Psalm 15

I concur with the proposed MCPC text with “Herr Jesu Christ.” I am not familiar with the paraphrase with “Helen” as proposed by the URC.

Text: MCPC, 2011 (LM)

1 LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? And dwell upon your holy hill?
2 The one who walks in righteousness and speaks the truth within his soul.

3 He does not slander with his tongue, nor does his neighbor any wrong;
he will not hear a gossip’s lies or take a slander on his tongue.

4 He will despise the vile and rude, but honors those who fear the LORD.
When he has sworn to his own hurt, he changes not, but keeps his word.

5 He lends his money without charge; he takes no bribe against the good.
That man who does these things shall stand forever; he will not be moved.

Tune: Herr Jesu Christ Dich zu uns Wend (Pensum Sacrum, 1648; harm., Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750)

Commentary

Psalm 15 is titled, “A Psalm of David.”

Psalm 15 describes the one who may dwell on Yahweh’s holy hill and sojourn in his tent (his sanctuary). “Herr Jesu Christ” is an excellent match for Psalm 15, with its robust, confident tone, so it is fitting to choose a tune named after a hymn that asks our Lord Jesus Christ to be present with us — since we are now the dwelling place of the Lord!

I should mention that we did not think that Lowry was a good option (in spite of its long use in the RPCNA) due to the extremely paraphrastic character of the RP text.

Structure:

Since we were unable to find a text that provided a simple, clear presentation of this text, we started from scratch. The four stanza structure that we chose allows each stanza to describe the one who may dwell on God’s holy hill — stanza 1 focusing on his upright “walk” (v2), stanza 2 on his talk (v3), stanza 3 on his sense of honor (v4), and stanza 4 on his use of money (v5).

Translation Notes:

Psalm 15 was one of my first efforts at metrical psalmody. I have no intention, however, of allowing my first draft of Psalm 15 ever to see the glare of the internet!

There are several phrases from the ESV that I wanted to get as closely as possible. As I examined various meters it became clear that the 88 88 structure of long meter would be the best.

Incidentally, this was my standard practice when developing a metrical translation from scratch. I would start by looking over the Psalm for general structure. How many stanzas (of roughly equal length) does the Psalm most naturally fit into? Then I would look at questions of meter. What sort of meter and beat does the Psalm gravitate towards. For Psalm 15, it became clear that eight beats per line worked very well, since all the poetic lines are very similar in length. Only after developing a workable first draft would I then look for a tune to match.

Verse 1 — ESV — “O LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill?
—  metrical — “LORD, who shall sojourn in your tent? And dwell upon your holy hill?”

Verse 4 — ESV — “in whose eyes a vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the LORD;
who swears to his own hurt and does not change;
— metrical — “He will despise the vile and rude, but honors those who fear the LORD.
When he has sworn to his own hurt, he changes not, but keeps his word.”

Tune Notes:

“Herr Jesu Christ dich zu uns Wend” is used in the Trinity Hymnal with Psalm 132 (374), “Lord Jesus Christ, Be Present Now” (379), and “All Things Are Thine” (729).

At first we proposed “Truro” for Psalm 15, given its associations with the processional Psalm 24. But I was convinced by our Subcommittee work that Psalm 15 does not have the same processional theme — which renders Truro less useful here.

Conclusion

I have not yet preached on Psalm 15.

I have not been able to find any recordings of this arrangement of Herr Jesu Christ.

— Peter J. Wallace