Psalm 130 traditionally De profundis from its Latin incipit

Incipit

Incipit is a Latin word meaning "it begins". The incipit of a text, such as a poem, song, or book, is the first few words of its opening line. In music, it can also refer to the opening notes of a composition. Before the development of titles, texts were often referred to by their incipits...

, is one of the Penitential psalms

Penitential Psalms

The Penitential Psalms or Psalms of Confession, so named in Cassiodorus's commentary of the 6th century AD, are the Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143 . These are specially expressive of sorrow for sin. Four were known as 'penitential psalms' by St. Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century...

.

Commentary

This lament, a Penitential Psalm, is the De profundis used in liturgical prayers for the faithful departed in Western liturgical tradition

Latin liturgical rites

Latin liturgical rites used within that area of the Catholic Church where the Latin language once dominated were for many centuries no less numerous than the liturgical rites of the Eastern autonomous particular Churches. Their number is now much reduced...

. In deep sorrow the psalmist cries to God (1-2), asking for mercy (3-4). The psalmist's trust (5-6) becomes a model for the people (7-8).

v1. the depths: mMakim here is a metaphor of total misery. Deep anguish makes the psalmist feel "like those who go down to the pit" . Robert Alter points out that '..."the depths" are an epithet for the depths of the sea, which in turn is an image of the realm of death'.
Other Bible passages (Creation, the dwelling of Leviathan, Jesus stilling the storm) also resonate with imagery of fear and chaos engendered by the depths of the sea.

v3. our sins. A temporary shift from singular (personal) to the plural (communal); this plurality (the nation, Israel) again appears in the final two verses.

v4. and so you are revered. The experience of God's mercy leads one to a greater sense of God.

Musical settings

This psalm has been frequently set to music, as part of musical settings for the Requiem

Requiem

A Requiem or Requiem Mass, also known as Mass for the dead or Mass of the dead , is a Mass celebrated for the repose of the soul or souls of one or more deceased persons, using a particular form of the Roman Missal...

, especially under its Latin incipit De profundis:

• Johann Sebastian Bach
  Johann Sebastian Bach
  Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...
  
  , as part of the cantata
  Bach cantata
  Bach cantata became a term for a cantata of the German Baroque composer Johann Sebastian Bach who was a prolific writer of the genre. Although many of his works are lost, around 200 cantatas survived....
  
   Aus der Tiefen rufe ich, Herr, zu dir, BWV 131
• Nicolaus Bruhns
  Nicolaus Bruhns
  Nicolaus Bruhns was a German organist, violinist, and composer. He was one of the most prominent organists and composers of his generation.-Life:...
  
  
• Lili Boulanger
  Lili Boulanger
  Lili Boulanger was a French composer, the younger sister of the noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.-Early years:A Parisian-born child prodigy, who was good at piano...
  
  
• Hell
  Hell (band)
  Hell are an English heavy metal band from Derbyshire, formed in 1982 from the remaining members of bands Race Against Time and Paralex. Due to a series of unfortunate and tragic events, the band originally folded in 1987, but were generally regarded as being many years ahead of their time, and have...
  
   (Blasphemy And The Master, from 2011 'Human Remains' album
• Marc Antoine Charpentier
• Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis
  Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis
  Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis , also known as M. K. Čiurlionis was a Lithuanian painter and composer. Čiurlionis contributed to symbolism and art nouveau and was representative of the fin de siècle epoch. During his short life he composed about 250 pieces of music and created about 300 paintings...
  
  
• Michel-Richard Delalande
• Josquin des Prez
  Josquin Des Prez
  Josquin des Prez [Josquin Lebloitte dit Desprez] , often referred to simply as Josquin, was a Franco-Flemish composer of the Renaissance...
  
   (two settings)
• John Dowland
  John Dowland
  John Dowland was an English Renaissance composer, singer, and lutenist. He is best known today for his melancholy songs such as "Come, heavy sleep" , "Come again", "Flow my tears", "I saw my Lady weepe" and "In darkness let me dwell", but his instrumental music has undergone a major revival, and has...
  
  
• Andrea Gabrieli
  Andrea Gabrieli
  Andrea Gabrieli was an Italian composer and organist of the late Renaissance. The uncle of the somewhat more famous Giovanni Gabrieli, he was the first internationally renowned member of the Venetian School of composers, and was extremely influential in spreading the Venetian style in Italy as...
  
