Among the many songs we sing as part of our corporate worship are several settings from existing Psalters; for some of these we have added newly-composed tunes (a practice with deep historical roots). However, while notable Psalters have been produced since the time of the Reformation, those with the most accessible combination of language and music for modern English speakers have often been heavily paraphrased. While paraphrase has proven adaptable to changing English poetic styles over the centuries, and without denying that it can promote reflection on the major themes of a Psalm, the practice can also lead to marked losses of original Biblical terminology, imagery, rhythm, scope, and tone.

In addition, although many English speakers consider rhyme a necessary element of poetry, such has not always been the case, as with the original Psalms themselves. While rhyme can serve as both a pleasing aesthetic and useful mnemonic device, its use in the paraphrased Psalms tends to even further restrict the simple, rich, vibrant, urgent, and deeply moving vocabulary of the Biblical text.

This Psalter is the Bronx Household of Faith's attempt to strengthen such aspects of accessible psalmody by adorning the complete text of each Psalm with fitting music, so that we may more faithfully and joyfully sing, recite, meditate on, memorize, pray, discuss, and proclaim the glories of God revealed in his Word.

Churches hewing to the regulative principle of worship rooted in sola Scriptura recognize the vital role of the Psalms in ordering God-glorifying confession, petition, proclamation, and praise, yet two commonly sung musical treatments of Psalms--metrical paraphrases of the last five centuries, and Scripture songs of the last five decades--have not tended to preserve the full Biblical text of the Psalter.

By definition, the use of paraphrase produced movement away from the original terminology of the Psalms, and this tendency was frequently accelerated by the use of poetic meter and rhyme. During the long history of paraphrased Psalms, it became increasingly common to condense or even eliminate entire sections of certain Psalms. A comparison of Psalm paraphrases in a widely-used hymnal to their source texts consistently finds omitted verses and sections, and frequently only a portion of shared terms. Sometimes one section of a Psalm may be poetically expanded, while others are condensed or eliminated. Some Christians are able to associate, for example, Isaac Watts' Our God, Our Help in Ages Past with Psalm 90, but fewer may know that his vivid rendering draws primarily from only the first half of the Psalm, into which he introduces several images which, though reasonable poetic elaborations, are simply not present in the Biblical text. received her frame, rose from earth, busy tribes, lost in following years, all its sons, and the mower’s hand were added in place of the more concrete terms you had formed, man, brought to an end, and fades, and the biblical text's direct references to your anger, your wrath, our secret sins, and multiple petitions like satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, are simply not in the paraphrase.

The composers of Scripture songs, on the other hand, found ways to retain the literal text of some Psalms, but the difficulties of casting more than a few verses into melody resulted in very few entire Psalms actually being set to music--perhaps the most well-known being Charlotte M. Gaus' delightful setting of Psalm 100, Make a Joyful Noise Unto the Lord. In addition, a narrow musical palette in wide use at the height of the Scripture song movement was simply inadequate to reflect the emotional and theological spectrum present throughout the Psalms, which further reduced the number of Biblical texts the genre was able to support. One simply does not expect to sing a typical "praise chorus" setting of "Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me" or "a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet" or "every night I flood my bed with tears".

But what if such texts are among those we most need--not only in our hearts and on our minds, but also on our lips and in our ears?

For churches committed to proclaiming the whole counsel of God as revealed in the Scriptures, such issues can pose challenges as to how our worship is to be informed and nourished. In response to these challenges, The Otter Creek ESV Psalter is our church's attempt to adorn the full texts of the Psalms with music for both corporate worship and private devotion, in accordance with the following principles:

Text: The text of choice is the widely used English Standard Version® (ESV); the full ESV text is present in each Psalm that has been set to music; the texts are cast to music with an eye to preserving the natural spoken rhythm heard in public reading and recitation.

Music: The music is composed for congregational singing, mostly in unison, but members who prefer to sing parts will often be able to do so; the structures of the texts are accomodated by a variety of musical forms, including melody, refrain, chant, repetition, antiphony, and canon; the tonal colors of the texts are reflected by rich and varied harmonic and modal palettes.

Accessibility: The music is capable of being quickly learned and sung by musically untrained members; the musical accompaniment is simple and straightfoward, and capable of being enhanced at the accompanist's discretion; musical directives for the congregation, such as repeats and the movement of chanted tones, are annotated within the lyrics.

Melodic Stanza Example (from Psalm 2):

Accompanied Chant Example (from Psalm 51):

Melodic Refrain Example (from Psalm 23):

In most of the Psalter's songs, the musical rhythms tend to reflect those of natural speech more than those of common poetic meters. Since the lyrics are those of the ESV text, the poetic device of rhyme also does not appear. Rather, a diverse palette of melodic, harmonic, and textural approaches highlights moods of the texts, inviting worshipers to more deeply echo the varied responses of the Psalmist to the covenant faithfulness of his Lord and theirs.

Although our church's members love to sing the great realities of the Gospel to God and each other, not all of us are able to read music, so every effort is being made to compose musical settings which are not only historically and culturally catholic and aesthetically rich, yet are also not prohibitively complex to learn, sing, and remember. In chanted sections, typographical aids in the printed text serve as reminders of musical tones:

Typographical Aids Example (from Psalm 4):

As the Psalter grows, recordings and music copies of each new Psalm are being placed on this site in order to aid familiarity with the music of both musically trained and untrained members.

