The Five Scrolls: Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, Esther

By Bob MacDonald

Where is a good starting point for reading the Bible?

Five scrolls constitute the second section of the third major division of the Hebrew bible. These are the Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, and Esther.

The Song, like the Psalms, is a key to our hearing of instruction. Ruth establishes the Moabite ancestry of David showing we must read about enemies more carefully. The music of the Lamentations moves us with four acrostic poems and a fifth poem of 22 verses of prayer to make new our days as of old. Sing the melody of Qohelet that adorns chapter 3, the time for every delight under the heavens. And party with Esther.

These five books are short and represent pieces of the whole story, the Song a key, Ruth, a snippet of history, Lamentations, the tragedy of the destruction, Qohelet, the words of the shrewd, and Esther, ultimate social success (including taxes). They are like the elaborate bow on the whole unfathomable present that is the Hebrew Bible.

The Five Scrolls is volume 6 of the series, The Hebrew Bible and Its Music.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Energion Publications
• Release date: Mar 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781631996290

Bob MacDonald

Bob MacDonald is a retired West Australian Police officer of thirty years experience. Bob's last day at school was his 14th birthday - commencing work, the very next day, in a timber mill in his home town of Pemberton, West Australia.He later self-educated and enlisted in the West Australian police force, retiring as a superintendent in the Internal Investigations Branch of the Professional Standards portfolio.Since retirement Bob has been working at remote aboriginal communities in Central Australia, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands. He also did a tour of duty on the island nation of Cyprus with the United Nations Blue Beret Peacekeepers.Bob, a keen sportsman continues with various sporting activities; which also includes fishing and camping trips. Writing articles for various magazines and now venturing into anecdotal short story compilations and fictional manuscripts ensures Bob leads a busy life.

Book preview

The Five Scrolls

Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, Esther

A close translation for the original music

by

Bob MacDonald

The Hebrew Bible and its Music, Volume 6

Energion Publications

Gonzalez, Florida, U.S.A.

2019

The Five Scrolls

Copyright © D. Robert MacDonald 2019, 2021 – all rights reserved.

Cover Design: The author

ISBN: 978-1-63199-629-0

Energion Publications

P. O. Box 841

Gonzalez, Florida, 32560

850-525-3916

www.energionpubs.com

2 October 2021 21:32

10 9 8 7 6 5 4

The Cover

A fractal enclosing a treble clef suggests both the intricate organization of the Biblical language and the music embedded in the manuscripts.

Other books by the author

Seeing the Psalter, Patterns of Recurrence in the Poetry of the Psalms, Energion 2013

The Song in the Night, According to the melody in the accents of the Hebrew text, Energion 2016

(With Jonathan Orr-Stav) The SimHebrew Bible, The Hebrew Bible in Simulated Hebrew – with English Guide, Qualum Publishing 2021

Books in this series

1 The Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy

2 The Former Prophets, Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings

3 The Major Prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel

4 The Twelve, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi

5 The Books of Truth, Psalms, Proverbs, Job

6 The Five Scrolls, Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, Esther

7 The Remaining Writings, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, Chronicles

8 A Biblical Hebrew to English Concordance

9 A is for Abandon, An English to Biblical Hebrew Alphabet Book

10 The Progression of the Music, The Accents of the Hebrew Bible

Preface

Five books of the Old Testament are known as the Megillot, or the five scrolls. They are variously placed in English Bibles, but are a separate subsection of the Hebrew Bible.

The Song of Songs

Ruth

Qohelet (or Ecclesiastes)

Lamentations

Esther

This close translation was initially developed to show in English the intricate patterns of repeated words in Hebrew poetry. Having discovered the inferences concerning the music at a conference on the Psalms in 2010, the author decided that the whole corpus of the Hebrew canonical text should be approached to allow English speaking readers some understanding of the music. The translation retains the order of Hebrew words wherever reasonable, so that changes in reciting note and ornaments can be in English on the same syllable that corresponds to the Hebrew.

The line breaks have been chosen to correspond with the major rest points as indicated in the Hebrew manuscripts by the accents. These are the cadences in the music. The music has been derived through automation based on the deciphering key developed by Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura in the latter half of the twentieth century. All the music is available as noted below, though only a small portion of it has been performed.

In the English text of this volume next to the verse number, you may see a letter. This letter is the first note of the verse if the first note is not the default (e). Such a first note indicates that the verse is somehow related to what has come before it. The nature of the relationship is not specific. You the reader / singer must decide how the opening relates to what has been already. When you see a ~, it indicates an ornament on the first note.

The notes of the scale in the default mode for the text of the prose books are c, d, e, f, g#, A, B, C. Absolute pitch is not important. Sing the music wherever it is comfortable for your voice. For instruction on the music, see The Song in the Night.

The music for all 929 chapters of the Hebrew Bible is all available online through the pages at https://meafar.blogspot.com.

This edition includes minor changes to the translation from 2019-2021.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction to the Bible and its Music

The Song

Ruth

Lamentations

Qohelet

Esther

Acknowledgements

List of Musical Examples

Score 1 An example of the music from Ruth 2:16

Score 2 Better than wine

Score 3 Foxes

Score 4 The ornamented you

Score 5 Refrain

Score 6 North wind and south

Score 7 Security

Score 8 The alliterative answer to the foxes

Score 9 Many waters

Score 10 Like the hart, ayalim, a plural cipher for Elohim

Score 11 Where you go, I go

Score 12 The lilt of the music, a story to be chanted

Score 13 The precedent for a traditional greeting

Score 14 Whose is that lass?

Score 15 She is from Moab

Score 16 The middle of the night

Score 17 The successions of Perez

Score 18 Aleph, Ah in such solitude

Score 19 Ayin out of sequence

Score 20 The sole mid-verse rest in the chapter

Score 21 A reward

Score 22 Gold poured out in the streets

Score 23 Turn us and we will be turned

Score 24 Utter futility

Score 25 To everything there is a season

Score 26 They haven't a clue

Score 27 An impatient verse without a rest

Score 28 Heart on the right or on the left

Score 29 Taxation over the earth

Introduction to the Bible and its Music

This reading of the Bible is in seven sections according to the divisions of traditional Judaism. First the three major divisions: Torah, Prophets, and Writings. Torah is not further subdivided. The prophets are subdivided into three: the former prophets, and the latter prophets, which in turn are in 2 sections: the three major prophets, and the twelve. The Writings are similarly divided into three: The books of truth, Psalms, Proverbs, and Job, the five scrolls (the subject of this volume), The Song of Songs, Ruth, Lamentations, Qohelet, and Esther, and the remaining writings, Daniel, Ezra-Nehemiah, and Chronicles.

What is unique in this reading?

Music

This English reading of the Hebrew Bible is intended to be the ground for an underlay to the musical score. The deciphering key of Suzanne Haïk-Vantoura is a full musical clarification of the text, not just verse by verse but as a whole. The shape of each part of the text becomes transparent.

RUTH_002_016-1

Score 1 An example of the music from Ruth 2:16

The music is presented with the Hebrew underlay. The translation is close so that a non-Hebrew reader can know what the words signify. In this case,

And even pilfer, pilfer for her from the bundles,

and discard them and let her glean, and do not rebuke her.

The scores show every change in reciting note and by the bar line, the accentuation of the words, and the rest point for the recitation. The reciting note is an indication of tone of voice. In this verse, bundles is on the rest note and the recitation continues on the rest note, the subdominant, to discard the pilfered stalks so Ruth will have plenty to glean. Recitation on the subdominant has a restful aspect evident for example in