Darlings, dogs and unicorns - the delightful strangeness of Psalm 22.

It must have been around half past four on Saturday afternoon as I was nearing the end of my second visit to St. Michael & All Angels' 31-hour Hymnathon, when two verses from a psalm which the choir was chanting sent a chill of strangeness through me: the sensation wasn't in the least unpleasant - it was thrilling. It came as we were working our way through Section VI - the Liturgical Section - of the New English Hymnal, which begins with No. 501 (Rorate Caeli) and finishes with No. 542 - the last entry in the book. I missed the liturgical section during the 2012 Hymnathon, and, to be honest, felt a bit alarmed to discover that I'd arrived shortly before it started this time. I'd stopped on my way to the church to chat to a friend who was out doing his front garden, and consequently missed "Jerusalem" and The National Anthem...

...which I'd been looking forward to singing. But by the time we'd reached No. 505 or thereabouts, my disappointment had evaporated: the liturgical section proved to be unexpectedly wonderful, despite the fact that, even allowing for breaks, the choir must have been utterly exhausted by that stage.

No. 515 in the Hymnal is for use during the stripping of the altar on Maundy Thursday (i.e. the day which commemorates the Last Supper and Christ washing the feet of His disciples), and the text is Psalm 22, which is an absolute corker. The verses which almost brought on an out-of-body experience were these:

Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog. 

Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

The effect was like being simultaneously transported back two and a half thousand years to the Temple of Jerusalem - and 400 years to the England of James the First. The King James Version is almost alone in using the word darling - elsewhere, it is rendered variously as my life, my precious life, my dear one, my very life etc. For all I know, those other translations might be more accurate, but none of them work so well as poetry: it's the startling juxtaposition of the tender, intimate darling and the brutal-sounding (in this context) power - and dog, which here sounds ugly and threatening (the psalmist has already informed us that "...dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.")

It's a similar story when we turn to the next line - again the King James Version's use of unicorn seems... eccentric? Almost every other translation talks of wild bulls or wild oxen or buffaloes... but so what? Here, the use of unicorn doesn't conjure up an image of a gentle, mystical beast - we immediately think of the sharp-pointed single horn with which the creature could rip our guts out. It may be impious of me, but I'll take poetical genius over accuracy any day.

Much of the power of those two lines derives from their coming at the end of a truly stupendous passage, full of threat and terror and pain:

12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

"I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels." I'm seriously tempted to use that the next time a doctor asks "So, how have you been, Mr. Grønmark?" (although I wouldn't stretch their credulity by claiming to be able to "tell all my bones").

I've read - and enjoyed - Psalm 22 many times: but I'm not sure I've ever heard it sung (or chanted). The effect was extraordinary. Over the centuries, many Christians have worried about aesthetic enjoyment somehow polluting faith: nonsense! Poetry, music, prose, art, ceremony, architecture, nature... use them all (unless it's some simpering twit with a guitar droning out "Kumbaya", of course).

The committee responsible for translating Psalms (and all the other Old Testament books from Chronicles to Song of Solomon) was the  First Cambridge Company, which consisted of Edward Lively, John Richardson, Lawrence Chaderton, Francis Dillingham, Roger Andrewes, Thomas Harrison, Robert Spaulding, Andrew Bing. Just think - a committee wrote Psalm 22!

In case you're not absolutely psalmed out at this point, here is the whole of Psalm 22 (singing is optional - but recommended):

1 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring?

2 O my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent.

3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.

4 Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.

5 They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.

6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying,

8 He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.

9 But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother's breasts.

10 I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother's belly.

11 Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.

12 Many bulls have compassed me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round.

13 They gaped upon me with their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.

16 For dogs have compassed me: the assembly of the wicked have inclosed me: they pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I may tell all my bones: they look and stare upon me.

18 They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.

19 But be not thou far from me, O Lord: O my strength, haste thee to help me.

20 Deliver my soul from the sword; my darling from the power of the dog.

21 Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns.

22 I will declare thy name unto my brethren: in the midst of the congregation will I praise thee.

23 Ye that fear the Lord, praise him; all ye the seed of Jacob, glorify him; and fear him, all ye the seed of Israel.

24 For he hath not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; neither hath he hid his face from him; but when he cried unto him, he heard.

25 My praise shall be of thee in the great congregation: I will pay my vows before them that fear him.

26 The meek shall eat and be satisfied: they shall praise the Lord that seek him: your heart shall live for ever.

27 All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.

28 For the kingdom is the Lord's: and he is the governor among the nations.

29 All they that be fat upon earth shall eat and worship: all they that go down to the dust shall bow before him: and none can keep alive his own soul.

30 A seed shall serve him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation.

31 They shall come, and shall declare his righteousness unto a people that shall be born, that he hath done this.