Is there a charge for use of the Psalter?

There is no charge for use of the Psalter.

Is the Psalter complete?

The Otter Creek ESV Psalter was begun in earnest in late 2016, and is not yet complete. Presently, the music for 32 Psalms (about 21% of the total) has been composed to the point of final editing. Efforts are underway to complete the writing in a timely fashion; please visit this site regularly to gauge the progress of that effort, as well as to hear recordings and download materials for the latest additions to the website.

Does your church believe that only Psalms are to be sung in corporate worship?

No, the Bronx Household of Faith tends to sing about a dozen songs every Lord's Day, and these are drawn from a wide variety of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs.

Does your church intend to replace its other Psalm settings with only those from this Psalter?

No, we will certainly continue to sing songs we have long sung, including other settings of Psalms as those fit the appropriate Scripture passage. Having the ESV Psalter settings, however, will make us increasingly able to have at least one song for every Psalm that is read on a given Sunday.

Shouldn't my church's music be focused more on Jesus than on Old Testament passages?

Apart from the prominence of quotations from the Psalms in the New Testament, Jesus' own testimony in Luke 24 is clear that the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms all testify of him. We sing them, therefore, not only to learn from other believers how to respond to God through the seasons of life, but primarily to be strengthened by rehearsing what Christ himself felt, and accomplished, and suffered, and gained, on our behalf.

Can these songs be sung by church members who cannot read music?

Every musical and textual consideration is being made to ensure that musically untrained members will be able to comfortably sing these songs, including the application of professional training in Music Theory to craft melodies which are well-fitted to the words of each Psalm. A church which intends to incorporate any of these Psalms is encouraged to give its members access to the recordings, as well as learning the tune in a smaller setting prior to larger settings. While we recommend having the singing led by those who can guide the weaker singers of a congregation, these Psalms are not meant to be sung only by musicians, but rather owned by as many as are willing to lift up their voices in song.

I would love to see our church doing more Psalm-singing, but we have no one to play the piano or teach us the tunes.

While instrumental accompaniment and trained musicians can assist a singing congregation, the tunes in this collection may still be edifyingly sung by those who have learned to sing along with the recordings. We would encourage you to try this with a small number of Psalms, whenever a handful of people have become familiar with their tunes; the accompaniment is not so integral that it would be required. Even in the event of short interludes between verses, and starting tones for the chanted lines, those could be vocalised or even hummed by one leader as others prepare to sing the following stanza.

The absence of rhyme may make the lyrics hard to remember.

Rhyme is a pleasing poetic device which can also aid the memory of words at the end of lines. But it has not always been an integral part of poetry--either during some eras of English, or in the original Hebrew of the Psalms. This Psalter uses the exact words of the ESV Bible, which skillfully weaves a faithful translation of the Hebrew text into lines that are cadenced for reading--or singing--aloud. This style retains the vigor of the Hebrew technique of parallelism, an aspect of poetry which the Lord doubtless chose for its ability to transcend translation, and which itself provides a strong aid to memorization. The music of the ESV Psalter is intended to reflect the poetic structure present in the text in a way that embeds its natural rhythm in the singer's mind and lips.

The chanted settings may remind some of our members too much of higher liturgical traditions in churches whose doctrines they reject.

While not dismissing your concern, we would encourage you to remind such members that various chanting approaches have been used throughout biblical and church history, and need no more be associated with inadequate theology than are the reading of the Scriptures, water, bread, wine, prayer, and preaching, some forms of which are normative in all churches.

Some of the tunes and harmonies sound dark or dissonant compared to more familiar settings.

Many Psalms refer openly to ominous realities about the nature of sin and evil in ourselves and in the world, as well as the certainty of death and judgment; darker musical shadings are sometimes used to reflect the tone of such passages.

Why are the recordings not of professional, studio quality?

The recordings provide examples of what the Psalms may sound like as sung, with very little preparation, by a small group of members of diverse musical levels, but who love to sing. Our hope is that these simple recordings will encourage others to become familiar enough with these settings to make them their own, in both personal and corporate settings, for the glory of God in Christ.

Why are pronouns referring to deity not capitalized?

This psalter uses the full text of the English Standard Version® of the Holy Bible, which does not capitalize such pronouns. The Preface to the English Standard Version | ESV.org offers this explanation:

"[I]t is sometimes suggested that Bible translations should capitalize pronouns referring to deity. It has seemed best not to capitalize deity pronouns in the ESV, however, for the following reasons: first, there is nothing in the original Hebrew and Greek manuscripts that corresponds to such capitalization; second, the practice of capitalizing deity pronouns in English Bible translations is a recent innovation, which began only in the mid-twentieth century; and, third, such capitalization is absent from the KJV Bible and the whole stream of Bible translations that the ESV carries forward."

Why is the word "blessed" sung as one syllable rather than two?

This psalter attempts to uphold a principle which undergirded the sixteenth-century Reformation, that the Scriptures be accessible in the common language of all peoples. There was a time when "blessed", along with "dressed" or "confessed", was spoken using a syllable for "-ed". But that usage long ago receded from spoken English, and lingers today only in two words, a habit strengthened by old musical, poetic, and theatrical settings: "blessed" and "beloved". Our decision to remove the voicing of "-ed", however, reflects the practice of our public reading of the Scriptures, rather than continuing a practice not used in the common language as spoken.