I will wake the dawn

Ps. 57:9-10

Black Orpheus -Orfeu Negro, released in 1959, is a fantastic, award winning romantic tragedy, not without controversy, that reimagined  the classical Greek myth in Brazil and brought the sounds of Bossa-Nova to the west. One of the memorable scenes is when Orfeo explains to two friends that it’s his son, played on his guitar, that wakes up the sun each day and brings on the dawn.  

How do you wake up in the morning? Whether we have to or want to - some of us often see the dawn rise and sometimes wish we didn’t. But for the poet who composed today’s psalm, perhaps David himself, the raising of the rising dawn is an ecstatic gesture, a way to wake up early and greet the new day with music and with gratitude.  

A single strange verse in today’s psalm yielded one of the more famous and fabulous legends about King David, his musical instruments, and one of the oldest alarm clocks in the world. 

Psalm 57, like the others in this series, is about survival and appreciation for support. David is hidden in a cave, away from the king who wants to kill him, and as he is successfully saved, he sings yet another anthem of relief and praise, and it includes a puzzling expression: 

נָ֘כ֤וֹן לִבִּ֣י אֱ֭לֹהִים נָכ֣וֹן לִבִּ֑י אָ֝שִׁ֗ירָה וַאֲזַמֵּֽרָה׃  ע֤וּרָה כְבוֹדִ֗י ע֭וּרָֽה הַנֵּ֥בֶל וְכִנּ֗וֹר אָעִ֥ירָה שָּֽׁחַר׃

My heart is firm, God;

my heart is firm;

I will sing, I will chant a hymn.

Awake,  my soul!

Awake,  harp and lyre!

I will wake the dawn.

Ps. 57:9-10

The relieved excitement is exciting, but the hubris is astounding. How does David thinks that it is he who wakes the dawn? 

Centuries of readers have attempted to respond to this curious choice of words. 

The Aramaic Targum rendered our phrase: “I will wake up for prayer at daybreak.” 

But the  Babylonian Talmud in Tractate Berachot went all the way to imagine this story about the way David woke up at midnight to make music and to welcome - or awaken - dawn:

“David had a sign indicating when it was midnight. As Rav Aḥa bar Bizna said that Rabbi Shimon Ḥasida said: A lyre hung over David’s bed, and once midnight arrived, the northern wind would come and cause the lyre to play on its own. David would immediately rise from his bed and study Torah until the first rays of dawn.”

The rabbis didn’t think much of his musical career and so the fabled king is depicted here as an insomniac who is also a rabbinic scholar, hitting the books as soon as midnight strikes. 

But the residue of the old myth still lingers on. The wind that comes at midnight to play through the strings wakes up the will to delve into mystery, engage with the sacred, greet the day with more than the mundane.  For any of us who at times choose to wake up early and embrace the gentle light of sunrise - especially if we want to - not have to - there is a sweet echo of those hours of quiet and emerging light. 

Whoever David was, the stories about him are complex, both in the bible and in the latter traditions. This Talmudic tale goes on to tell us that as soon as dawn broke, thanks to the king’s pious intervention, elders would assemble to seek his advice and share their needs. The response that David gives them is reminiscent of the kind of leadership that we lament today - more war and violence that doesn’t seem to fit with the image of a faithful artist, waking up each night to pray and sing. And yet, the complexities and multiple narratives seem to echo here as is life, and as does music, sometimes meeting us in the blurriness that comes between the night and day, neither and both. 

What we are left with is a poem that echoes strife and struggle, the tragic and romantic trust in salvation, the power of music and humility to get us through another day, hopefully with a song on our lips.

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