JEHOVAH TSIDKENU (Review)

Jehovah Tsidkenu (which means THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS)

The words by Robert Murray McCheyne (1813-43) of the following song are very penetrating. The music is by Sol Fenne.

The tune’s deliberate slowness and Cara’s excellent diction gently prods the listener to lend an attentive ear. It is as if it is whispering, “You. Yes you. This song is all about you. Listen. It will do your soul good.” (But it’s really all about Christ, Christ and the listener’s relationship to Him.) Yes, right glad we are that the song doesn’t end at the end of the third verse!, for then we would still be left standing in the damp cold outside the kingdom, and we miss out on the indoors warmth of God’s free grace.

Like the Lord asking John three times if he loves Him, the tree, tree, the tree is the focus at the end of the third line in each of the first three verses, where the note sequence (beautifully sung by Cara) descends to the depths and therefore begs for resolution, which comes next in the fourth and last verse of each stanza. But alas! Jehovah Tsidkenu (and His tree) means “nothing to me.”

Then come the free grace verses, the turn around verses, the conversion, the change of heart where “Jehovah Tsidkenu is all things to me.”

I love the way the video begins with the narration of M’Cheyne’s words to Bonar, with the bleakness of the Scottish past being immediately brought into its sameness in contemporary squalor, showing the need is still there for Christ and His free grace.

The bagpiper and drummer playing Highland Cathedral as a descant at the song’s crescendo adds to the solemnity of the lyrics, and the song’s resolve, “Jehovah Tsidkenu! my treasure and boast…” Then returns the (one finger) tap on the shoulder as it were, quietly and gently prodding the heart, (notice how the single and solemn bass piano note emphasises the words 'death' and 'breath' in the verse quoted below). 

This song is about you, isn’t it? Yes, you! Please listen to what happens to the person who has received God’s free grace:

“Even treading the valley, the shadow of death,

This ‘watchword’ shall rally my faltering breath;

For while from life’s fever my God sets me free,

Jehovah Tsidkenu, my death song shall be.”

Yes, striking words indeed!