Have you ever wondered what it sounded like in King David’s time when the psalms he was writing were being sung in worship? It was certainly far different from the sounds of our psalm singing today, three thousand years later. There were musical instruments back then in Israel, but not keyboard instruments like pianos and organs, or stringed instruments like violins and cellos. We read of some of those primitive instruments from Psalm 150, which mentions praising God with such ancient instruments as horns (animal horns, not trumpets) as well as with flutes, cymbals, and lutes (small harps). And there were melodies with tune names, as we read occasionally in the preface to several psalms. But they would not have been playing the four-part harmony (SATB) we’re accustomed to today in our hymnals. Such polyphony (more than one note at a time) dates from the medieval and baroque era. Old Testament psalm singing was probably closer to the unison Gregorian plainsong of the 7th century and the Anglican chant common in worship in churches from the 19th century and continuing today.
In our psalm singing these days, we meet a variety of musical styles. We have metrical psalms translated into English from the Genevan Psalter of Calvin’s day, all 150 psalms. These are characterized by a very lively rhythmic pattern and many different meters. The same style continues today in Dutch reformed churches of the Netherlands. In our America hymnals today, we also have the more typical four-part harmony we have inherited from the British and Scottish psalters of the 18th and 19th centuries. There are also psalms in the gospel song style especially characteristic of 19th century America, including shape-note singing and the revivalistic stanza and refrain form popularized by gospel writers like Fanny Crosby, William Kirkpatrick, and William Doane. With the renewal of interest in singing the psalms in the 21st century, more contemporary writers (and groups like Getty Music, Sovereign Grace Music, and Indelible Grace) are promoting psalm singing with their more contemporary writing style and instrumentation, often with guitars, keyboards, and percussion in a praise band.
One example of a metrical psalm in a gospel song style is “Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah, O My Soul Jehovah Praise,” a version of Psalm146 slightly modified from the 1912 Psalter. In its setting with Lowell Mason’s tune RIPLEY, it is easily learned by any congregation, since the first, second, and fourth lines of the music are identical! This is classic AABA form. This is one of the songs that Kevin DeYoung singled out for special attention in his 2015 Gospel Coalition article which he entitled, “Hymns We Should Sing More Often.” In that article, he enthusiastically commends the singing of Psalms in Christian worship with these words.
The book of Psalms has always been at the heart of Christian worship. From temple worship in the Old Testament and the over 200 psalm citations or allusions in the New Testament, through the early church, monastic orders, and Reformation psalters, all the way to contemporary psalm settings, Christians have always sung the psalms. Terry L. Johnson says, “There is a wholeness to the psalms as designed by their divine author that addresses the whole of human life. There is a realism as well, teaching the positive and negative sides of spiritual experience: the light and the dark, the delightful and the degrading, the victorious and the defeating, the hopeful and the discouraging.”
Generally speaking, it is a healthy thing to begin corporate worship with a song that focuses on some attribute or work of God rather than our feelings or experience, and in a musical and textual style that is marked by joyful, and perhaps even exuberant praise. One of the best ways to do this, is to draw from the Psalms one of these inspired songs that does exactly that … which express the praise of God by guiding our thoughts to eloquent expressions of who He is and what He has done, whether in history or in our personal lives or in nature. The Psalms are a wonderful resource for God-centered singing in worship! And, of course, who more than anyone else finds delight in the singing of inspired Psalms than who one who wrote them and have them to us for us to sing to Him in worship!
That is exactly the kind of text we find in Psalm 146. It highlights the delightful and hopeful side of our spiritual experience of God’s greatness. He is to be praised because He is utterly trustworthy, faithful, powerful, compassionate, just, patient, kind, loving, and gracious. The Psalm begins and ends with the Hebrew exclamation, “Hallelu Yah,” Praise Yahweh (Jehovah in the King James translation). The main body of this Psalm encourages us to rejoice in His goodness and fully trust Him as our Lord and the almighty creator of the wonders of nature, the deliverer of the oppressed, the provider for the needy, and the protector of the weak.
The tune which we use today, RIPLEY, was composed in 1839 by Lowell Mason (1792-1872), one of the “patriarchs” of American music, often referred to as the “father of American church music.” The tune name presumably honors George Ripley (1802-1889), a famous New York literary critic and transcendentalist. Mason was born in Medfield, Massachusetts. From childhood he demonstrated a pronounced interest in music and worked diligently to cultivate that innate talent. At the age of 20, he moved to Savannah, Georgia as a bank clerk and became choirmaster at the historic Independent Presbyterian Church, which has been led in recent decades by a PCA minister, Terry Johnson.
