Along with the 150 Psalms, the Scottish Psalter of 1650 also contains 67 metrical paraphrases from elsewhere in the Scriptures. These have been a constant over the centuries, with the same number assigned to each paraphrase. Last sunday morning I heard a sermon preached on Hosea 6, and during the reading I immediately recalled to mind this versification of Hosea 6:1-4, which is numbered 30 in the Scottish Psalter:
Here are the words as found in my split-leaf psalter, but with the suggested tune of KILMARNOCK. Click on it to enlarge it.
Addendum: It seems that the scripture paraphrases were added to the Psalter only in 1781 and are not original to the 1650. I have a copy dated 1788 containing the paraphrases in addition to the Psalms. My copy was published only seven years after the addition of the scripture paraphrases to the collection.
The Scottish paraphrases are not part of the 1650 psalter. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymnbooks_of_the_Church_of_Scotland
ReplyDeleteI am sure there is a more authoritative source than this, but I can't see one while doing a quick Google search.
I have never heard a Scottish Paraphrase sung in the Free Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Associated Presbyterian Churches, or Free Church of Scotland (including "Continuing") though I believe I have read or heard that some lowland congregations did use them.
The Free Church of Scotland and Free Church of Scotland (Continuing) music books do not contain the Paraphrases and Hymns, and nor do the words editions produced by the Trinitarian Bible Society.
My impression is that the "Paraphrases" are much more of an expanded paraphrase than the "Metrical Psalms" which, whilst they occasionally have an extra few words, generally are at least a "thought for thought" representation of the same material as is translated into English in the King James version of the Bible, and rarely if ever adopt an alternative interpretation. The Free Church of Scotland's "Sing Psalms" version seems, in most places, to be a fairly good attempt at doing the same in modern English, though compatibility of meaning is more with the NIV than the KJV so there are occasional cases where meaning differs from the KJV. However in my opinion it's much better than most other modern attempts.
Thanks. I added something at the foot of the original post.
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