Psalm 22

Lord, Why Have You Forsaken Me

I. Text: Origins 

In the 1980s, Episcopal priest Christopher L. Webber (1932–) of Christ Church, Bronxville, NY, perceived a need for new metrical psalms, for two significant reasons. One, it seemed as though the metrical psalms in circulation had become outmoded, such as the versions by Tate & Brady or the Scots. “Although there are metrical psalters in existence, most of them date back two or three centuries. Their language is often dated and the rhymes quaint or amusing to the modern ear,” he wrote at the time.[1] Two, being a member of the Episcopal church and a user of the newly revised Episcopal Book of Common Prayer (1979), with its appointed lectionary, he saw a need to provide a set of metrical psalms and canticles in coordination with the portions set out by the lectionary, consistent with the language of the Psalms as translated in the BCP. To that end, he created A New Metrical Psalter (1986). The most widely reprinted paraphrase from that collection has been “Lord, why have you forsaken me,” from Psalm 22:1–11. Webber’s version was crafted in four stanzas of four lines, in Long Meter (Fig. 1). The corresponding Psalm from the 1979 BCP is also given below for reference (Fig. 2).

II. Text: Analysis

The original Hebrew text, being written mostly in paired lines, with one triple verse, has 23 lines, which was condensed in Webber’s paraphrase into 16. The first stanza of the paraphrase includes verses 1–2 of the psalm, the second follows 3–5, the third paraphrased stanza continues with verses 6–8, and the fourth covers the ideas of 9–11. In many cases, Webber was able to incorporate words directly from the BCP. The poetry follows a simple rhyme scheme of abcb.

In his preface, the author spoke of the need to strike a balance between fidelity and fluidity:

The point of using the psalm in the liturgy is to let the words of the Bible be heard as clearly as possible through whatever translation or paraphrase may be used. Therefore A New Metrical Psalter attempts to follow as closely as possible the original texts as they are presented in the Book of Common Prayer, 1979. The language of the Prayer Book Psalter takes precedence over all other consideration except that of meter.

Conversely, the attempt to hew close to the original texts can produce very awkward English. The old metrical psalters often abandoned all respect for normal English usage in their effort to stay close to the biblical language. . . . Normal English word order and phrasing have been given a high priority.

In his original edition of 1986, the author included the word “forefathers” (2.3), which was a direct carryover from the BCP text. When this text was adopted into The Presbyterian Hymnal (1990), the editors used “ancestors,” and this example has been followed in other collections. Some denominational collections take this a step farther by also avoiding masculine pronouns for God; this is reflected at 3.4 where Webber’s original “help of him to whom you pray” is sometimes changed to read “help of God to whom you pray.” In one case, in Voices United (1996), made for the United Church of Canada, the editors substituted two instances of the word “Lord”—a controversial term among some progressive denominations owing to its association with patriarchy or authoritarianism—but at the present time this seems to be a lone exception. These changes were approved by the author.

Episcopal hymn writer and hymnologist Carl Daw, writing on behalf of the Presbyterians, had more to say about the Psalm than the paraphrase, but his words are helpful:

This opening section of the psalm is well known because Jesus recited it on the cross, and it is impossible for Christians to read it without such associations. Yet it may foster some new appreciation of this psalm to recognize that if Jesus found these words expressive of his own anguish, they may still speak to our own times of distress across the centuries since the psalm was written. . . . Throughout all these expressions of distress, even the accusation of abandonment, runs a fundamental assumption of relationship with a living God. There is also evidence here that hope derives from the memory of how God has acted in the past. Present adversity needs the context of salvation history in order to be understood and to find a way out.[2]

In the Revised Common Lectionary, this portion of Psalm 22 is appointed for Good Friday, all years, and for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 23) in year B.

III. Tunes

1. ELTHAM

In A New Metrical Psalter (1986), the texts were accompanied by tune recommendations from The Hymnal 1982. For this text, Webber suggested ELTHAM, which is an old Psalm tune from Harmonia Perfecta (1730), uncredited in that volume but usually attributed to the collection’s compiler, Nathanial Gawthorn. The recommended text given on the page was “Had I the tongues of Greeks and Jews,” a hymn by Isaac Watts based on 1 Corinthians 13. The melody in in the tenor part. The collection was made for the King’s Weigh House Chapel, London, which was Presbyterian at the time. The name ELTHAM is likely in reference to a small village in Kent, which eventually became a suburb of London.

