Fifteenth Psalm

DESCRIPTION: "Within Thy tabernacle, Lord, Who shall abide with thee? And in Thy high and holy hill, Who shall a dweller be?" Each verse is slightly modified in order to rhyme.
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1812 (Brown)
KEYWORDS: Bible nonballad religious
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Greig/Duncan3 687, "Fifteenth Psalm" (1 fragment, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: John Brown, The Psalms of David (?, 1812 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 43-44, "Psalm XV" [The title page is missing]
John Brown, The Psalms of David (Berwick, 1825 ("Digitized by Google")), pp. 30-31, "Psalm XV"
Roud #6110
NOTES [149 words]: Greig/Duncan3 is a slight expansion of Psalms 15.1 ["Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill?]. The rest of that psalm [15.2-15.5] answers the questions., viz., "he that walketh upright...."
The John Brown texts restate all five verses of the Psalm. - BS
This is fairly typical. Metrical paraphrases of the psalms -- indeed, of the whole Bible -- go back to at least the early Christian era, and I seem to recall reading that there was a poetic Scottish paraphrase as early as the fourteenth century. Isaac Watts got away with writing hymns by claiming they were Psalm paraphrases.
(A numbering note for those who use the Greek Bible: What is called Psalm 15 in the Hebrew and English Bibles is Psalm 14 in the LXX Greek. It is ironic to note that, although it is among the most popular of the Psalms, there is little agreement on its origin or purpose. - RBW)
Last updated in version 5.0
File: GrD3687

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