Singing Psalm 139
Since I preached a message from psalm 139 on Sunday, I thought this would be a good time to share with you a little project I’ve been working on.
Psalms were meant to be sung
I’ve edited some of my favorite psalms to fit the meter of some of my favorite hymns. One that I’ve done this with is psalm 139. Psalms were meant to be sung; they are songs, written for a congregation to sing together. We can be almost certain that Jesus himself sang these songs, so I want to sing them. (Albeit in a different language and with different music.)
Metrical Psalms
I know there are a lot of songs inspired by and adapted from psalms, but I want to sing the actual psalms. When I looked into it I found out that metrical psalms have a rich history and were particularly popular in the time after the reformation. However, most of the ones I could find were super old Englishy, or fit to meters and tunes that I don’t personally like very much. So I decided to make my own.
Psalm 139 to the tune of In Christ Alone
I’ve also made lead sheets with music, and even if you don’t read music you can follow how the syllables are broken up to make it easier to sing. The sheet for psalm 139 is below. I’ll also post a video to Facebook singing it for you… I’m not a great singer but that’s not the point; I just want to sing this beautiful holy spirit inspired song-prayer to God and I want you to be able to too if you so desire.
This version has the imprecatory verses (19-22) removed. I also created a sheet that includes them; if you would prefer that version just email me at jcarr@bethelchurchtroy.com