The Do Not Destroy Psalms

 Recently I came across a complaint that the lectionary and even psalters will omit - fail to print - the nasty verses of the Psalms. (The whole of the link from the Genevan Psalter is worth the read.) How does one define nasty or agressive? And what is the purpose (of God) to invite the whole exposure of our anger through the Psalms?

Four of the Psalms are called 'Do Not Destroy'. When I was first investigating the psalms, I wondered why such a title was appropriate. Are we not to build up? What is it that we are not to destroy?

I wrote this ("with a little help from my friends") in my book Seeing the Psalter in 2013: 

The destruction of the wicked is again the theme. But there is a new note, washing in blood. It is most unexpected to find in the Psalter this image of washing in blood that is used in the book of Revelation (1:5, 7:14).

Some Psalms are over the top, worse than Psalm 137 if you can believe it. I expect do-not-destroy was written, yes written, on some autographed manuscript for its own protection since one’s first impulse is to compost it.

Surely the inscription do-not-destroy is intriguing. This psalm [58] was omitted from the Anglican Psalter of 1959. It is an omission that betrays the error of the time, a time not unlike any other era in human history. It must be that we not destroy the psalms that are inscribed do-not-destroy.[1] Then perhaps we will enable in our era a different outcome, one that does not destroy, damage, or do violence. It seems to me that destruction, obliteration, vengeance and violence are not to be the prerogative of the human individual, corporation, social structure, or nation. There is plenty afoot without our adding to it, but what will we do with the power entrusted to us? And how will we control our need for self-protection?

---

[1] Via Rabbi Rachel Barenblatt, from the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Shabbat 67b: ‘One who covers an oil lamp [causing the flame to burn inefficiently] or uncovers a kerosene lamp [allowing the fuel to evaporate faster] violates the prohibition of bal tashchit / Do not destroy.’

In Sefer Ha-Hinukh, the Book of Education (Rabbi Pinhas haLevi of Barcelona, 16th century), we read: ‘The root reason for the precept [of bal tashchit/do not destroy] is known: for it is in order to train our spirits to love what is good and beneficial and to cling to goodness...’ It is good to be ‘distressed at every ruination and spoilage that they see; and if they are able to do any rescuing, they will save anything from destruction, with all their power.’

This month James McGrath is considering the Do Not Destroy psalms using the music that I have generated from the te'amim. He asks a number of good and sometimes difficult questions. And the post begs several more. Perhaps foremost is, Can we legitimately use a mapping of the te'amim below the notes (7 in the poetry books, and 8 in the prose books) to a modal scale? (I think we can get away with this.) And if we do, does our modern ear that hears major and minor allow us to hear the quarter tones that the ancients may have used in their tunings?

How are these inscriptions set: In Psalms 57 it is simple: e B g B ^A. The others use a variety of underlays. You will note that I have only shown part of the whole phrase, but I have shown where the Do Not Destroy is set, and it is a different melody each time. Why, I wonder is 57:1 so different from 59:1? In 57:1 the whole inscription including the part I did not show after the atnah, is a bicolon. In 59:1 it is a tricolon. In 58:1, there is only a slight pause. Essentially the verse is sing as a single phrase. Psalms 75:1 is a bicolon and the only one of the four that is of Asaph.

The setting of the inscriptions for the Psalms headed: Do not destroy

These are large questions. As I noted in my second book, The Song in the Night (2016), using the program I wrote to convert the Leningrad Codex to MusicXML, I compared some cantillation schemes and concluded that the mapping that Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura (SHV) fit for my ears over other options. It also fits from a scientific point of view and it greatly condenses the explanation of the signs as I described in my ladder series last year. I did not duplicate her work but I have used her results immensely to my benefit. My book is short but its reach is long. It has made me get back to the delight of composing and arranging. Younger researchers are duplicating her work - it is a journey that needs a voice, knowledge of modern technology, and a lot of digging to get to the multiplicity of cantillation traditions in the communities around the world.

Re major and minor - SHV is more nuanced than this but does not spell out all possible interpretations of the modality of the lines. She says that Mode requires a musical decision. I doubt very much that Do Not Destroy or Al Shoshannim (45, 60, 69, 80, singular or plural) are names of melodies. But they may be hints of mode. I was recently directed by a younger researcher to the 1929 volume by Idelsohn on Jewish music and its historical development. Idelsohn has this to say about major and minor.

Minor (scale I) is not considered sad, nor is major (scale III) considered joyous. Quite the contrary, the first scale is the basis upon which very joyous tunes are built while scale III serves for serious music. (Page 28).

Needless to say the variety possible is well beyond the scope of a blog post.

So do the inscriptions indicate a melody? Melodies and stanza structure are defined with the te'amim in the Psalms. I have not yet seen a particular 'melody', sequence of musical notes making a phrase, confined for example, to the verses of a psalm with a particular inscription. A psalm verse may have a unique melody, but only when you add in the supra-lineal te'amim.

What is true is that we westerners have largely neglected musical training for our Biblical Studies professionals and our religious ministers, priests and rabbis alike. Our interpretations are often tone-deaf as a result. Musical training requires a sustained effort over years to mature the brain and the ear. I have proved this in my old age to my own surprise. Since hearing of SHV's deciphering key, I seemed to understand immediately (that's a sign of trouble), but I assure you it is taking me years to appreciate where it leads. It's like Bach, one simply does not enter into it with understanding alone but with experience. A quick understanding is of limited value. Quickening the ear to hear is a lifetime's work.

It appears from the lectionary readings that we are embarrassed by the violence attributed to Yahweh in the Scriptures. Surely it is an improvement over taking the violence into our own hands as has every nation since the beginning of time.