(1) Psalm 137, one of the most evocative in the psalter , speaks from the perspective of the Israelites driven into exile and slavery after the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E.(2) Variable psalmody is added to the u251cu00f6u251cu00e7u251cu2510Little Hoursu251cu00f6u251cu00e7u251cu00fb during Lent, allowing the psalter to be recited twice each week.(3) This volume fits my twin criteria: solid scholarship, combined with a sense of why the psalter is the prayer book of the synagogue and of the church.(4) The imposition of the Book of Common Prayer in 1549 was accompanied by the publication of various metrical psalters , whose simple four-part harmonizations of psalm tunes allowed the vernacular texts to be heard easily.(5) Early American settlers, especially New England Protestants, adorned their Calvinist-styled worship with psalms taken from metrical psalters brought along from the old country.
