Chapter Three:

ISRAEL'S "MELOGENIC" SACRED MUSIC

"The Songs of God": The Psalms

Among King David's preparations for the Temple was the creation of a Levitical "academy" of liturgical psalmists. David appointed Asaph, Heman and Jeduthun and their sons, "who should prophesy with lyres, with harps and with cymbals" (1 Chronicles 25:1). Jeduthun "prophesied with the lyre in thanksgiving and praise to the Lord" (verse 3). All the singers were "under the hands [the chironomy] of their father for song (Hebrew schir) in the house of the Lord" (verse 6, KJV). This "song" is also called "prophecy" (nevu'a -- cf. 1 Chronicles 25:16) and "oracle" (maSa' -- 1 Chronicles 15:22, 27 [KJV]), which confirms the idea that words and melody formed one Divinely-inspired whole.

The Levitical singers used harps, lyres, cymbals and metal trumpets in their service before the Ark (1 Chronicles 16:56, 42). The King James Version calls these "musical instruments of God". The Hebrew actually says "instruments of the song of God" (kelê schir ha'Elohim) -- which again implies the special nature of this musical service. Note that the Psalm texts were sung mostly with "psalmodic" melodies, even though a few of David's Psalms appear in both "prosodic" and "psalmodic" versions (cf. 2 Saamuel 22 and Psalm 18; 1 Chronicles 16:8-36 and Psalms 105:115, 96:113 and 106:1, 47-48).

Yet biblical "psalmody" begins with Moses, not David (Psalm 90). Moses' melancholic personality -- self-effacing, wise, temperamental, devoted to God's service, focused on God's grandeur -- shines in this Psalm, as much as in his "prosodic" songs and narratives in the Pentateuch.

The personalities of the other Psalmists, especially of David, are equally evident in their melodies (even more than in their words). David's Psalms use melismas more frequently than the others (some in combinations unique or nearly so to David). They are in general more lyrical, more sensitive and variegated in their emotions and more likely to use characteristic verbal-melodic formulae in various contexts. David's Psalms also have a large number of verses which can be cross-referenced, verbally or melodically or both.

Finally, the melody of any given Psalm is always consistent with the intent and sentiment of the words. Again, this is especially true in David's Psalms. Psalm 23 puts us in the fields with David the shepherd. Psalm 29 lets us view with him the glory of God as manifested in a thun-derstorm. Psalm 27 shows us the humility and courage of David the warrior (verses 1-6) even when in deep distress (verses 7-14). But other Psalmists had great musical and spiritual gifts as well. The Psalms of Asaph are filled with Asaph's wisdom and fervency (Psalms 73, 74, 75, 81, etc.) The Psalms of the Sons of Korah are often masterpieces -- at times giving the music a greater role than in even the most beautiful Psalms of David (cf. Psalms 42 and 84).

"Thy Statutes Have Been My Songs": Prosody

When David brought the Ark to Jerusalem from the house of Obed-Edom, "he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord, and to record, and to thank and to praise the Lord God of Israel..." -- and their names follow (1 Chronicles 16:46). "Then on that day David delivered first this psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren" (verse 7). The original "melody-text" of this psalm, in all its spontaneous lyricism, is from all appearances still found in our Hebrew Masoretic Bible.

David's "Song of the Ark" (1 Chronicles 16:8-36) is annotated with the prosodic notation. It sounds to the listener as if it were written on the "spur of the moment". Several simple, gracious melodic themes are repeated to different words and interwoven with each other. Later, much of this Song was reset to psalmody as part of three Psalms (96:1-13; 105:1-15; 106:1, 47-48). 2 Samuel 22, another prosodic text, was also reset as psalmody (Psalm 18). These prosodic songs, along with David's incomparable Elegy for Saul and Jonathan (2 Samuel 1:17-27), demonstrate David's skill as much as do his Psalms.

Of course, David was not the first to write songs in the prosodic style; this honor, again, goes to Moses (Exodus 15:1-18; Deuteronomy 32:1-43).4 The Song of Deborah (Judges 5) is a prosodic song, as was probably at least some of the musical "prophecy" of Samuel's day (1 Samuel 10:5-6, 10-13; 19:19-24). The Prayer of Habakkuk (Habakkuk 3) is a prosodic hymn, as are other "songs" such as Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard (Isaiah 5:17).

