God's word is like light in the night
God's word is like light in the night is a canon that is in the Catholic hymn book Gotteslob (GL 450), in several regional parts of the Evangelical hymnal (Hessen-Nassau EG 572, Kurhessen-Waldeck EG 572, Reformed Church EG 591, Rhineland-Westphalia - Lippe EG 591) as well as in the Mennonite hymn book (MG 367).
melody
Joseph Jacobsen created the canon . He was a music teacher at the Hamburg Conservatory for Music and at the Hamburg Talmud Tora School . Together with Erwin Jospe, in 1935, during the Nazi dictatorship , he published a hymn book that contained Hebrew, Yiddish and German songs; from this comes this canon. The text is taken from the Hebrew Bible ( Joel 4.20 EU ): Hebrew ויהודה לעולם תשב וירושלם לדור ודור ṾiYhuda le'olam teshev, ṿiYrushalayim ledor ṿador , German 'Judah will be inhabited forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation.' The melody seems a bit “oriental” because it avoids the leading tone dis .
text
Hans-Hermann Bittger , priest in the diocese of Essen, traveled to the Holy Land as a pilgrim in 1978. The overnight stay in the open air in Sinai was particularly impressive for him and opened up the Bible word Gen 15.5 EU , God's promise to Abraham , in a new way.
When he happened to hear the melody of ṾiYhuda le'olam teshev on the Israeli radio shortly afterwards in Jerusalem , he spontaneously wrote a new text that took up these impressions of the trip. The German text adapts itself well to the melody: “The first section ... begins with h in the nocturnal depth to swing up to g ' . The second section ... is a quart higher. The final turn now varied here creates an opening towards the third section. This is now three bars, which causes a certain drama. ... On the positive side there is comfort and support, on the negative distress, need and fears. The music realizes what is oppressive through a kind of acceleration using an eighth-note movement. The last line returns to the beginning in word and tone. Now light - night varies into star - darkness. The opening motif sounds without an up-bar eighth note ... one last time, from F sharp . "
Web links
- German Liturgical Institute: Gotteslob - Working aids for religious instruction: Introduction to songs
literature
- Archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland (ed.): The new song in the Evangelical Hymnbook: Song poets and composers report. (= Working aids of the archive of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland. No. 3) Düsseldorf 1996. ISBN 3-930250-12-8 . Pp. 64-65.
- Joseph Jacobsen, Erwin Jospe: Hawa Naschira! On! Let us sing! AJ Benjamin, Leipzig 1935. Reprint ed. by Dagmar Deuring. Dölling and Galitz, Hamburg 2001. ISBN 9783930802630 .