  , as part of his Psalmi Davidici
• Christoph Gluck
• Sofia Gubaidulina
  Sofia Gubaidulina
  Sofia Asgatovna Gubaidulina, is a Russian composer of half Russian, half Tatar ethnicity.Gubaidulina's music is marked by the use of unusual instrumental combinations...
  
  
• G.F. Handel
• Arthur Honegger
  Arthur Honegger
  Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. He was a member of Les six. His most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which is interpreted as imitating the sound of a steam locomotive.-Biography:Born...
  
  
• Alan Hovhaness
  Alan Hovhaness
  Alan Hovhaness was an Armenian-American composer.His music is accessible to the lay listener and often evokes a mood of mystery or contemplation...
  
  
• Orlando di Lasso, as part of his Penitential Psalms
• Franz Liszt
  Franz Liszt
  Franz Liszt ; ), was a 19th-century Hungarian composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher.Liszt became renowned in Europe during the nineteenth century for his virtuosic skill as a pianist. He was said by his contemporaries to have been the most technically advanced pianist of his age...
  
  
• George Lloyd
  George Lloyd
  George Lloyd may refer to:*George Lloyd, 1st Baron Lloyd , British politician*George Lloyd , member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly*George Lloyd , Bishop of Sodor and Man and Bishop of Chester, 1605–1614...
  
  
• Leevi Madetoja
  Leevi Madetoja
  Leevi Antti Madetoja was a Finnish composer.-Life and career:Born in Oulu, he was the son of Antti Madetoja and Anna Hyttinen...
  
  
• Felix Mendelssohn
  Felix Mendelssohn
  Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...
  
  
• Thomas Morley
  Thomas Morley
  Thomas Morley was an English composer, theorist, editor and organist of the Renaissance, and the foremost member of the English Madrigal School. He was the most famous composer of secular music in Elizabethan England and an organist at St Paul's Cathedral...
  
  
• W.A. Mozart
• Vitezslav Novak
  Vítezslav Novák
  Vítězslav Novák was one of the most well-respected Czech composers and pedagogues, almost singlehandedly founding a mid-century Czech school of composition...
  
  
• Arvo Pärt
  Arvo Pärt
  Arvo Pärt is an Estonian classical composer and one of the most prominent living composers of sacred music. Since the late 1970s, Pärt has worked in a minimalist style that employs his self-made compositional technique, tintinnabuli. His music also finds its inspiration and influence from...
  
  
• Henry Purcell
  Henry Purcell
  Henry Purcell – 21 November 1695), was an English organist and Baroque composer of secular and sacred music. Although Purcell incorporated Italian and French stylistic elements into his compositions, his legacy was a uniquely English form of Baroque music...
  
  
• Georg Reutter (a setting once attributed to Mozart)
• Pedro Ruimonte
  Pedro Ruimonte
  Pedro Ruimonte was a Spanish composer and musician who spent much of his career in the Low Countries.-Early years:...
  
  
• John Rutter
  John Rutter
  John Milford Rutter CBE is a British composer, conductor, editor, arranger and record producer, mainly of choral music.-Biography:Born in London, Rutter was educated at Highgate School, where a fellow pupil was John Tavener. He read music at Clare College, Cambridge, where he was a member of the...
  
  , as part of Requiem
  Requiem (Rutter)
  The Requiem by John Rutter is a musical setting of an adaptation of the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass, completed in 1985. The setting utilises a choir with an orchestral accompaniment, along with a soprano soloist. The Requiem was first performed on 13 October 1985 at Lovers' Lane United Methodist...
  
  , in English
• Marc Sabat
  Marc Sabat
  Marc Sabat is a Canadian composer based in Berlin since 1999.-Works:He has made installations, video works and concert music pieces using acoustic instruments and, in some recent pieces, computer-generated electronics, drawing inspiration from investigations of the sounding and perception of small...
  
  
• Antonio Salieri
  Antonio Salieri
  Antonio Salieri was a Venetian classical composer, conductor and teacher born in Legnago, south of Verona, in the Republic of Venice, but who spent his adult life and career as a faithful subject of the Habsburg monarchy....
  
