Jubilate Deo

DESCRIPTION: "Jubilate Deo, Jubilate Deo, (H)allelujah."
AUTHOR: Michael Praetorius (source: Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs)
EARLIEST DATE: 1607 (Musarum Sioniarum, no. 16, according to WIkipedia)
KEYWORDS: religious nonballad campsong
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Averill-CampSongsFolkSongs, p. 443, 446, "Jubilate Deo" (notes only)
ChansonsDeNotreChalet, p. 19, "Jubilate Deo" (1 short text, 1 tune)
DT, JUBDEO*
NOTES [480 words]: Considered to be a setting of the opening verse of Psalm 100 (in the Latin Vulgate, it's actually Psalm 99:2), although, interestingly, it arguably has the words wrong. The Hebrew unquestionably reads
"Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth." (No "alleluiah," note.) There is no textual variation in the verse in the major Hebrew witnesses.
The LXX Greek translation also has
"Make a joyful noise" (αλαλαξατε)
but the manuscripts disagree about whether the noise is made to the Lord (ΚΩ, κυριω) or to God (ΘΩ, θεω) -- a change of just one letter as usually written in Greek. The oldest and generally best manuscripts (including the two oldest of all, B and A, plus the Vatican manuscript 55) have "the Lord," agreeing with the Hebrew, but several important manuscripts, including the fifth century fragment 1219 and the sixth century text R (which that was clearly written in the Latin West since it transliterates the Greek into Latin letters!), have "God."
Jerome, who translated the Latin Vulgate, actually translated the Psalms twice, once from the Greek (which was the Bible of the early Christian church) and then, as he became a better Hebrew scholar, from the Hebrew.
The best Latin versions of both Jerome's translation from the Greek LXX and the one from the Hebrew have this verse as
Iubilate Domino omnia terra
That is,
Make a joyful noise to (the) Lord, all (the) earth.
However, many manuscripts read
Iubilate Deo omnia terra
That is,
Make a joyful noise to God, all (the) earth.
(Thus they preserve the confusion also seen in the Greek.)
In the rendering from the Hebrew, of the dozen or so most important Latin manuscripts, fully six (A C I K S Σ) read "God" rather than "the Lord," but the official Clementine Catholic version of 1582 reads "the Lord." In the rendering from the Greek, only two important manuscripts (H I) read "God" -- but, in this case, the Clementine Vulgate also has "God." Thus the Catholic Church, for nearly 400 years starting in 1592, had it both ways.
Thus, if this text is based on Psalm 99/100 at all, it is almost certainly based on the (inaccurate) Clementine edition of the Greek version of Psalm 99/100.
Of course, it's a perfectly good piece of Latin if you're simply willing to ignore that alleged connection to the Psalms.
For what it's worth, the title of Psalm 100 in the Book of Common Prayer is "Jubilate Deo," even though my (American) edition of the psalm reads "O be joyful in the LORD."
According to Mitchell Dahood, Psalms II, being volume 17 of the Anchor Bible, Doubleday, 1968, p. 371, Psalm 100 is "A hymn sung at the solemn entry into the court of the temple, probably in connection with a thanksgiving ceremony." The note in the New Jerusalem Bible the most scholarly Catholic edition, says "It was perhaps recited on entering the sanctuary to offer communion sacrifices; see L[eviticus] 7:11-12." - RBW
Last updated in version 6.3
File: ACSF443J

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