But not only the songs but all the prose texts are annotated with the prosodic notation. The Torah in particular (in its original Hebrew) was meant to be sung in public reading (cf. Deuteronomy 31:9-13; 31:16-32:47) or private study. When David meditated on God's laws, their cantillation would have helped fix them and their correct interpretation in his mind. Thus he sang, in an untitled psalm which bears his "fingerprints": "Thy statutes have been my songs (zemirot, implying plucked-string accompaniment) in the house of my pilgrimage" (Psalm 119:54).

The Bible's Greatest Song

Of course the longest song (properly speaking) in the Bible is the Song of Songs. It has long been admired for the subtlety and beauty of its poetry, even in translation. Its original melody is no less subtle or lovely. Could this Song truly be the work of Solomon?

It cannot be otherwise. None but Solomon was ever ascribed the skill and subtlety necessary to create it, and no other biblical author before or after him (including his otherwise peerless father) can match the musical quality of his work. Moreover, one may profitably make comparisons between the Song and Ecclesiastes, despite their differences, showing the likelihood that they are the works of a single author (see below and Appendix 2).

If the author was not Solomon, why do we not know his name? Even Esther (which has no title giving authorship), the Song's near-match in some respects, can reasonably be ascribed to Mordecai, and perhaps Esther also (cf. Esther 9:20, 29-32). It reflects the luxury of the Persian court which Mordecai and Esther would have experienced directly. Yet the Book of Esther in no way compares in structural sophistication, poetically or melodically, with the Song of Songs.

In its nobility, its lyricism, its sophistication of poetic and tonal structure, its simple profundity of ideas, and its total spontaneity and honesty, the Song befits Solomonic authorship. Besides, pseudopigraphical works arise from very specific (and deceitful) motives, none of which can be confirmed by the Song of Songs itself. It foists no obvious unorthodox doctrine on the reader, makes no claim to foretelling the future, does not strive for literary or musical "effects" for their own sake, and makes no obvious revision of history.

Most important, the melodic-verbal unity of the Song asserts it can date no later than the time of Rehoboam, when the town of Mahanaim (mentioned in Song 7:1, Hebrew versification) was destroyed forever by Pharaoh Shishak.5 Other indications (asserted by the same unity) place it firmly in Solomon's time. The evidences alleged for late authorship on other, technical grounds can also be refuted, sometimes with the help of the melodic interpretation of the words. We will discuss these issues at length later (in the main text and in the Appendices).

Yet the Song, if anything, obscures historical speculation through its imagery. The story it tells, while set (as we will see) in specific historical and geographic circumstances, exists outside of normal time; mundane chronology does not affect it.6 It focuses on an ideal relationship -- one yet so true-to-life, so realistic, that one can hardly help but believe the author has experienced it for himself. Who else but Solomon, in all of Israelite history, would have had the opportunity (or the wisdom and motivation) to do so?

Above all, the Song (in its original melos) is the work of an author telling a profound truth: marriage at its best is a spiritual relationship, illustrating Divine Love. Such inspired wisdom is worthy of the son of David and none other in biblical history (none, that is, but the Messianic Son of David whom Solomon typifies).

C. Solomon the Poet-Composer

According to Scripture, Solomon was the author not only of the Song of Songs, but most of Proverbs as well as of Ecclesiastes7 and Psalm 127.8 In his works, Solomon's wisdom and intelligence, his poetic skill, his insight into the human heart and condition, are all shown in different lights by his music as well as his words.

Solomon's works remind us that he was not only the son of David, but (through Bathsheba) the great-grandson of David's wisest counselor, Ahithophel (2 Samuel 11:3; 15:12, 31; 16:23; 23:34). David's artistic gifts and spiritual idealism, combined with Ahithophel's practical wisdom made Solomon uniquely gifted for the role in which God used him. (No doubt Bathsheba's motherly wisdom did so too, if King Lemuel of Proverbs 31 is actually King Solomon.) Of course, God supernaturally granted Solomon wisdom beyond that of his peers (1 Kings 3:5-28; 4:29-34); yet David called him "a wise man" before God appeared to him (1 Kings 2:6, 9). Solomon, for the sake of those he ruled, wisely asked for God's wisdom to add to his own.