  
• Johann Schein
  Johann Schein
  Johann Hermann Schein was a German composer of the early Baroque era. He was born in Grünhain and died in Leipzig...
  
  
• Arnold Schoenberg
  Arnold Schoenberg
  Arnold Schoenberg was an Austrian composer, associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, and leader of the Second Viennese School...
  
  
• Heinrich Schütz
  Heinrich Schütz
  Heinrich Schütz was a German composer and organist, generally regarded as the most important German composer before Johann Sebastian Bach and often considered to be one of the most important composers of the 17th century along with Claudio Monteverdi...
  
  
• Roger Sessions
  Roger Sessions
  Roger Huntington Sessions was an American composer, critic, and teacher of music.-Life:Sessions was born in Brooklyn, New York, to a family that could trace its roots back to the American revolution. His mother, Ruth Huntington Sessions, was a direct descendent of Samuel Huntington, a signer of...
  
  
• Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
  Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck
  Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck was a Dutch composer, organist, and pedagogue whose work straddled the end of the Renaissance and beginning of the Baroque eras. He was among the first major keyboard composers of Europe, and his work as a teacher helped establish the north German organ...
  
  
• Virgil Thomson
  Virgil Thomson
  Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
  
  
• Vangelis
  Vangelis
  Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis...
  
  

Some other works named De profundis, but containing texts not derived from the psalm include:

• Frederic Rzewski
  Frederic Rzewski
  Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
  
   based on the text of Oscar Wilde
  Oscar Wilde
  Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...
  
  
• Dmitri Shostakovich
  Dmitri Shostakovich
  Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....
  
  , in his Fourteenth Symphony op. 135 to texts of Federico García Lorca
  Federico García Lorca
  Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...
  
   translated to Russian

In German

Martin Luther

Martin Luther

Martin Luther was a German priest, professor of theology and iconic figure of the Protestant Reformation. He strongly disputed the claim that freedom from God's punishment for sin could be purchased with money. He confronted indulgence salesman Johann Tetzel with his Ninety-Five Theses in 1517...

 paraphrased Psalm 130 to the hymn Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir

Aus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir , BWV 38, is a church cantata by Johann Sebastian Bach. Bach composed the chorale cantata in Leipzig in 1724 in his second annual cycle for the twenty-first Sunday after Trinity and first performed it on 19 October 1724...

, which inspired several composers, including Bach (cantataAus tiefer Not schrei ich zu dir, BWV 38), Mendelssohn

Felix Mendelssohn

Jakob Ludwig Felix Mendelssohn Barthóldy , use the form 'Mendelssohn' and not 'Mendelssohn Bartholdy'. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians gives ' Felix Mendelssohn' as the entry, with 'Mendelssohn' used in the body text...

 and Reger

Max Reger

Johann Baptist Joseph Maximilian Reger was a German composer, conductor, pianist, organist, and academic teacher.-Life:...

.

In literature

The title "De Profundus" was used as the title of a poem by Spanish author

Spanish literature

Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the state of Spain...

 Federico García Lorca

Federico García Lorca

Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca was a Spanish poet, dramatist and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblematic member of the Generation of '27. He is believed to be one of thousands who were summarily shot by anti-communist death squads...

 in his Poema del cante jondo.

A long letter by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 written to his former lover Lord Alfred Douglas

Lord Alfred Douglas

Lord Alfred Bruce Douglas , nicknamed Bosie, was a British author, poet and translator, better known as the intimate friend and lover of the writer Oscar Wilde...

 near the end of Wilde's life while he was in prison also bears the title "De Profundis

De Profundis (letter)

De Profundis is an epistle written by Oscar Wilde during his imprisonment in Reading Gaol, to Lord Alfred Douglas. During its first half Wilde recounts their previous relationship and extravagant lifestyle which eventually led to Wilde's conviction and imprisonment for gross indecency...

", as do poems by Alfred Tennyson, Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most prominent poets of the Victorian era. Her poetry was widely popular in both England and the United States during her lifetime. A collection of her last poems was published by her husband, Robert Browning, shortly after her death.-Early life:Members...

, Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...

, Christina Rossetti

Christina Rossetti

Christina Georgina Rossetti was an English poet who wrote a variety of romantic, devotional, and children's poems...

