Psalm 23: A Musical Exegesis

Abstract

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes William L. Holladay, The Psalms through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993), 359. 23rd Psalm. Chichester Psalms. Black, Brown, and Beige. Requiem. J. Clinton McCann Jr., “The Book of Psalms: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections,” in The New Interpreter's Bible: Volume IV (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996), 644–45. Klaus Seybold, Introducing the Psalms (London: T&T Clark, 1990), 116–17. Subsequent scholarship has shown that while this metrical pattern is most often found in laments (Psalm 5, Amos 5), its usage is not restricted to them. S. E. Gillingham, The Poems and Psalms of the Hebrew Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 53. Ibid., 62. George Bush, “Address to the Nation, September 11, 2001,” http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010911-16.html (accessed March 11, 2008). Parallel modes are scales that share the same tonic (root) but have different pitches, such as A major and A minor. Relative modes are scales that share the same notes but have different tonics (roots), such as A major and F minor. In Roman numeral notation, capital letters are used to signify major chords while lower-case letters are used for minor chords. Gillingham, 62. Apostolic Constitutions, 2.7. Emil G. Hirsh, “Psalms,” in Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/view.jsp?artid=574&letter=P&search=Psalms (accessed February 11, 2008). Additional informationNotes on contributorsIsaac EverettIsaac Everett is the minister of liturgical arts for The Crossing, an emerging Christian community in Boston. He is a musician, songwriter, and hymnist with two albums of sacred music, Rotation and Transmission, available on Proost, iTunes, and Rhapsody. This article was adapted from The Emergent Psalter (New York: Church Publishing, 2009), a commentary and musical setting of the psalms written for intimate worship.