The Doe of the Dawn
When Jesus sang the Psalm on the Cross
There are rubrics, musical directions, and notations for some of the Psalms of David. They are strange words to English readers: Alamoth, Gittith, Selah, Mahalath, Miktam, Muth-labben, and more. Most scholars do not know what these words mean, and bible translators do not attempt to render them in English.
The opening rubric from Psalm 22, one of the most poignant and powerful psalms in the bible, is an instruction to the ancient choirmaster presumably to sing, chant or play a melody to accompany the words of the psalm. It reads like this: To the choirmaster: according to The Doe of the Dawn. A Psalm of David.
Melody and Memory
“The Doe of the Dawn” is a beautiful and evocative name for the selected melody, but unfortunately, the tune has been lost to history. Today, we have no idea how to sound the notes.
But can we think of this a bit more imaginatively?
Today, we memorize only a few things needed to make our life functional: our name, phone number, Social Security number, and mailing address. But the human mind is capable of so much more. The ancient Jewish people were known for their strong memorization skills, with many faithful Jews able to recite entire books of the Torah from memory. The Book of Psalms, with its poetic and highly memorable verses, was especially well-known.
And, as most of us know, music is one of the most helpful aids to memorization that can be used. It is an effective way to commit text to memory; the tune helps anchor the words and allows for easier recall. This is why we are often able to remember lyrics or poems that we learned as children when we sang them to familiar melodies. Surely music was an aid in the memorization of large amounts of Scripture.
Given this, it is not far-fetched to think that Mary and Joseph used the tune The Doe of the Dawn ascribed to Psalm 22 — a tune that was passed to them by a long line of people in their family tree — to teach the words of Psalm 22 to their young boy, Jesus. Can we imagine then that Jesus, who was born and raised in this Jewish culture with a rich oral tradition, would have been familiar with the tune?
In other words, if David includes a rubric to a tune called The Doe of the Dawn , it is very likely that it was the standard melody for the Psalm and that — generations later — Mary and Joseph would have known that tune as well.
Further, we can think that Jesus was familiar with it as well; he knew it by heart, as he knew the words of the psalm by heart. The two, the tune and the text, might have been as inseparable in his mind as the tune and text for Amazing Grace in our own day.
Text, Tune, and Title
As we know, from the Cross, Jesus cried out the most passionate words recorded in the Bible. They are from the first verse of Psalm 22.
My God, my God. Why have you forsaken me?
But now we can imagine that Jesus not only spoke the words of Psalm 22 in as he was on the Cross, but he sang them, or at least he remembered the tune his parents used to teach him the psalm. Jesus knew the notes of a melody called The Doe of the Dawn, and we can believe that Jesus spoke the words of this psalm on the cross and that he sang the tune with it; or at least had the tune in his mind and heart as well.
Tunes can be sorrowful and mournful, as this tune was. But even still, tunes are soothing. They can be comforting. Melodies carry words deep in our hearts and minds; they feel our thoughts as we sing them. Indeed, famous lyricist Yip Harburg (Somewhere over the Rainbow) wrote,
Words make you think a thought. Music makes you feel a feeling. A song makes you feel a thought.
We know this to be true in our own life. Songs make us feel deeply; they move us. Indeed, Jesus, on the Cross, was feeling the deepest and most profound thoughts imaginable.
Did he sing the psalm? We cannot say for sure, but we can come close to concluding that he did.
And what about the title of the tune? It may sound like a version of a romantic love song, but it is not. The reference to The Doe of the Dawn suggests a small deer or ibex being relentless hunted at dawn. It is hunting season, in Psalm 22. The graceful, young female deer is in danger of being slain at dawn. The tune must have been haunting; it was about the peril of being hunted.
How do we use music and songs today? We can hum them. We can whistle, too. But it is very likely that, on the Cross where Jesus died, he sang the mournful, sad song of a hunted, innocent fawn; the killing of a doe, a deer, a female deer. And thus, the ordeal on Calvary began with a melancholy melody sung from the heart of our Savior.
— adapted from The Psalm on the Cross available here.
About the Author: David Roseberry has been a pastor and teacher for nearly 40 years. For most of his ministry, he served as founding Rector of Christ Church, Plano. Today he is Executive Director for LeaderWorks. David lives in Plano, Texas, with his wife, Fran. They have four children, five grandchildren. Find his other books on Amazon here.