, C. S. Lewis

C. S. Lewis

Clive Staples Lewis , commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was a novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist from Belfast, Ireland...

, Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl

Georg Trakl was an Austrian poet. He is considered one of the most important Austrian Expressionists.- Life and work :Trakl was born and lived the first 18 years of his life in Salzburg, Austria...

 and Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker

Dorothy Parker was an American poet, short story writer, critic and satirist, best known for her wit, wisecracks, and eye for 20th century urban foibles....

.

In Judaism

• Psalm 130 is recited as part of the liturgy for the High Holidays, sung responsively before the open Torah ark during the morning service from Rosh Hashanah
  Rosh Hashanah
  Rosh Hashanah , , is the Jewish New Year. It is the first of the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora'im which occur in the autumn...
  
   until Yom Kippur
  Yom Kippur
  Yom Kippur , also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest and most solemn day of the year for the Jews. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jews traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue...
  
  . The custom of reciting this psalm during these times had long lay dormant until it was revived in the Birnbaum
  Philip Birnbaum
  Philip Birnbaum was an author and translator, best known for his translation and annotation of the siddur , first published in 1949.-Biography:...
  
   and Artscroll
  ArtScroll
  ArtScroll is an imprint of translations, books and commentaries from an Orthodox Jewish perspective published by Mesorah Publications, Ltd., a publishing company based in Brooklyn, New York...
  
   siddurim in the 20th century.
• Is recited following Mincha
  Mincha
  Mincha, מנחה is the afternoon prayer service in Judaism.-Etymology:The name "Mincha" is derived from the meal offering that accompanied each sacrifice.-Origin:...
  
   between Sukkot
  Sukkot
  Sukkot is a Biblical holiday celebrated on the 15th day of the month of Tishrei . It is one of the three biblically mandated festivals Shalosh regalim on which Hebrews were commanded to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem.The holiday lasts seven days...
  
   and Shabbat Hagadol.
• Is recited during Tashlikh
  Tashlikh
  Tashlikh is a long-standing Jewish practice usually performed on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, however it can be said up until Hoshana Rabbah...
  
  .
• It is also among those psalms traditionally recited as a prayer for the sick.
• In some synagogues, it is said on every weekday. In Hebrew, it is often called "(Shir HaMa'alot) MiMa'amakim" after its initial words.
• Verses 3-4 are part of the opening paragraph of the long Tachanun
  Tachanun
  Tachanun or , also called nefillat apayim is part of Judaism's morning and afternoon services, after the recitation of the Amidah, the central part of the daily Jewish prayer services...
  
   recited on Mondays and Thursdays.

Words

[Canticum graduum]
De profundis clamavi ad te, Domine;

Domine, exaudi vocem meam. Fiant aures tuæ intendentes

in vocem deprecationis meæ.

Si iniquitates observaveris, Domine, Domine, quis sustinebit?

Quia apud te propitiatio est; et propter legem tuam sustinui te, Domine.

Sustinuit anima mea in verbo ejus:

Speravit anima mea in Domino.

A custodia matutina usque ad noctem, speret Israël in Domino.

Quia apud Dominum misericordia, et copiosa apud eum redemptio.

Et ipse redimet Israël ex omnibus iniquitatibus ejus.



Translated:

Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord;

Lord, hear my voice!

Let your ears be attentive

to my voice in supplication:

If you, O Lord, mark iniquities,

Lord, who can stand?

But with you is forgiveness,

that you may be revered.

I trust in the Lord;

my soul trusts in his word.

My soul waits for the Lord,

more than sentinels wait for the dawn.

More than sentinels wait for the dawn,

let Israel wait for the Lord;

For with the Lord is kindness

and with him is plenteous redemption;

And he will redeem Israel from all their iniquities.

External links

• The King James version at wikisource
• De Profundis - excerpted text of Wilde's De Profundis (1905 version?)

- From the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia

Catholic Encyclopedia

The Catholic Encyclopedia, also referred to as the Old Catholic Encyclopedia and the Original Catholic Encyclopedia, is an English-language encyclopedia published in the United States. The first volume appeared in March 1907 and the last three volumes appeared in 1912, followed by a master index...

 this short article talks about the hymn's origins, its Jewish use and (pre Vatican II) Roman Catholic usage.