Practical yet idealistic, insightful yet free from cynicism (even in his old, disillusioned age!), humble yet self-knowledgeable, authoritative yet compassionate, visionary yet keenly observant of details, sagacious yet down-to-earth -- these are some of the seemingly contradictory personal qualities of Solomon the poet-composer. All these qualities and more are implied in the narratives concerning his life (1 Kings 1-10; 2 Chronicles 1-9). All these qualities and one other -- a great capacity for love on different levels -- shine in his greatest work of musical literature: the Song of Songs.

How then can we define Solomon's "style"? It is more difficult to do so musically than it is for the Psalmists. David especially used idiosyncratic, "traditionalist" melodic-verbal motives used much less often (if at all) by the other Psalmists. Moreover, we have a far greater number of "Psalms of David", created in differing circumstances, which yet have common characteristics. We have only four quite diverse works, in two systems of te`amim, ascribed to Solomon.

Of course, there are definite indications we can point to. The Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes, in particular, use melodic-verbal motives used nowhere else in the Bible (see Appendix 2). Psalm 127, many Proverbs and Ecclesiastes have similar minor modes, a similar "tone" of sagacity and a use of melismas which is at once rational and expressive. (To a certain extent, this last is also true of the Song of Songs.) All four works have a verbal and melodic-verbal lyricism, plus a sophisticated, subtle use of Hebrew grammar and verbal imagery. Yet these four works are quite different from each other in their details! Perhaps the differences outweigh the similarities, pointing to diverse authorship?

No. The Bible does not call Solomon the most "intelligent" man of his time, but the wisest. Solomon's wisdom lay in his knowledge of the interconnectedness of the world. He had a "global" understanding not only of specific facts, but of causality; not only of the strictest empiricism and theoretical explanation, but of revelation from God of what otherwise cannot be discovered (cf. Deuteronomy 29:29).

Solomon was interested in everything: natural science, the arts, literature, music, history, politics, practical philosophy, language, agriculture, ethics, religion, human relationships, architecture and every other facet of human life. His "largeness of mind" (like "the sand on the seashore") enabled him to find simple, yet profound interconnections between all these things.

This very tendency is the common thread among Solomon's works. This is why the Song of Songs, though a melodic-verbal unity, is composed of so many contrasting images. This is why Ecclesiastes gives so many contrasting facets of human life a common musical and ideational thread ("all is vanity"). This is why Proverbs gives so many parallel and contrasting ideas a common melodic and ideological thrust. This is why Psalm 127 contrasts two seemingly different verbal ideas, yet shows their connection (i.e., the priority of man's relation to God and family over his work) via their melodic linkage. No other biblical author, not even the author of Job, is so dominated (verbally or musically) by this impulse to "see life in the round".

This impulse is why Solomon wrote, "It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search them out" -- and that certain things (like the mind of a king) are "unsearchable" (Proverbs 25:2-3, RSV). This is why he added (much later) that man cannot find out all of God's past or present doings, let alone their interconnections (Ecclesiastes 3:10-11; 8:16-17).

This impulse (at least as much as that of erotic love, strange as it may seem) is why Solomon wrote the Song of Songs. Perhaps the most profound interconnection of all (that between marital love and Divine love) was the foundation of all that followed in Solomon's life.9 When he lost sight of that equation (through polygamy and idolatry), Solomon lost much of both his God-given wisdom and his favor with God.

This loss of vision almost certainly explains why Solomon embarked on his search for materialistic meaning. At the end of it all, Solomon concluded, "Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole man" (Ecclesiastes 12:13). He had returned to the beginning of wisdom and knowledge (Proverbs 1:7; Psalm 111:10) and to the lasting value of monogamous love (Ecclesiastes 9:9); but experience had taken its toll on him. The bright equation which lights the Song of Songs seems to have been but a dim memory in Solomon's old age.

