Heman the Ezrahite
{{Short description|Author of part of the Hebrew Bible}}
File:Aeman holding clappers in the Charles the Bald Bible, illustrated by Master C.jpg, circa 845, Carolingian Empire. ]]
Heman the Ezrahite ({{langx|he|{{Script/Hebrew|הֵימָן הָאֶזְרָחִי}}}} Hēmān hā’Ezrāḥī) is the author of Psalm 88 in the Hebrew Bible, according to the Psalm's colophon.
B. Bava Batra connects the name Heman to the semitic root אמנ (ʔ-m-n) meaning "trusted,"{{Cite web |title=Bava Batra 15a:10 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Bava_Batra.15a.10 |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=Sefaria.org}} while CYDA speculates it is from נתן (n-t-n) and means "given."{{Cite web |title=Chomat Anakh on I Kings 5:11:1 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Chomat_Anakh_on_I_Kings.5.11.1 |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=Sefaria.org}} It is found sixteen times in the New International Version of the Bible.{{Cite web|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?search=Heman&version1=31&searchtype=all|title=BibleGateway.com - Keyword Search|website=Biblegateway.com|access-date=27 June 2022}} The ethnonym is sometimes understood to mean "of Zerah," with the aleph prosthetic,{{Cite web |title=Rashi on Psalms 88:1:4 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Rashi_on_Psalms.88.1.4 |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=Sefaria.org}} to mean "of Ezrah," or, alternatively, to mean "the native" who founded a tradition of bards.{{Cite web |title=Ibn Ezra on Psalms 88:1:2 |url=https://www.sefaria.org/Ibn_Ezra_on_Psalms.88.1.2 |access-date=2022-05-13 |website=Sefaria.org}}
Heman the Ezrahite may be one of the three Levites assigned by King David to be ministers of music. This Heman was a grandson of Samuel the prophet{{bibleverse|1 Chronicles|6:33-34|KJV}} who went on to become King David's seer and to have fourteen sons and three daughters.{{bibleverse|1 Chronicles|25:5|KJV}}
Works
Psalm 88 seems to have been written in a state of despair. According to Martin Marty, a professor of church history at the University of Chicago, Psalm 88 is “a wintry landscape of unrelieved bleakness.”
Nevertheless, the appeal to God in Psalm 88 begins with the following expression of faith: "O Yahweh, God of my salvation!" Three times (vss. 1, 9, and 13) the psalmist calls on the name of Yahweh. The psalmist accompanies each invocation with a reference to his perseverance in prayer. For example, in verse nine he declares, "I call on you, O Yahweh, every day."{{Cite web|url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+88&version=LEB|title = Bible Gateway passage: Psalm 88 - Lexham English Bible|website=Biblegateway.com}}
In literature
Madeleine L'Engle has a poem called "Herman the Ezragite: Psalm 88:18" in her collection A Cry Like a Bell.{{cite book |last1=L'Engle |first1=Madeleine |title=A Cry Like a Bell |date=1987 |publisher=Harold Shaw Publishers |location=Wheaton, IL |isbn=0-87788-148-0 |page=43}} In it, she imagines the feelings of Heman (Herman) that led him to write Psalm 88.
See also
References
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