Terecht - Psalm 124 = In Truth, Israel Can Say (Psalm 124), 1975 - 2016

Psalm 124 is a National Thanksgiving. It’s language indicates that it is post-Exilic, but it looks back to deliverance from the primeval terrors of fire and flood which lingered in the race memories of the people of the Ancient Middle East. Had God not been on Isreal’s side, then untold disasters would have occurred, and all would have perished. But there is an unshakable faith in the One who shaped the heavens and the earth, in their solidity and permanence, and who hold everything in its place. There are two separate poems here, which Oosterhuis combines into one song. Each is of differing ritual and literary forms, yet both belonging to Temple cult. The first is a litany of confidence, in God's ever-constant protection, Who holds us in life. The second is a lyrical song for freedom, the imagery of the bird doubtlessly evoking Psalm 90 and perhaps even the more distant memory of the description in Psalm 85, of the birds nesting in the ruins of the Temple as Israel returned from Exile. Huijbers has composed it as a duet, a dialogue between assembly and two-voice choir, except for the final phrase when the full SATB chorus joins the assembly. He treats ech poem differently, indicated by a change in color and tempo, to reflect the changing mood between the two poems.