Heer onze Heer, hoe machtig = O Holy God, 1967 - 2000

The psalm heading indicates that this is a song for the precentor or the choir-master, and that it is to be played on the gittith (a lyre?) to a traditional melody associated with the end of year grape harvest festival. Claiming to be a psalm of David, it states its origin as belonging to the southern, Jerusalem tradition. It is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving, with opening and closing refrains which state the reason for offering such effusive praise. Refrains were drawn later from the body of the text as liturgical device to include the assembly, while the verses were sung by a cantor or choir, the Temple family of proests who were responsible for all music in the Temple. The Sons of Asaph is named numerous times throughout the Psalter to indicate one such family. In the revised Roman tradition, which re-introduced responsorial psalm singing into the Liturgy of the Word, the psalm is expected to be sung not by a Cantor (who is a music minister) but by a Psalmist (who is a liturgical minister of the Word). The psalm is pre-Exilic, in the tradition of the priestly (P) account of Creation in Genesis 1-2. The language refering to the Holy One as Creator is simple and it is evidently pre-Exilic. There is no complex theology, no attempt to link creation with restoration. There are no post-Exilic messianic allusions. The song celebrates covenant at its most basic, The Holy One is a God of Creation, of all Nature (Job 12:7-10) and of People. This is a God who cares, who at the dawn of Time singled out People to share with then a power reserved for the gods alone. This same Genesis account describes how we are co-creators in the unfolding of the Universe, entrusted with nourishing all that is and safeguarding the physical environment. To sing the praises of such a Creator is to accept these responsibilities and so fulfill the terms of the covenant. The Feast of Enthronement affirmed God as Creator. This was later absorbed into the autumnal Feast of Tabernacles. It celebrated the third and final harvest of the year, the fruit harvest and the grapes. The gittith refernece seems to belong to ballads sung while trading the grapes. Tabernacles celebrated the culmination of another successful year in the fields under the wise leadership of the God of Zion. The reference to the night sky, the needlework of God's fingers, alludes to the Tabernacles' observance of the night-watch vigils. During these nocturnal liturgies, God was honored as the Exodus Holy One of Liberation and of Creation, who would restore harmony to a bruised and damaged world. Today, this is the ecological imperative of not merely protecting but of restoring Creation only by our concerted management of the world around us. The Structure 1a. Opening Refrain 1b. The Glory of God 4 The Glory of Humanity 9. Closing Refrain - Tony Barr