Solomon knew he was facing a future judgment for his deeds, as does everyone else (Ecclesiastes 12:14). His decisions affected not only his later years, but his posterity and the entire future history of Israel. The Chosen People have never recovered from the effects of Solomon's punishment, which led to Israel's division into the Houses of Israel and Judah. In biblical prophecy (and in actual history to this day), these Houses have remained separate nations.10

Only the reign of the King whom Solomon typifies (and the spiritual marriage which the Song of Songs prefigures) will reunite Israel and Judah as they were in David's and Solomon's time (cf. Ezekiel 37:15-28). So profound is the interconnection between marital love and Divine Love, and between Solomon's rejection of and eventual return to the knowledge of that interconnection!

FOOTNOTES

1."Hermann Albert, a musicologist...whose book on the ethos of Greek music has become a classic, discussed this question in a lecture on Greek music, given to the Prussian Academy in 1923. He asked his audience to visualize the position of a musicologist who, 2,000 years from now, would try to give a picture of our music with the following documents as the only material from which to draw his conclusions: three bars from the St. Matthew Passion, a drinking song from the eighteenth century, a Mass by Bruckner, half a dozen modern pieces for the piano; but, in addition, a great many theoretical works from J. J. Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum to a modern textbook on harmony. Would he be able to give an adequate picture of our music from these sources?" From the Introduction to The New Oxford History of Music, Vol. 1: Ancient and Oriental Music, ed. Egon Wellesz (Oxford, 1986), p. xx. Indeed, he could never understand the world of Western music, but he could infer common threads (such as a basis in diatonic-chromaticism, the linkage of musical and verbal syntaxes as a principle, etc.) -- and he would have hundreds of portrayals and occasional relics of modern instruments, just as we do of the Greeks' instrumentarium.
2. Curt Sachs, The Rise of Music in the Ancient World: East and West (New York: W.W. Norton and Co., 1943), pp. 101-102. Sachs believed (ibid.) that ancient melody "was composed of carefully classified motifs, not of single notes" -- which is true only of certain ancient oral folk traditions (including some synagogue chant), not necessarily of ancient art music. Yet the "single notes" used in biblical chant are indeed combined in specific motifs.
3. "The singers also sang praises with their voices, with great variety of sounds (en pleisto oiko) was there made sweet melody (melos)" (Ecclesiasticus 50:18). Sir Lancelot C.L. Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (Hendrickson Publishers, 1986), p. 119 (Apocrypha). Sir Brenton's versification differs from that commonly used today in translation.
4. Unless the traditional musical "style" goes back even further, to Jacob's time or earlier (cf. Jacob's oracle in Genesis 49:1-27 and the Book of Job). Moses had to learn it from somewhere, if he were not in fact its inventor; yet the pre-Mosaic narratives, like the post-Mosaic ones, appear to have been written as melos.
5. As we will show later, the town of Mahanaim is meant in Song 7:1 (6:13, English versification), not merely "two companies" watching a solo dancer. Only the original "melody-text" could have proven this, even if some have surmised it from verbal factors (though contradicted by other researchers).
6. The same may be said for the story of any couple in love -- at least as viewed from their own prespectives.
7. Ecclesiastes was written by a king richer and wiser "than all before [him] in Jerusalem" (including its Jebusite kings), a teacher of proverbs and wisdom literature, living and working in circumstances possible only to Solomon.
8. Ps. 72's title is exceptionally translated "A Psalm for Solomon" in the King James Version. Haïk-Vantoura believes lischlomo in this one case should be translated "for Solomon", citing "Davidic" compositional motifs and the mention of his name (especially in verses 18-20).
9. And just think: it was Shulamith, the "love of his life", who taught him of this -- by her example!
10. That is, the so-called "Lost Ten Tribes" (the House of Israel, which lost its separate identity as the Chosen People) and the Jewish Diaspora (the House of Judah, which did not). One of the most detailed historical and biblical studies to date of the identity of the "Ten Tribes" (who were taken captive by Assyria, as the Jews were by Babylon) is The Tribes by Yair Davidy (Russell-Davis Publishers, Hebron, Israel), published in 1994. Many other publications on the subject exist; a large selection of these may be viewed at The Ultimate Church of God Links Page.

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