O-o-o-o-h man! Are there ever going to be some deep theological highways and byways in this post. So hang on and let’s get started with this wonderful choral piece which was tragically truncated by Mendelssohn’s early death in 1847 at the age of 38. He had apparently planned to write an entire oratorio, Christus, following the same trajectory as Handel’s Messiah, but left only a few finished sections and a number of fragments. A set of three excerpts dealing with the birth of Christ is well suited for use at Christmas, and consists of a soprano recitative, a male trio, and a chorus.
There’s a clear progression of ideas: The recitative introduces the Magi, or Wise Men. Then in the trio the Wise Men ask, “Where is he born, the King of Judea? For we have seen his star and are come to adore him.” Then the chorus expands on the idea of this star and what it represents. Since I want to concentrate on the chorus, let me refer you to an article I wrote some time ago: “Who Were the Magi?”
The first part of the chorus is from the Jewish Bible, Numbers 24:17, and reads:
There shall a star from Jacob come forth,
And a Sceptre from Israel rise up.
Had I been around when this libretto was being assembled I would have said, “Please include the entire verse!” But I wasn’t, so here it is now, from the glorious old King James Version:
I shall see him, but not now: I shall behold him, but not nigh: there shall come a Star out of Jacob, and a Sceptre shall rise out of Israel, and shall smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth.
Have to tell you, this beautiful and disturbing prophecy is part of one of the weirdest stories in the entire Bible, that of a prophet named Balaam. He’s in the pay of the king of Moab, Balak, who hires him to curse the Israelites. But Balaam says that he can only do what God allows him to do (even though he’s clearly a pagan—this is part of what makes the story so strange), and instead he ends up blessing the nation of Israel. Balak is pretty mad, but Balaam says, “Look, I told you that I couldn’t promise anything.” The really strange event in the story, though, occurs when Balaam is going to meet Balak and an angel stands in his way. He can’t see it, but guess who (or what) can? His donkey. Surely, surely you’ve heard of “Balaam and the ass”! Well, I’m afraid I can’t do the story justice here. You’ll have to follow this link if you want the full scoop.
Back to the prophecy, which almost all biblical scholars, Jewish or Christian, believe clearly refers to the coming of the Messiah. This figure will be a ruler (thus the scepter) and heavenly (thus the star). And here’s the puzzle: the idea of the Messiah’s being a “star” is never mentioned again—until the Magi show up in the Gospel of Matthew, asking their very tactless question about the location of “the king of Judea” of the man who’s the current ruler, Herod.
So how did they know anything about any of this? The most common theory is that the Magi were descendants of Babylonian soothsayers/seers from the time of Daniel the prophet, the man who was taken as a captive after the fall of Jerusalem to King Nebuchadnezzar in 597 BCE. It had never occurred to me, though, in all my years of hearing the Bible taught and preached, to ask this question: Where did Daniel get that idea? But of course the answer is obvious: as a devout Jew, Daniel got it from the prophecy of Balaam. The book of Numbers is part of the Torah, the Jewish Bible’s first five books, and Daniel would have known it intimately. He must have studied it as a boy/teenager and very possibly had learned much of it by heart before being carted off to Babylon. We know that Daniel was of royal or noble birth, since Nebuchadnezzar “told Ashpenaz, head of the palace staff, to get some Israelites from the royal family and nobility—young men who were healthy and handsome, intelligent and well-educated, good prospects for leadership positions in the government, perfect specimens!—and indoctrinate them in the Babylonian language and the lore of magic and fortunetelling.”1 There’s only one other reference to the “star” prophecy of the Messiah, and that’s in the very last chapter of the very last book in the Christian New Testament, recorded as the words of Jesus: “I’m the Root and Branch of David, the Bright Morning Star.”2
Let’s move on to the next section of the chorus, as I’ve managed to spend a great deal of time on just the first two phrases. Here’s what I find fascinating: Mendelssohn’s librettist didn’t use the rest of Balaam’s prophecy from the Numbers passage but instead chose a phrase from the book of Psalms which is similar to but much more general than Balaam’s wording: “and dash in pieces Princes and Nations.” Because Mendelssohn has so much repetition of the text it can be difficult to keep the actual grammatical sense of the words clearly in mind as one sings or listens, so here’s how the whole thing goes: “There shall a Star from Jacob come forth and a Sceptre from Israel rise up. And dash in pieces Princes and Nations.” It’s surprisingly short, isn’t it?
The immediate context for the final phrase from Psalm 2 is, “Ask Me, and I will give the nations as Your inheritance, and the far reaches of the earth as Your possession. You shall break the nations with an iron scepter. You shall dash them in pieces like a potter’s jar.”3 This psalm is categorized as a “Messianic” psalm, one that, like Balaam’s prophecy, foretells the coming of the Messiah as King. The “dashing in pieces” wording refers to coming judgment for sin. Christians believe that these prophecies were/will be fulfilled by Christ. I will spare you yet another of my rants about why the description of Christ as “gentle Jesus, meek and mild” is so wrong-headed and just point out that this “dashing in pieces/ruling with a rod of iron” wording shows up over and over again in the Bible. Here’s just one, again from the book of Revelation: “And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with an iron rod.”4 Note how the mood of the music abruptly changes, by the way, as it goes from the scepter and star to dashing in pieces, with the middle section using both phrases in opposition before the original theme of the movement is restored and ends with a lovely sustained chord.
And that’s it, right? No. We’re not done yet. Mendelssohn ends the chorus with a very J. S. Bachian element: a chorale, or hymn. (You may or may not know that it was pretty much entirely due to Mendelssohn’s efforts that Bach’s popularity was restored, when the 20-year-old composer organized a landmark performance of the St. Matthew Passion in 1829.) The use of a chorale is a way of drawing all the ideas together and making sure the audience gets the point.5 Mendelssohn ends his chorus with a hymn by a 16th century Lutheran preacher, Philipp Nicolai’s chorale “Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern”—“How Brightly Shines the Morning Star.” The final lines do indeed sum up the point of the chorus as a whole:
Thy Word, Oh Lord,
Inly feeds us, rightly leads us,
Life bestowing.
Praise, oh praise such love o’er-flowing!
Here’s a fine performance, with the added bonus of the other finished parts of the work, from the “Passion” section:
1Daniel 1:3-4 The Message. Copyright © 1993, 2002, 2018 by Eugene H. Peterson
2Revelation 2216b The Message
3Psalm 2:8-9 Tree of Life (TLV) Translation of the Bible. Copyright © 2015 by The Messianic Jewish Family Bible Society
4Revelation 12:5 TLV
5 Mozart also did this Bach-like thing in his ending of Don Giovanni: I vividly remember attending that opera and seeing the Don dragged down to hell. Such a great scene! Surely that was the end! But no. The main characters come out and sing a sextet, ending with the words “This is the end which befalls evildoers. And in this life scoundrels always receive their just deserts!” A bit heavy-handed, might one say?
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