O hear my cry, my righteous God

The Free Church of Scotland Psalmody Committee was set up towards the close of the 20th c with a view to making a conservative revision of parts of the then standard (metrical) book dating from 1650, where possible avoiding both inversions and archaisms, and without naming the revisers. This version of a Psalm which is familiar in other traditions from a liturgical Late Night Service had recently (1997) appeared in a pilot booklet from that Committee, Sing Psalms: New Metrical Versions from the Book of Psalms, and was judged the best of several options. (2 lines of stz 1 were revised, with some loss of fluency, for the final 2003 version; see also Basil Bridge in HSB215, April 1998.) Let’s Praise 2 (1994), includes Margaret Wilson’s (unrhymed) O righteous Lord who set me right, lightly revised from Psalm Praise (1973). while Anne Steele’s O Lord my strength, my righteousness (1760) has many felicitous touches Ps 4 has the first of the Psalter’s many musical headings; as David Dickson wrote in 1653, ‘The voice of a musician in the public worship still is useful’. Like other Psalms, this one varies between addressing God and people; God is at its beginning and end. William Hurst’s tune LEICESTER, not to be confused with its namesake in 88 88 88, indicates the composer’s birthplace. It is the only tune of his still in use, and seems to have appeared first in the 1875 revision of A&M (for which it may have been composed), being retained in the 1889 ‘Old Edn’ and subsequently.

1997ff. In writing in 1979 about the Scottish metrical Psalms in general and the Church Hymnary 3rd Edn (CH3, 1973) in particular, Erik Routley commended 3 versions by Ian Pitt-Watson (1921–95): ‘His versions are beautifully done and are a good augury for any revision of the Scottish Psalter that may, within the next thousand years or so, be in view.’ (A Panorama of Christian Hymnody pp189–90, revised edn 2005 p400.) Without waiting for future millennia, a committee of the Free Ch of Scotland chaired by Donald M MacDonald began work in the 1990s towards a completely new version of the 150 Psalms which would be ‘a metrical translation rather than a paraphrase’. As in 1650 but unlike Watts and many versions in Praise!, there is no ‘Christianising’; it avoids any rendering ‘which determines whether the passage is exclusively or typically messianic’ and aims to avoid archaisms and (where possible) the inversions which have plagued so many earlier metrical Psalters. Verse (stz) numbers correspond to standard English translations. Various samples were made available, on whole-page format, as the work progressed, some of which are used here; the complete book was published in 2003 with the traditional split pages (music above words), to allow for easy reference to alternative tunes. The texts are anonymous but many contemporary tunes are featured. Its brief Preface, followed by a Music Preface, is also much to the point; an Appendix adds 5 items from the 1650 Psalter and tunes, composers and topics are indexed. A words-only edn is also available. See B E Bridge in HSB215 (April 1998). Nos.4, 8, 112, 113, 119E, 129.