspondences with Psalms 46 and 48.59 Its mood is more positive: here the God of Zion can redeem his people. However, the more prophetic elements in Psalm 76, and its references to the terror of God’s judgement, make it closer to the more negative tenor of Psalm 75. If one reads ‘Salem’ in verse 2 as a reference to a northern sanctuary, then verses 1–3 of the psalm might pertain to the Assyrian crisis; these verses would then have been ‘received’ in the South sometime after Sennacherib’s siege of the city in 701. This is certainly the way this was understood in the *Septuagint: an addition to the title reads ‘A Song against [in view of] Assyria’, whilst verses 1–3, the most likely verses from this period, are presented in the past tense. Later Jewish tradition tended to read the psalm as influenced by the Assyrian crisis.
This is a difficult psalm to organise into strophes. Verses 1–3 might be seen as one unit; verses 4–6 suggest another, perhaps from an ancient hymn; verses 7–9 suggest another, marked at the end by *selah; and verses 10–12 could be another, later, addition. So this is another composite psalm also with several problems in translation.60
Much of the psalm’s reception history relates to the violent imagery in the psalm. *Targum tries to temper the harsh tone by adding to verse 4 (Eng. v. 3) that God’s *Shekinah dwelt with his people when they did his will, and the reading of verse 11 (Eng. v. 10) is ‘When you are angry with your people, you will have compassion on them, and they shall praise your name; and you will gird yourself with the residue that remains to you of the heat of your anger with which you raged, to destroy the nations’.61 *Kimḥi reads the psalm as about the last battle against Gog and Magog, bringing in the end of the exile and establishing God’s world rule. The eleventh-century *Talmudic scholar, Hai Gaon, is more specific: this war would be waged during the month of Tishri, at the time of Tabernacles and hence the psalm is to be the ‘Song for the Day’, that day, according to the Talmudic tractate Sopherim (19:2), being the first of *Sukkot.62 Because of the addition of ‘Assyria’ to the title in Greek, as well as the reference to the deposition of the nations in verse 13 (Eng. v. 12), Hezekiah is discussed as a potential Messiah; however, being too proud in his own might, and refusing to sing songs, the honour was returned to David.63 The shared concern in all these writings is with the eventual release of the Jews from exile and the coming of God’s kingdom.
A Christian reading again moves in a different direction. *Ambrose is amongst the first to read the psalm as about the epiphany of God through Christ, causing the earth to tremble. By interpreting ‘Zion’ in verse 2 as the Christian church, a Christian narrative is possible which begins with Christ’s ‘dwelling place’ in Zion: this begins in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea (verse 2), and ends with the earthquake announcing his resurrection (verses 8–9).64 So a Gloria to this psalm runs ‘Glory be to the Father, known in carnal Jewry; glory be to the Son, known in spiritual Jewry.’65 *Cassiodorus connects the ‘terror of judgement’ in verses 8–9 with the saving ‘all the oppressed of the earth’: this is exemplified in Jesus Christ, who when he judges the earth will save the meek.66 These readings explain the use of the psalm as an offertory for Easter Sunday, as seen in the Terra tremuit et quievit settings of verses 8–9. *Handel took up this celebratory theme in his use of verse 6 (alongside Ps 89) in the seventh of his Chandos Hymns (1718–19), ‘Why so full of grief, O my soul?’ which finishes with a joyful chorus celebrating God’s saving justice.67
The celebration of the faithful over the wicked is vividly portrayed in the *Eadwine Psalter (fol. 132r) in its reinterpretation of the *Utrecht Psalter in colour. The *Christ-Logos sits on a globe in the heavens, surrounded by six angels, and just below it is a fortification which appears to be the tabernacle (verse 2) where the righteous are praising God (verse 11); also taken from this verse is a man outside the walls, with his hand to his mouth, making his vow. The Christ-figure is also in the middle of the scene, subduing the wicked (verse 3). Below him three men on horseback appear to be in some sort of stupor (verses 5–6). This is an allegory of Christ’s defence of the church.68
Jewish art occasionally represents the celebratory tone of the psalm: this focusses on God’s defence of his people in Zion. The *Parma Psalter (fol. 105A) has an image of a human figure with an eagle’s head, playing