At first, ELTHAM had relatively little circulation—only printed once before 1820, in Gawthorn’s collection—until it was resurrected with enthusiasm by Erik Routley in the middle of the 20th century. In 1953, Routley explained the tune’s journey through relative obscurity:

It appears to have dropped out of use immediately; perhaps its ambitious compass and austere melody caused it to fail to gain recognition in the musically easy-going days which followed its publication. It did not appear again until S.S. Wesley included it as no. 68 in the European Psalmist. His very striking harmonies as preserved in the 1904 A. & M., which set it to Ray Palmer’s intimate devotional lines beginning “Lord, my weak thought in vain would climb.” That edition of A. & M. went out of circulation very soon, and neither the 1916 nor the 1950 revisions of that book rescued the tune. The Irish Church Hymnal of 1919 set it to a Passiontide hymn, but apart from that single instance we may say that the tune has never been successfully brought to light since its birth in 1730.[3]

In his book The Musical Wesleys (1968), Routley mentioned an arrangement of the tune for organ by Hubert Parry for his Three Chorale Fantasias (1914), where it was associated with the text “When I survey the wondrous cross”; Routley called this “perhaps Parry’s most perfect composition for the instrument.”[4]

As far as the tune’s craftsmanship was concerned, he wrote, “As a piece of musical architecture the tune is remarkable, being homogeneously developed out of its first four-note phrase.”[5] Elsewhere, he explained: “The melody is built up on the striding theme announced by its first four notes: this phrase appears twice more in the melody and once in the bass. Further, its second, third, and fourth lines all finish with another four-note phrase sounded each time at a different pitch.”[6] More of his commentary has gone into the intricacies of harmonizing the tune, with Samuel Sebastian Wesley being the master.

Routley included it in Congregational Praise (1951) and in his last hymnal, Rejoice in the Lord (1985). His enthusiasm for it and his influence undoubtedly led to it being picked up by other compilers.

2. DISTRESS

Some hymnals have set Webber’s paraphrase to DISTRESS. The oldest known source for this American shape-note tune is the first edition of William Walker’s Southern Harmony (1835), where it appeared with “So fades the lovely blooming flower” by Anne Steele, melody in the middle (tenor) part.

Like ELTHAM, DISTRESS conveys a certain pathos via its minor mode. Reformed scholar Bert Polman said of this tune, “The plaintive pentatonic (five-pitch) tune has a simple but effective design: the first phrase has an ascending melody that climaxes in phrases 2 and 3 and returns to the opening melody again in phrase 4.”[7] Lutheran scholar Paul Westermeyer also admired the tune, writing, “[I]ts first and last phrases are identical. The two intervening phrases move the tessitura higher and are built from the initial motive, with thirds and seconds switching places in an inventive interplay. The seventh between the last two phrases poses no problems because the frame of the low and high Ds makes the key center so clear.”[8]

by CHRIS FENNER
for Hymnology Archive
5 December 2022

Footnotes:

1. Christopher L. Webber, A New Metrical Psalter (1986), iv.

2. Carl P. Daw Jr., “Lord, why have you forsaken me,” Glory to God: A Companion (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2016), pp. 212–213.

3. Erik Routley, “ELTHAM,” Companion to Congregational Praise (1953), p. 81.

4. Erik Routley, The Musical Wesleys (1968), p. 229.

5. Erik Routley, “ELTHAM,” Companion to Congregational Praise (1953), p. 81.

6. Erik Routley, The Musical Wesleys (1968), p. 229.

7. Bert Polman, “DISTRESS,” Psalter Hymnal Handbook (1998), pp. 202–203.

8. Paul Westermeyer, “DISTRESS,” Hymnal Companion to Evangelical Lutheran Worship (2010), p. 295.

Related Resources:

Kenneth Trickett, “ELTHAM,” Companion to Hymns & Psalms (Peterborough: Methodist Publishing, 1988), pp. 129–130.

Nicholas Temperley, “ELTHAM,” The Hymnal 1982 Companion, vol. 3B (1994), pp. 816–817.

Hymnary: https://hymnary.org/text/lord_why_have_you_forsaken_me