The site hymnary.org has provided the following substantial survey and evaluation of Mason’s impact:
In 1822 he published “The Handel and Haydn Society’s Collection of Church Music.” The first edition was published without attribution, but later editions acknowledged his role as editor. Mason returned to Boston in 1827, having negotiated a position as music director at three Boston churches, one of them being the famous Park Street Church, and between 1829 and 1869 he published about 20 further collections of hymns. Those collections favored adaptations of tunes by prominent European composers rather than the traditional rural hymn tunes.
In 1832 he founded the Boston Academy of Music, and in 1838 he established in Boston the first public-school music program in the United States, a program that was soon imitated across the country. He was also influential in the training of music teachers. His compositions include the hymn tunes for “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains,” “Nearer, My God, to Thee,” and “My Faith Looks Up to Thee.” He sometimes composed music for hymns based on Gregorian Chant, as is the case with “When I Survey the Wondrous Cross” and “Hallelujah! Praise Jehovah, O My Soul Jehovah Praise,” although it stretches the imagination to hear the Gregorian origins in these hymns in the form he gave them which we sing today.Charles C. Perkins gives a few of the reasons why Lowell Mason was the very man to lead American music as it then existed. He says, “First and foremost, he was not so very much superior to the members as to be unreasonably impatient at their shortcomings. Second, he was a born teacher, who, by hard work, had fitted himself to give instruction in singing. Third, he was one of themselves, a plain, self-made man, who could understand them and be understood of them.”
The personality of Dr. Mason was of great use to the art and appreciation of music in this country. He was of strong mind, dignified manners, sensitive, yet sweet and engaging. Prof. Horace Mann, one of the great educators of that day, said he would walk fifty miles to see and hear Mr. Mason teach if he could not otherwise have that advantage.
Mason visited a number of the music schools in Europe, studied their methods, and incorporated the best things in his own work. He resided in Boston from 1826 to 1851, when he moved to New York. Not only did Boston benefit directly by this enthusiastic teacher’s instruction, but he was constantly traveling to other societies in distant cities and helping their work. He had a notable class at North Reading, Mass., and he went in his later years as far as Rochester, where he trained a chorus of five hundred voices, many of them teachers, and some of them coming long distances to study under him. Before 1810 he had developed his idea of “Teachers’ Conventions,” and, as in these he had representatives from different states, he made musical missionaries for almost the entire country. He left behind him no less than fifty volumes of musical collections, instruction books, and manuals.
As a composer of solid, enduring church music. Dr. Mason was one of the most successful this country has introduced. He was a deeply pious man, and was a communicant of the Presbyterian Church. In 1817 he married Miss Abigail Gregory, of Leesborough, Mass. The family consisted of four sons, Daniel Gregory, Lowell, William, and Henry. The two former founded the publishing house of Mason Bros. Lowell and Henry were the founders of the great piano manufacturer, Mason & Hamlin. Dr. Lowell Mason was one of the most eminent musicians that America has yet produced. He died at “Silverspring,” a beautiful residence on the side of Orange Mountain, New Jersey, on August 11, 1872, bequeathing his great musical library, much of which had been collected abroad, to Yale College.
Stanza 1 follows verses 1 – 4 of the Psalm.
Hallelujah, praise Jehovah, O my soul, Jehovah praise;
I will sing the glorious praises Of my God through all my days.
Put no confidence in princes, nor for help on man depend;
He shall die, to dust returning, And his purposes shall end.
Stanza 2 follows verses 5 – 7 of the Psalm.
Happy is the man that chooses Israel’s God to be his aid;
He is blessed whose hope of blessing On the Lord his God is stayed.
Heav’n and earth the Lord created, Seas and all that they contain;
He delivers from oppression, Righteousness He will maintain.
Stanza 3 follows verses 8 – 9 of the Psalm.
Food He daily gives the hungry, Sets the mourning pris’ner free,
Raises those bowed down with anguish, Makes the sightless eye to see.
Well Jehovah loves the righteous, And the stranger He befriends,
Helps the fatherless and widow, Judgment on the wicked sends.
Stanza 4 repeats the opening lines of the hymn and then follows with verse 10 of the Psalm.
Hallelujah, praise Jehovah, O my soul, Jehovah praise;
I will sing the glorious praises Of my God through all my days.
Over all God reigns for ever, Through all ages He is King;
Unto Him thy God, O Zion, Joyful hallelujahs sing.
Here is a video with words and music: